Tofer

sorry this is kinda long, i am sooo frustrated. ok this has been a 3 day process of getting XP to install. after someone deleted everything off my desktop (i am starting to believe that it wasn’t them and there is something more going on here) i decided that since 90% of my info was trashed i would back up the remaining and reformat just to be sure they didn’t install any key loggers or backdoor Trojans. reformatted and installed a fresh, clean, LEGAL, version of XP i got from the Computer Science department here at school. with a legit cd key (not a cracked version of xp) that reformat / install went fine. However it did not include SP2 or any AV software.. i plug my laptop into the network and with in 60 seconds i am hit with a virus. tells me that " LSA shell (export version) " or something like that crashed and then a window popped up saying that my computer is shutting down in 60 seconds. so i said screw it, there is nothing on here i'll reformat AGAIN and Re-reinstall windows, now i start getting errors saying that some .sys, .dll, .dvr, .exe cannot be copied during the install. so i went back to the Comp Sci department and got a different cd this time with sp2. the prof. i got it from said that it worked fine to install on some of the lab computers (so its worked before) so i Wipe the disk this time tried the 2nd cd on a virgin hard drive and still get errors that some files cannot be copied. i kept hitting skip to see how many would pop up. 26 files couldn’t be found. i reformatted AGAIN, reinstalled windows AGAIN from the 2nd cd, this time 22 files couldn’t be found, but none of the files were teh same. it found the files it couldn’t the first time just fine the second. so now i am thinking it is the CD Drive, so i throw in Knoppix 4.0, i am able to boot knoppix (Linux on cd) fine it runs solid and stable. today i install the 1st version of windows which installed fine once, on this computer and i got an error again saying it cant find the files. i am at a lost of what to do... any ideas? why would a cd that worked in the comp lab not be able to install on a virgin hard drive? could the HD be physically bad? would bad ram have anything to do with this? Computer wizards of YT i bow to you.......

Jeffires

Could be something with the hard drive. When you reformat - are you low-level formatting? I have had trouble similar to yours that was corrected with a LLF. The memory module is probably not causing this if the computer was running OK before the reformat/reinstall.

Tofer

i have wiped the hard drive just once (LLF) the other times have been from teh XP CD asking if i wnat to reformat and i have always said reformt using NTFS (standard) not the (quick) way.

Jeffires

I have done many installs and reformats with my work, I HAVE had bad memory modules and even motherboards cause problems like this. If you plugged up to the network originally without SP2 or AV protection, of course you got a virus. When I worked on the network at my university, the number of viruses running around the network was rediculous. I would try another low level format (I know its a pain) and then getting the disk that includes SP2. If it has trouble reading some files again, your install disk may be compromised. Be sure you are setting the partition properly and formatting with NTSF like you said. I can't see the CD drive being bad if it is copying some files but not others. What ever you do, don't plug into the network until you are running SP2 and an updated AV program.

What type of computer / equipment is this?

edit: Also, note which files it starts missing- if it skips a few and is bootable, you may be able to copy them in a recovery.

waskillywabbit

iTrader: (-1)

I had a bad hard drive act very similar...had to replace it.

Jeffires

Yeah- that's something to consider for sure- here's the order I usually try swapping hardware out (easiest to most difficult)
1- RAM
2- hard drive
3- CD rom (or whatever other device might be causing problem- modem, sound, etc)
4- motherboard

Tofer

sorry i should have given computer specs... Dell Latitude C840 laptop. i got it in June of 2002, BUT when my dad bought it he went all out. so its still up to standards. P4 @ 1.6GHz, 512 ram, 40G hd. do i need a partition on it. i remember before i did teh LLF that i ahd the main hd and then a small partition, after the LLF it was just 1 large hd. do i need that partition and if so how much space and how do i do it

Jeffires

Oh, a laptop- OK- find out the manufacturer of the hard drive, get the proper utility to perform a low level format, and do one. If the XP install CD is bootable (surely it is), run setup- create 1 partition with the maximum size allowable. You should have two- one is usually small (8MB) and the other is the remainder of the hard drive. Format NTSF and install XP to the larger one. If a failure occurs after the LLF and this partition have been done, I'll bet the install disk OR hard drive (like Wabbit said) is bad.

side note- theis is the way most computers are partitioned, on computers in a business setting, one partition holds the OS and one holds data.

Tofer

Ok.... so i have been running MemTest86 for a while now (10 hrs+) and the ram is appearing to be fine. talked to more of my profs, and they are betting its the CD drive. but the cd drive is not swapable (its on the motherboard IIRC) and the warrently has been up for about a year. i still want to try a couple more tests... i am going to see if USB is bootable (it might be too old) and try to get an external CD drive

Jeffires

I haven't had much luck with the USB boot, even on some brand new machines I set up on my last network project. But definitely give it a shot- does it have a floppy? You could install XP off of the SIX floppy disks it comes on... Good luck, and definitely continue asking around at your school- that's a good resources since there are so many computer personnel there.

Tofer

update... after running MemTest86 and finding that my ram is fine, i decided to try to install xp once more before i give my computer the the people at the Office of Information Technology and tell them to not give it back till its fixed... well sure enought it installed no problems, no errors, no nothing. just like it should have the last 5 or 6 times i tried.. i have no idea what was causing the problem but its fixed now.

Jeffires

strange- you never know about some scenarios such as this one. Hopefully it will keep running and not give trouble any more. Today, I uninstalled my old antivirus program because it expired, and I got a new one through my work. After I uninstalled the old one, the computer would hang for about 10 minutes at a certain point while booting up. After several attempts to fix it, I finally formatted and reinstalled (I have multiple hard drives, so I can easily back up data) Works fine now....one of those things.

rwmorrisonjr

Ahh, more of the trials of XP! I need to rebuild my laptop but can't since all my stuff in still in VA. All I know is that I'm getting tired of the "fun" associated with Windows. Having used my in-laws' PowerBooks I'm seriously contemplating moving that direction when its time to replace mine & my wife's systems.

ricky

Funny, I wish I had seen this earlier. There is a VERY simple solution to this. Basically, the first edition of XP was vulnerable to a virus that proagates itself on a local network. If there is one infected PC on the network, any time another one of these PCs is connected to the network, the pc that is vulnerable, almost immediately becomes infected. Basically you need to make sure that any other computer on your local network has the latest updates for windows. You will also want to download an application from mcafee (it's free) called stinger. Run this application on all computers on your network. Then make sure all have the latest service pack and adn latest post service pack updates.

I GUARANTEE this is the problem. Trust me, I had to patch nearly 100 computers over a couple fo days because the company I worked for got infected with this virus. I guess you could say I've fixed it a few times.

Tofer

i have 2 copies of XP one i am borrowing from teh lab which has SP2 on it. the first one is just SP1. i finally got the copy with SP2 installed. regarding making sure the computers on my lan are patched is impossible since i am on a campus wide network. and the problem was that the files on the CD (either one) wouldnt copy when trying to install. but they would be different set of files that wouldnt copy each time i tryed. at any rate, my laptop is back up and running solid. thanks again for the reply tho.

Jeffires

Thats the problem with a college campus- we had all our machines locked down in the labs and the student center (the subnet I was responsible for), but people were always coming in and plugging up to the network. Plus all the dorms. I think this year since I have graduated, they have created a VPN logon that will not let users on w/o SP2 or AV protection.

ricky

The most important thing is that you have at least the latest service pack for XP or 2000. Once that is done, that doesn't mean that you aren't vulnerable, it just means that you aren't vulnerable to the rebooting part. You then need to install all the latest updates from microsoft, then run stinger. This will completely remove the vulnerability.

There are machines that may be patched with the latest service pack, and they won't reboot, but they CAN infect other machines on the network. That's why this keeps happening to you, and they probably don't even know the machine is infected.