Topic: Any of you intelligent ones know what this means?

[Hexx]

Hey all

Last night was playing an online game, in hte middle of a fight it crashed. Figured it was just the game client, went to reboot my system and it wouldn't.
It boots into the first page of WinXP,(the screen showing WinXP) then there s quick bluescreen showing text, but it flashes so fast I can't read a word of it. Then the system reboots.
Tried booting it in safe mode, spews out a number of lines in the black screen (like DOS used to look)
multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (1) /windows and what looks like a bunch of filenames

Looked at some online forums, said to reboot it with WinXP CD, that somehow the windows files were corrupt.
Tried that, the first time it started loading stuff, then said something about a VGA something (vga.sys?) had a problem and could not load.
Exited.

Subsequent attempts to boot (from the CD) give me the error message inf file txtsetup.sif is corrupt or missing
status 4086.

Anyone have any ideas?  Just I like to have a general idea what might be wrong with it before I take it to hte shop and tell them I have no idea what's wrong, could they please fix it.

I'm terribly untrusting I know.

Anyway thanks if anyone has any ideas, no worries (obviously) if you don't.

[Nemesis]

Subsequent attempts to boot (from the CD) give me the error message inf file txtsetup.sif is corrupt or missing
status 4086.

Have you considered cleaning the CD (or making a fresh copy with another machine)? 

You might want to look at the repair CDs on the free software list

It might be worthwhile to see if there is a hardware issue by booting with a Live Linux CD (not to install just to test).  You might also use such a Linux CD to backup (and/or remove) your data before letting a shop at it.  GParted (a Linux version set up for creating/removing, formatting partitions etc) might be used to check if you have a partition problem.

[stoneyface]

the vga error refers to either the video drivers or the video card itself. the behavior overall seems to indicate bad memory. download memtest(it's free) and run it for a while using all tests and see if you get errors. if it's not memory, it could be the video card or just a corrupt install of windows.

[marstone]

looks like he wouldn't be able to run memtest on it as the system will not boot up, just errors and reboots. 

[Hexx]

Thanks All!

Yeah I can't get into the system, even booting in safemode results in a constant rebooting process.

I'll see if I can "borrow" someones system to make some new CD's.
Hopefully someone will have an XP Pro CD.
(Stupid friends, all upgrading to different systems, no consideration I tell you)

[marstone]

now my son and myself do agree.  Sounds like a memory problem.  Try rotating the sticks of memory you have in system.  So you always have one stick out and see if you can find a bad one.  System should boot when the bad stick is removed (but possible two could be bad, but lower chance).

[Hexx]

Thanks!
I'll keep an eye on the memory (well, I'll remember to do what you said0 if it breaks.
Right now (after a repair/reinstall) of Win Xp it is working.
How long it works though...

Only thing "weird" that has happened was, freshly installed WinXP media center version.
This gave me IE 6, during the auto update process it aksed if I wanted to install IE7, said yes.
It installed *really* quickly (like maybe 10 seconds, more like 5) and wanted a reboot.
Rebooted and IE doesn't work.

I have internet connection, I can play games online,I can update virus guard stuff online, I can't surf or get to any site you need to have a browser for. (Including Windows updates that you can select yourself)
Dh suggested I delete IE7 and it shoulkd rollback to 6, didn't work.
Now at friends DL Firefox (I've heard good things about it, maybe it's time I tried it)

So hoping this will owrk.
Thanks all for the ideas/suggestions, hopefully won't be back. 

[KBF-Kurok]

firefox and opera are two browsers i use. But correct me if im wrong can you update your system (security updates and such) without ie?

[stoneyface]

first off, you can run memtest with no operating system. there is a memtest that you burn to disk (obviously on a friends pc) and it is a bootable cd that only runs from the bios. it will fully test the memory and will work on non functioning machines. i have done it more times that i can count.
i agree with marstone on the memory methodology. switch the memory sticks around, try running one stick at a time. if you get a stable running system on one stick and not the other, well bingo! you have nailed the bad memory. the good news is that if it is memory, memory is DIRT ASS CHEAP these days. ridiculously cheap in fact.
frankly, i would avoid IE like the plague wrapped in genital crabs, inside a space herpe. run firefox, if you don't like firefox, try opera. i have not run IE for so long i almost have made it thru detox
media center xp is wonky at best. i would advise xp pro over any other xp version out there. let me know if you need a cd. i am sure between frey and i we can get you a disk image that you can burn to disk at a friends.

let us know how it works out and good luck

[marstone]

first off, you can run memtest with no operating system. there is a memtest that you burn to disk (obviously on a friends pc) and it is a bootable cd that only runs from the bios. it will fully test the memory and will work on non functioning machines. i have done it more times that i can count.
i agree with marstone on the memory methodology. switch the memory sticks around, try running one stick at a time. if you get a stable running system on one stick and not the other, well bingo! you have nailed the bad memory. the good news is that if it is memory, memory is DIRT ASS CHEAP these days. ridiculously cheap in fact.
frankly, i would avoid IE like the plague wrapped in genital crabs, inside a space herpe. run firefox, if you don't like firefox, try opera. i have not run IE for so long i almost have made it thru detox
media center xp is wonky at best. i would advise xp pro over any other xp version out there. let me know if you need a cd. i am sure between frey and i we can get you a disk image that you can burn to disk at a friends.

let us know how it works out and good luck

sorry, memtests I have always ran were under the operating system.  It does make sense that one can be run from disk tho.  Good to know will keep it in our little bag of tricks here.

But then if his system would not boot, it might not boot from the memtest CD but crash out loading it.  But always worth a test.

[Hexx]

Right now (fingers crossed) it seems to be stable. So I kinda hope if I don't mess with the memory sticks, they won't mess with me. (Seems fair)

Apparently I can't go to the microsoft download website if I don't have IE, which I guess kinda makes sense... not sure if autoupdates will work or not.

Thanks for the offer Stoney but no worries, I actually have a real copy of XP Pro somewhere, the problem is I put it somewhere so it would be safe and well...

[FCM_SFHQ_XC]

try manually DLing IE7, (just google it, look for the microsoft website one, not a 3rd party site to be safe. You should be able to use any browser to go to MSes download center and save the EXE file to your harddrive) Win Auto-updates can be a pain, which is why I normally go looking through MSes DL center to get the majority of them.

Im a IE person, so I'll rant about firefox all day lol because its always the one breaking or not displaying something correctly, but its still good to have both, some sites never work properly unless its firefox, others, IE

As for memory, yea, Id agree, I had a similar issue when I got some new RAM that went dead on me. Still run mem test on them, Memory will not play fair, and better safe than a headache

[stoneyface]

heh why do people always assume i mean non-legit software? lol my reputation precedes me i guess lmao. anyway hexx i actually meant we could set you up with a legit xp iso. all you really need is your valid cd key. you can extract your cd key right now (i would advise doing that anyway if you don't know where your cd is). just google for it and they are usually freeware software. it is stored in the registry (encrypted of course) but it is there. glad to here it is running right now. what did you do to get it running?

[Javora]

It sounds like you have a bad PCB board in your system but I'm not sure it's the Ram that is causing it.  I would start pulling components out of the computer one at a time then trying to reboot the system after each removal.  Leaving the video card, one stick of Ram, and the CPU for last.  Through this process of elimination you should be able to find the bad item.  If not then I would suggest swapping out the video card with another that you know works if you have one on hand.  If that doesn't yield any positive results, then I would suggest taking your system into the local repair ship and testing the CPU, motherboard, power supply, Ram, video card if you don't have another to swap out and testing and Memtest doesn't come up with anything.  Hope this helps.

[atheorhaven]

Macgic Jellybean Keyfinder to retrieve the XP key from your install, UBCD 5.0 (Linux based) CD to boot the system, has memtest and several other good utilities in there, along with board testers.

And if you go over to Pendrivelinux, you can download their USB Universal installer utility, have it download the ISO for you for UBCD and then burn it to USB drive to allow a self-booting USB version of UBCD.  I use that combination for hardware testing and drive wiping. 

But check out your memory with that, as well as running other system tests, you don't want to test from inside Windows.. that's kind of like handing a bottle to an alcoholic and asking them to be a crossing guard once they're juiced up enough..

Dial-A-Fix and the IE7 redistributable download to finish the IE7 install should then allow you to back out of it back to IE6 to get the system repaired.  Personally, can't stand IE but it's "needed" for Windows Update, although that's like handing a bottle to an alcoholic and asking them to be a security guard on the internet. 

Once you're back to IE6, then you can decide if you want to move (not upgrade) to IE7 or 8.. making a system slower and less responsive I don't consider an upgrade.  Usually, I'll build a system with nLite (successor to 98lite when I first started using it) to remove most of IE entirely out of the system,, just keeps in the basics needed for Windows Help and Notepad/Wordpad but closes the security holes IE introduces.  I'll then replace the shell with Litestep or Aston to break the VB links from the GUI to the shell and from there, the HD.  And from their, a good AV/firewall and either Opera or Firefox for a browser, Openoffice for a suite (although I have and daily use Microsoft Office at work because it's a corporate standard), Evolution to replace Outlook and then I'm pretty well good to go from there. 

[stoneyface]

the magic jellybean finder is awesome btw. it will let you switch keys if needed too!

[Tus-XC]

I've had this happen before, one of your system files got corrupted somehow.  You should be in the clear w/ that repair install as that is usually the recommended fix.