Windows doesnt load

Recently, I've been having alot of problems with my computer. Basically, too much stuff on my hard drive, to many registeries' screw ups, and things along those lines. So now, when windows loads, and I get on the desktop, not much works. I mouseover the taskbar and I get the little busy thing, and doesnt let me start anything. I've tried safe mode, and thats what I'm in now. I've already tried AV, Trojan, Adaware, Spybot, and many of those things, and all are fine. So I guess Im left to reinstalling windows...I tried, and I get an error after the installation has loaded. It says there is something wrong with the hardware or software, something new installed. So I decided to in stall FreeBSD 4.9 on this computer instead, and put windows XP on my other computer with the untouched hard drive. What do you guys think? Is this a good plan? The Windows XP computer will be used for programming, making graphics, and playing counter-strike :). The FreeBSD computer will be used as a server.

Recently, I've been having alot of problems with my computer. Basically, too much stuff on my hard drive, to many registeries' screw ups, and things along those lines. So now, when windows loads, and I get on the desktop, not much works. I mouseover the taskbar and I get the little busy thing, and doesnt let me start anything. I've tried safe mode, and thats what I'm in now. I've already tried AV, Trojan, Adaware, Spybot, and many of those things, and all are fine. So I guess Im left to reinstalling windows...I tried, and I get an error after the installation has loaded. It says there is something wrong with the hardware or software, something new installed. So I decided to in stall FreeBSD 4.9 on this computer instead, and put windows XP on my other computer with the untouched hard drive. What do you guys think? Is this a good plan? The Windows XP computer will be used for programming, making graphics, and playing counter-strike :). The FreeBSD computer will be used as a server.

why don't you lowlevel format the hdd first, i think that will solve your problem with installing windows....
you can lowlevelformat the hdd using maxtor hdd test.

you can get it here.

p.s. the link above leads directly to the download, if you don't trust this then go to maxtor.com and get the link yourself :)

why don't you lowlevel format the hdd first, i think that will solve your problem with installing windows....
you can lowlevelformat the hdd using maxtor hdd test.

you can get it here.

p.s. the link above leads directly to the download, if you don't trust this then go to maxtor.com and get the link yourself :)

Hi,

You might like to try the following:

1. Boot into safe mode and uninstall anything you don't use PARTICULARLY expired trial software versions
2. Remove programs from your startup that you don't need all the time (MS Office for example)
3. Empty temporary files
4. In safe mode run chkdsk..........let it do a surface scan as well.
5. Defragment the HDD
6. Run a registry cleaning tool to get rid of orphan entries

That sequence will frequently sort out problems such as you have described.

Cheers

Hi,

You might like to try the following:

1. Boot into safe mode and uninstall anything you don't use PARTICULARLY expired trial software versions
2. Remove programs from your startup that you don't need all the time (MS Office for example)
3. Empty temporary files
4. In safe mode run chkdsk..........let it do a surface scan as well.
5. Defragment the HDD
6. Run a registry cleaning tool to get rid of orphan entries

That sequence will frequently sort out problems such as you have described.

Cheers

I have done everything you have suggested Nihil, except for Defragmenting and getting a registry cleaner. I have manualy deleted some old registry values such as Kazaa, but I dont know where I can download an actualy registry cleaner. Could you point me to a good one?

Edit: I can already tell that my computer will crash in the middle of defragging. :(

Hi,

http://www.registry-clean.net/

There is a 15 day trial that should be sufficient for your current problem.

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail.php3?fid=963771680

RegClean is a bit dated but I think that link is to a build that supports XP...........it is free.

Have you tried to defragment in safe mode?..............You should have 20% free space to get a good defrag in my opinion. I generally defrag in safe mode so it defrags stuff like AV pattern files, stuff that would be running/object locked.

Try to get rid of as much stuff as you can, particularly temp files............"FastFind", old Recovery Points, .chk files, .dmp files, and if you have the CD, your Windows .cab files.

You will have to do a search, but "Xen" by Paul Brown is a nice free tweaking tool that will save you a fair bit of space............read the instructions and questions carefully though :eek:

Then try a defrag in safe mode.

Good luck

System Restore is your best friend in this situation. Restore your computer to a date from before these problems occurred. That should clear out any problem you may have. If that does not work, just reinstall, it would probably be better/easier anyway.

Wow, you sure got that thing screwed up.

OK, you are the same one who had constant reboots, so try this:

First, reformat that damned computer, and reinstall Windows. Do this as soon as you can.

After you have finished reformating the HD, and the partition is nice and fresh, go and get some coolent for your system. That and the format will help with your heat and reboot problem.

Don't do a "Restore setting without a format". You need a reformat on the HD, as it seems like you've screwed the thing bad. You need to reformat so all registry, and worms probably crawling on it, are gone.

Now, do you need help with this?

Quote:

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Originally posted here by philman213
So I guess Im left to reinstalling windows...I tried, and I get an error after the installation has loaded. It says there is something wrong with the hardware or software, something new installed.

So I decided to in stall FreeBSD 4.9 on this computer instead, and put windows XP on my other computer with the untouched hard drive. What do you guys think? Is this a good plan? The Windows XP computer will be used for programming, making graphics, and playing counter-strike :). The FreeBSD computer will be used as a server.

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A couple of observations here.

There are two ways to reinstall Windows (any flavour).

(1) Reinstall it over the top of your existing configuration.
This can sometimes work, if for example you have somehow mangled a key Windows file, but on a screwed up system this won't work.

(2) Reformat and reinstall.
Ideally you should first run a low level format, as lepricaun suggested.
When you reinstall Windows, make sure you choose the option that does a full format of your hard drive i.e. not the quick format option.
This will give you confidence that you don't have a hard drive error, which is always possible.
I've seen stranger symptoms which were caused by hard drive errors ...

Can't see that switching the 2 PCs over makes any difference, as you should do a low level format of your damaged Windows PC anyway.

It hasn't been mentioned so..
Bad memory (or cheap memory) is another frequent cause of problems like this.
Try reseating or swapping sticks around.. or getting new memory instead.
You could try running Docmemory V 2.0 or Memtest86 but even if you have failures, you still won't be sure unless you swap it out. Some OS's are more forgiving of bad or incompatable memory.

And generally it bugs me when people start throwing around the term/phrase "low level format" when they really should say "zero fill". This post here is a good explanation of what low level formatting is/was about.

It's too late now, I'm sure. If someone else reads this post, try the system rollback feature first. I've had a little(twice) success with that feature in the past.

I would rank this feature as Microsoft's best work in the last several years. Although it uses a lot of ones hard drive.