Had a customer bring in an interesting problem.

This is a Crapware PC.. ie Acer.. 3mths from purchase..
WinXP HE SP2, customer installed MS Office 2k3 pro (academic Edition)
Celeron 2G8 cpu on a SIS chipset mobo

Symptoms reported:
Random errors. Cant open any office documents, and "problems" Browsing the Web

What I found:
1/ System had NVidia AND ATI Video software installed. the system logs showed errors on the ATI software going back to about 3 weeks after purchase
2/ System Fonts RS.(thats my best description), tick boxes, the close, restore and minimise icons(?) are non standared (certainly see the attached image)
3/ CAn open MS Word only by going to Start-Run and typng WINWORD.
4/ unable to access Add or Remove Programs Control panel (tried to restore this item by regsrv32 commands)
5/ System restore - can only access in safe mode, and can select the wanted restore point, but will not start the actual restore process
6/ Attempted to run the system file checker (SFC) with an error asking for the Install CD: Please see the attached image..: It is asking for the Windows XP Professional CD..?? But this system is a Crapware install which usually means that the SFC dosent ask for a CD at all

My Suspicions:
Junior Customer wanted to improve the performance of the Video, and first installed The nVidia Drivers and failed, then attempted to install the ATI Catalyst drivers failed again, this left the system with fragment of applications from both installs.
about a week ago a family member attempted to do an upgrade install to Win XP Pro, this install failed either due to the Antivirus, or a parasite prog, the system locked/froze/ or was interupted by a power outage. When the system restarted a number of files were corrupted leaving the machine how it is.
Another option was just a plain old bad shutdown, many system files open and were corrupted. this is supported in the event logs with an entry listing a disk check report listing a number of entries as truncated, this includes many Fonts, and system files.
Did I mention the Disk File system was FAT32?

the following lifted from the event log:
Event Type: Information
Event Source: Winlogon
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1001
Date: 27/09/2005
Time: 6:49:32 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ACER
Description:
Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is FAT32.


One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You
may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended
that you continue.
Windows will now check the disk.
Volume Serial Number is 2629-16F0
\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes\Luna\luna.msstyles first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\vgasys.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\vgafix.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\dosapp.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\ega80woa.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\ega40woa.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\cga80woa.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\cga40woa.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\roman.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\script.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\modern.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\smalle.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\symbole.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\coure.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\sserife.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\serife.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\marlett.ttf first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\trebucbd.ttf first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\wst_czec.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\wst_engl.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\wst_fren.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\wst_germ.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\wst_ital.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\wst_span.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\wst_swed.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\tahomabd.ttf first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\tahoma.ttf first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\micross.ttf first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\arial.ttf first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\simsun.ttc first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\app936.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\mingliu.ttc first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\msgothic.ttc first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\gulim.ttc first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\Fonts\app949.fon first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\ati2sgag.exe first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\nvsvc32.exe first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\nvcpl.dll first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\mdimon.dll first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\CNMLM6f.DLL first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\srvsvc.dll first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\msi.dll first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\wuaueng.dll first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\mscms.dll first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\tapisrv.dll first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\Microsoft\Protect\S-1-5-18\User\2c5668be-83aa-4cef-89e3-d8a620b760bc first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\OBJECTS.DATA first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\MAPPING1.MAP first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Repository\FS\MAPPING.VER first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\spool\prtprocs\w32x86\mdippr.dll first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
\WINDOWS\system32\spool\prtprocs\w32x86\CNMPD6f.DLL first allocation unit is not valid. The entry will be truncated.
Lost chain cross-linked at cluster 800769. Orphan truncated.
Convert lost chains to files (Y/N)? Yes
95168 KB in 197 recovered files.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.
78129056 KB total disk space.
791584 KB in 1789 hidden files.
114880 KB in 3546 folders.
10520992 KB in 53343 files.
66701568 KB are available.

32768 bytes in each allocation unit.
2441533 total allocation units on disk.
2084424 allocation units available on disk.
So either of the 2 options the good ole fat 32 did its trick..

So that is my slant on the problem.. (BTW: I am about to Format and clean install..unfortunatly with the crapware CD's.. but the system will be converted to NTFS after the install then patched) .
The customer will most likely not give me too much info.. "It not their Fault" . so any other slants on this story?