Critical Condition

Recently a family member shutdown the computer by directly switching off the power. As a result the account it was logged into (mine) got damaged. According to Microsoft, 'during the shutdown of windows, it saves the user profile so that the next time it logs on it can present that profile to the user'. But this profile got shutdown abruptly causing it to fail from saving (this is a rare case). Only a few people have been faced with the problem. The user account i was on got corrupted and i couldn't log into it anymore, however my files were saved. Therefore i created a new 'adminstrator' account and moved my files into it. The whole of the C:\ still remained unchanged. All links to my programs got broken however which is why i had to install some programs over again. iTunes also got corrupted and didn't function after reinstall. It gave me the dreaded error "Unhandled Exception 0x80040707". According to the InstallShield website ";http://consumer.installshield.com/kb.asp?id=Q108167" this error can occur due to a corrupted 'dll' file.

Since i couldn't completely uninstall iTunes due to the same reason, i manually delted all folders and files related to the program. I even used a registry cleaner to clean out inactive registry values, it still doesn't install, and is most probably an internal windows error. I always keep a backup copy of all my software setup files, so i had iTunes latest version setup file. However this problem have been found in various PC games also, and i'm guessing all the solutions are different.

Has anyone had this problem before? Can i just replace a dll file, is there a way to replace all the system files in the windows directory. Please, i desperately need help. Anyone with any info, please respond.

#96423

This used to happen to me from time to time, in the pre SP1 days. I never could figure out how to fix it and tried many things including what you have tried. Unfortunatly the only way I could fix it was to completely reformat and reinstall everything.

However I'm not saying that it can't be fixed, this is going back a few years when I had these problems, I never figured out what caused it.

Good luck

#96445

SYSTEM RESTORE!!!!!

Click on help in the windows start menu and then there is a little list of links CLICK SYSTEM RESTORE!!!

Come on, no one here uses it and its the best feature of XP. Restore to any date before the computer was shut off incorrectly. And just for the record, I have done that over 5 times when my computer used to freeze and nothing happened to me! Maybe its just bad luck..good luck in fixing it!

#96472

Recently, I had a lucky streak. My computer restarted itself abruptly. It was like I was doing some Photoshop stuff, extracting images. The screen turns black out of the blue and I could hear the routiine noise made by the pc during startups.

Since I had only one account and I was doing stuff like BT to download animes while having iTunes on for music along with photoshop doing editing work. The effect was damaging as I have to scan all drives for consistency not to mention numerous reboots.

After numerous reboots, I finally decided that the power supply was at fault and prompty changed it.

However, due to the numerous abrupt restarts, most of the files were already damaged. Since I have bakups of the important stuff in C:\ , I had only one solution, which is to reformat.

The windows registry got messed up big time, along with the intergrity of programs executables and it's library.

Doing 'system restore' won't really help much in this case, because the extent of the damage is simply too much.

I would suggest the following.

Bootup using a Bootup cd or diskette. Backup all infor. which is important in the hdd. After double checking, perform reformat.

Sure it would be hell for you in the aftermath, because all your customisations are all gone. But a clean system running effciently and stable = priceless.

Hope this will help.

#96478

wow, i didn't think there was going to be no other solution than complete format. I have experience in formatting fully and installing a fresh copy of windows, but i really thought there was a fix for this.

my friend recently told me he would give me an 8gb drive that was lying around in his house. One family member also uses the computer with a different account, and what i'm more worried about is his stuff. Guess i'll wait for that drive. God i wish i had a mac.

part of the fault could be mine, as i'm a heavy registry tweaker. And about system restore 'juno', i turned that off ages ago to save RAM. I however did make a backup copy of the registry, just a few days bfr the event. Does anyone know if that will help. Is the problem in the registry or in the windows directory?

#96537

Originally posted by juno@Jan 6 2004, 08:15 PM

SYSTEM RESTORE!!!!!

Click on help in the windows start menu and then there is a little list of links CLICK SYSTEM RESTORE!!!

Come on, no one here uses it and its the best feature of XP. Restore to any date before the computer was shut off incorrectly. And just for the record, I have done that over 5 times when my computer used to freeze and nothing happened to me! Maybe its just bad luck..good luck in fixing it!

yeah, it unforunatley doesnt work. I used to restore out the wazoo to fix a corrupted user profile without luck

#96558

Next time do this, create two users when you set up the machine. One for everyday use, and one as a backup. Usually programs will ask if you want to install for one user or all users, just make sure to install for all users. Then if this happens again, you can just boot into safemode under the Admin account, copy everything out of the everyday-use user directory into the backup user directory and reboot and log in to the backup user and you should be mostly good to go.

#96565

Or you could just do a routine backup. Its a real safe idea for us skinners and all, and its really a good idea for people who invest a lot of time and/or money into their music collection. Check out norton ghost. How come itunes doesnt work though, did you only install it for your user or something like that?

#96573

Originally posted by Chi Chi Rodriguez@Jan 7 2004, 01:24 AM

Or you could just do a routine backup.

That works even better.

Norton Ghost is definitely a program worth investing in.

I can't really say much though as the only thing I really backup with any regularity is my website , however, I am the ONLY person that uses my computer and I don't keep sensitive data on volatile parts of my drives.

...and of course having a RAID array helps too, but I know that not everyone has those.

And to hopefully answer the original question posed by the thread starter:

Has anyone had this problem before? Can i just replace a dll file, is there a way to replace all the system files in the windows directory. Please, i desperately need help. Anyone with any info, please respond.

Yes. You should be able to just replace the DLL and it should work fine. If you don't want to do that, or can't find the DLL you need there is a way to basically restore the system files to how it was when windows was first installed. Here's what you do (this is all off of the top of my head here so bear with me, I assure you, I have done this more times than I care to count so it should be accurate. Lord knows I've done my share of the Tech-Support prison sentence at the largest computer manufacturer in the US who's name I shall not speak)...

Put the Windows XP cd in the drive and restart the computer. It should detect the CD and it will give you a message like "press any key to boot from CD" during start up (it goes by fast so you want to keep your eye on it). Once you've hit any key to get the computer to boot from CD, it will start loading the windows setup program. If you are now getting into the windows setup, skip the next paragraph. If not, read on...

If it doesn't give you that message and just goes into windows normally, restart again and this time you want to enter the BIOS. So you want to look for a message when the computer first starts up that says something like "Press DEL to enter setup" or it may say some other key, either way, just press the key it asks for as soon as you see the message and it should take you to a DOS-looking screen where it should have some menus for you. It will have directions on what keys to press to navigate the menus and make your selections or change selections. Use these keys and look through the BIOS until you come across something that talks about either "boot sequence" or "boot first device" (this one will probably be followed by "boot second device" and third and so on). What you want to do is change the boot order so that the computer tries to boot from the CD before it boots from the hard drive. Just follow the directions it gives you to change the order around so that optimally it is something like:

first: Floppy

Second: CDROM

Third: HDD

Then follow the directions to save the changes in the BIOS and restart. Its usually just pressing ESC and thes selecting EXIT and SAVE CHANGES, or something like that.

Now, assuming you've been able to get windows setup to start up, just follow the screen prompts until it gives you some choices about how you want windows to install. Here it should give you the option of installing windows, repairing windows with automated system recovery (or perhaps repair console). Select the option to install windows and it should now give you options to do a new installation, a repair installation and I think one other, but I am not sure. What you want to do is a Repair Install of Windows. If you have ever installed Windows XP, you've seen this screen. Just follow the instructions and it should restore your XP installation back to default without touching any of your data that's already there.

Just be sure to read what it says before it starts so you know what it's going to do. You don't want to accidentally do a new install and potentially erase ALL of your user data.

If you have any questions or come across anything you have questions about feel free to PM or email me (it's in my profile).

#96597

hey Nephilim, thanks for all that info. I was just thinking about the boot cd, and i thought i saw a recovery option there. Oh and my BIOS is already set to boot from cd, i did a format a year ago.

Now what i would like to clarify here is, if i do the repair installation, then no files in the Documents and Settings folder will be touched? Thats the only folder i care about, as all the user information and documents are there.I'm guessing it only modifies the Windows folder, that makes sense to me. Am i right?

#96813

Originally posted by nabilanwar@Jan 7 2004, 02:32 PM

hey Nephilim, thanks for all that info. I was just thinking about the boot cd, and i thought i saw a recovery option there. Oh and my BIOS is already set to boot from cd, i did a format a year ago.

Now what i would like to clarify here is, if i do the repair installation, then no files in the Documents and Settings folder will be touched? Thats the only folder i care about, as all the user information and documents are there.I'm guessing it only modifies the Windows folder, that makes sense to me. Am i right?

Right, the repair install JUST deals with everything in the windows directory, it leaves the documents and settings directory alone.

#96816