Corrupted Files on Windows XP disk?????

[CrossBoss]

Since October I have been trying to build a new computer. First one looked like this (IWill KK266 mobo, 1GHz AMD Thunderbird, 512MB PC150 enhanced SDRAM CAS2, IBM 60GXP Deskstar 60GB HDD, Floppy, TDK veloCD 16 10 40x Burner, Pioneer 116 DVD, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound Card, VisionTek Xtasy 6564 GeForce3 Ti200 graphics). I tried to install (clean install) Windows XP Home and got criss-crossed colored lines on many graphics that made them unreadable. I also got a very distorted sound upon Windows start up and close down, even though CDs played fine. I tried swapping out memory, no help. I called Microsoft to get them to help me wondering if I was doing something wrong with the setup...no help. I exchanged my GeForce3 card figuring that it might be bad...no help. I even swapped my GeForce3 card with a Leadtek GeForce2 GTS card from another system...which I knew was working properly...no help. Finally, I reformatted the hard drive and installed Windows 98SE, and still the problems persisted. I wondered if the motherboard was bad...finally got an RMA # and sent it back. Still waiting for the new board to come back.

Meanwhile I purchased an Abit KR7A-RAID board with 256MB of PC2400 (Micron) memory, CAS2...put it in the system (same components) starting all over with bare bones system (motherboard, memory, CPC, hard drive, floppy, CD) and began new clean install of Windows XP carefully downloading all of the critical updates for Win XP and the latest XP driver updates for video card, CD-ROM, VIA 4 in 1, etc. Then I added one piece of hard ware at a time, downloading updated drivers and shutting down between hardware installs (first modem, then sound card, finally DVD) as suggested in one of the Tom's Hardware guides. Guess what...still have the crazy criss-crossed colored lines both online and with the thumbnail sketches of the Windows XP wallpaper and still have the distorted sound on Windows start up and shut down. One thing I noticed is that the jumbled graphics are all JPEG files. Windows XP seems to read other graphic formats (GIF and others), but for some reason all of the thumbnail sketches and many of the graphics online are JPEG and it just will not read.

Is there a possibility that some of the files on the Windows XP disk are corrupted? The only thing is, if they were corrupted on mine I would think other people would be complaining about the same thing. I have scoured the forums and have seen nothing like this.

So I need some suggestions from you fine people out there. I have written to Microsoft (the same tech rep that tried to help me before). My copy of Windows XP came sealed in a plastic container, although I must admit that I did buy it through ebay. Is it possible that it might have been a pirated copy and that the files were corrupted in that way? I'm grasping at straws here. Other than these two problems the computer runs great and seems to be very stable. However, I will not be very happy if I am told to live with the graphics problems and that horrible distortion from my Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 speakers on start up. Can any of you help with suggestions? Thanks ahead of time. Dave

 

[gunf1ghter]

it sure sounds like a bad copy to me.

see if you can acquire another copy for testing purposes... you can install it to test it out without ever registering it, so you can at least find out if your copy is legit.

if you called MS they can easily help you determine if your copy is legitimate based on the CD key as well as the physical charecteristics of the disc (hologram, etc).

if the copy is pirated you should report the ebay pirate to the MS goon squad!

 

[gunf1ghter]

Have you tried another sound and vid card in the machine?

 

[AG73]

i'll bet it was a pirated copy. Rumor has it that the downloaded "critical updates" will cripple any pirated WinXP installs. Microsoft has gotten smart. Their service pack for Office XP also cripples hacked copies.

AG

 

[barryng]

About three days ago I posted a message in this forum about a chronic problem I am having on only one of my three XP machines. Although your symptoms are different than the ones I have, there was a strong ring of Deja Vu when I read your posting. In brief, the problem machine is very prone to corrupting files on the hard disk. Typically, the registry/hive becomes irrepairably corrupted and/or literally hundreds of files show up as being crosslinked. Sometimes it just will not reboot or ends up in an infinite booting loop.

When the problem occurs, it usually suddenly happens when rebooting. Rarely does a crash occurr without restarting the computer. Sometimes just loading new software or making some minor hardware change triggers it on the next reboot. I use Ghost to clone my HDD to a removable HDD every day or two. On more than one occassion the problem occurred on the reboot after the cloning process completed.

I have changed out almost every hardware item including the mobo, cpu, memory, power supply, modem, NIC, sound card, and HDD. I have reinstalled XP numerous times using a clean install but I have also restored it from the clone backup. The only hardware I have not changed are my Hercules GeForce II MX, the two floppy drives, the DVD, and the CD Writer. Interestingly the CD Writer is a TDK Velo CD (12x write) like yours.

If you search through the various user forums such as this, you will find a small scattering of postings from XP users complaining of similar chronic and seemingly unresolvable catastrophic problems. My best guess is that XP can be dangerously destabilized by certain hardware devices and/or combination of devices. When the problem first occured I was crashing every day or so. Just replacing an Adaptec 2910 SCSI card with a later model (2930 advertised as "XP compatible") significantly reduced the frequency of the crashes but did not eliminate them.

My current plan is to remove the SCSI card completely and see if this does not help stabilize the system. If this does not work, I am planning to bite the bullet and buy a new graphics card. Your posting started me thinking about the coincidence of the Velo Cd drives. Maybe removing it might help.

I am certain I have said nothing that will resolve your specific problem but maybe there is some commonality here that might lead to a solution.

 

[BeauJangles]

<< i'll bet it was a pirated copy. Rumor has it that the downloaded "critical updates" will cripple any pirated WinXP installs. Microsoft has gotten smart. Their service pack for Office XP also cripples hacked copies.

AG >>



Pretty smart ay? They just had the Algorithm for XP cdkeys cracked. Now people have a key generator that will generate ligitmate CDkeys. Seems to me MS is more and more screwed.

 

[gunf1ghter]

I actually haven't seen anything compelling about MS shutting down illegal copies (devil's own for example) through MS Update.

For one thing they would piss of a lot of legitimate users who have purchased their XP but loaded non-registering copies for conveniance sake.