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XP commits suicide?

N

Nailbunny

Senior member
Hey all ... I've got a real problem with XP and lookin for some help.

My windows XP just committed suicide on me the other day (3rd time in about 6 months it's done it). This last time everything was running fine, then I attempted to run a program that said it was "xp compatible" after installing a patch (Wintel Disk Commander). XP crashed to a blue screen - physical memory dump error. After a reboot ... *poof*... XP was gone. Said no Operating System could be found. Ran the XP recovery: attempted a "Bootcfg" (which said "no valid XP installations could be found), "Fixboot" , even tried fdisk the MBR. Nothing fixed it. Only fix all 3 times has been a complete reinstall.

I was just wondering if anyone knows what might cause it to kill itself like this and if there is an easier way to fix it. Is there no way to restore a corrupt/dead boot loader for XP?

Quick machine specs:

Tyan S2466-N Dual athlon MPX mobo
2x 1.2 Athlon MPs
512MB Crucial registered DDR
2x40GB IBM HDD (raid)
1X45GB IBM HDD (disk XP is on)
1x100GB IBM HDD
 
A backup of your system in a working configuration would be a fix. Yeah I know, who actually backs up their drive like they should? Not many. But that would be a solution to your problem. Also, attempting to install a program again after it has corrupted your computer isn't the best idea. Even though it's "XP Compatible" you could have hardware conflicts that cause it not to be compatible. My advice... don't install that software again.
 
Jeff..yea I need to get a copy of Norton Ghost and just ghost it.

With the crashing issue..this time it was the program (and no I will never try to run it again 🙂 )...the other two times I didn't run any programs though. One time it just crashed in the middle of doing something (editing audio at the time). Other time XP locked/froze on me.

So..once the boot loader is hosed...there's no way to just fix it without a resotore or reinstall?
 
Originally posted by: Nailbunny

So..once the boot loader is hosed...there's no way to just fix it without a resotore or reinstall?
Click to expand...
Well, there should be... but the fact that the Recovery Console didn't detect an installation says that the problem is more than just a bad MBR or missing ntldr. Possibly the partition table got hosed or corrupted. It's hard to say without more details, but if the Console doesn't see the installation, that's a Bad Thing - even if it's possible to fix, it would be better and probably faster to reinstall.

It does sound like you have hardware issues or something, though. Even if the last time was really due to the program (which was a system utility, after all), the other two crashes shouldn't have occured.

 
It does sound like you have hardware issues or something, though.
Click to expand...

Well...Don't know about anyone else, But I see 4 IBM hard drives in there :Q Go to IBM and get some disk checking utilities.
 
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