[markfedwards]

Hi,

thanks for taking a look at this I hope you can help.

About a week ago my comp was running fine and I had no problems. I was using Win XP Pro on my Advent 6414 PIII 1.1 GHz laptop and was using AOL to connject to the internet. I had Anti Virus guard working there too and thought things were ok....

I upgraded the AV Guard but halfway through the setup i had to turn the computer off.

When I started it up on Monday, there was a progress bar at the bottom of the screen consisting of really chunky white bars.

The XP screen hung there for ages and when it did finally load, the programs running were prone to freezing. Specific symptoms were the Display Properties panel locking up and then saying there was a WIN32.DLL error (Not Responding) and that it had to shut down. The desktop picture froze and each subsequent time i tried to start the computer it took longer and longer to start. The programs hung for longer and froze earlier and it got to the point where I lost everything. I had to reformat the entire hard drive and re-install XP.

Surely this would have cured the problems despite wiping out my extensive and dare I say excellent music collection..aaaarrghhhh!!
Alas it did not. i have re-installed XP only to find similar re-occurrences of the same problems...programs slow to load, Explorer locks up (the start menu is the main one) and now the pictures that I loaded for my desktop are being halved each time i start up.

I learned my lesson and now have Norton Anti Virus 2005 running but it has found nothing. I installed AOL from CD and also a modem for my Nokia 6310, again from CD and all seemed ok but it is acting up again.

I had to download the modem driver for my SmartLink HAMR 56k Modem so I could connect to AOL. Since I have done this though, it connects at random speeds from 2600 to 48000 bps. I have spoken to the AOL people in India(!) and they say it is a problem with the phone line and i need to turn up the gain on the line from the provider. However, a friend uses the same line and has no problem. i can only assume it is a software glitch then...

I read another thread on a different site saying that somehow the BIOS might have been affected and reverted to an auto mode which eats memory but I have no idea. i'm technically a newbie, but I thoght that a total re-format and install would solve the prob. I guess not!

Please please please help me out!

Kind regards,

Mark


PS If you know how I can edit the Flash settings on my DVD player as well to make it region free I'd appreciate that too! Though that really isn't a priority at the mo!

 

[Sarge]

How much do you know about installing XP?
And, what options did you select during the process?

(No, it's not a simple, linear, process.)
First of all, if you wipe the drive you should do it properly. That is, you get a copy of the Disk Manager software from your hard drive's manufactuer and you use THAT to wipe the Hard Drive from a boot disk. Low-level format the drive, which means you write zeros to the entire drive including the boot sector. That gives you a truely blank drive.

Then when you do the XP install, windows thinks the drive is "Virgin" and does a complete partition and format. No information is retained.

If you wanted to be faste (but lazy) about it, you could just delet the partitions on the drive and then make new partitions, and then install Windows, but let's be sure we've done everytyhing we can to start with a blank slate, shall we?

But you're not done yet: You need to get the device drivers from your PC mfg's website. Otherwise, all the drivers that XP doesn't have aren't there, and your hardware is in "Default" mode (if at all).

NOTE: Before you start to do any of this, check with your OEM to see if they have any special "Non-DOS" partitions on your model of laptop. If they do, all this is for naught: You'll have to get them to put those partitions back on your machine before you begin re-installing.

Compaq did this a few years back to a number of their models, and it was a huge headache to ITs everywhere.

 

[markfedwards]

Win XP Problems

I got the device driver from the manufacturers website and it runs ok. actually had a different virus a few months ago and reinstalled this driver and it worked ok.

Everything else seems to run ok off Win XP. As far as the partitions and stuf, i have no idea what I am doing on that side of things. I think I will try and use the manufacturers hard disk format facility and start afresh.

Is there any sort of diagnostic to determine what settings I have on the install? i think I just went with all the recommended settings as I am no expert.

Many thanks for your help and suggestions!

Mark Edwards