Programs automatically closing just after opening them -- Help!

[mattk8]

Hello,

Starting about 48 hours ago, certain programs automatically close 5-20 seconds after opening them. Programs that automatically close include:
- Yahoo Messenger
- Skype
- Adobe Acrobat 8.1
- Internet Explorer

There may be others.

The only things I can remember installing in this timeframe are Yahoo Messenger, which at first worked fine, and Adobe Reader 8.1, which had this problem from the start, but not until after Yahoo Messenger had it. My previous version of Reader was working fine just before the update.

Many other programs work fine: Firefox, Offics apps, and more.

I have run virus scanning which has not found or fixed anything (I tried the latest from Avast and Kaspersky).

When Skype crashes I was able to observe a code: "External Exception C0000006" although I don't know if this tells us anything.

I have since uninstalled Adobe Reader, Yahoo Messenger, and other programs. Even reinstalling them does not fix the issue.

Oddly enough, when I try to open System Restore, it never fully opens (it just displays a big white, blank window and hangs) and I have to manually shut it down.

I am at a loss what to do. I can usually find and fix issues, but this one has me stumped. Do you have any ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks for ANY help!

 

[Markbnj]

That error code means that the application failed to initialize properly. What this likely means is that it tried to load and initialize a DLL (which is an external library) and that process failed because the DLL either couldn't be loaded, or was loaded but failed to initialize itself. Since you have multiple programs with the same behavior, it is likely that some common component has gotten stomped on. This can happen if an install overwrites the existing component with a different version that has different behavior.

If you can capture the full text of that error we might get a sense of which module is borked. Otherwise, you would need to load one of the affected programs in a debugger-type environment to capture the failure of the LoadLibrary call. You might also check your system event log to see whether any of the affected programs has dumped more information there.

 

[mattk8]

UPDATE: reviewing the event log reveals numerous disk error every time I try to open the programs with problems. I've tried scanning and fixing the bad sectors/clusters a couple of times, but the problems still persist. Now they close down nicely (Windows tells me it has shut down and asks if I want to send an error report), but otherwise the behavior is the same. FYI System restore does the same thing. I.e. something (or multiple things) appear to be corrupted.

The drive is a newish Seagate (about 7 mos. old) so I am hoping the drive itself it not failing although the fact that I find bad sectors/clusters on every scan is troubling. Maybe this is simply because it cannot repair them so it keeps finding them and trying to fix them?

I am currently planning to do a reformat/reinstall. Hopefully my HDD is not just on the road to failure?

 

[BFG10K]

Are you overclocking anything?

 

[mattk8]

I am overclocking - I'm running a C2D E6400 at 3.0 GHz.

I ended up reformatting another drive in my system and reinstalling everything on that drive. That drive's working great; no issues now.

However, the 50GB boot partition from the original drive seems to be in trouble. It has some bad sectors, and even a full reformat hangs at 75% whenever I try to run it. The remaining 270GB partition on that drive has no errors and seems to be working just fine.

If I have to I will just write off that 50GB, but I'm really surprised that even format is failing.........

The drive is only 7 mos. old. If I am feeling energetic perhaps I will inquire about the warranty with Seagate...