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Some bad, bad computer probs...


Sabretooth

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Alright, this is starting to chew my head recently. I use WinXP and I have Win98 as an emergency standby. 98 works great, but XP is seemingly getting corrupt. My Documents and Settings folder seems to be the source of the problem. Firefox was the first victim. I would get errors that some files in Documents & Settings/App data were corrupt. The restart-scandisk "truncated" the files. My bookmarks, cookies, history, virtually everything was lost. This has been happening about 2-3 months after XP was installed.

 

Newest Target: Norton Antivirus 2004. It just got disabled, internal problems, corrupt files, blah blah. I uninstalled, reinstalled. The problem was fine for like, ten minutes before setting in again. And that is a problem. Any way to solve this - permenantly? (Other than the classic format-reinstall)

 

Want more probs? After every startup, my Start Bar is busy with something, and cannot be used until my floppy drive light magically turns on. Plus, the tray icons mysteriously vanish, leaving only the Antivirus. These two have been there since the XP install. I'm planning to mercilessly execute the Documents & Settings folder, but need advice on wether that is safe or not.

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could be corrupted registries in a bad section of the hard drive.

or it could be a virus, many of them can disable Norton and screw with your documents and settings folder.

 

either way a re-format is your best bet.

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that sounds quite messy.....

 

firstly,

 

1. why do you need to run two OSs... \

 

2. what type pf hardware do you have..... give some more info please :)

 

3. I wouldmt get rid of docs and settings :)

 

4. Wait for someone to come in here and say you have to reformat :D

 

mtfbwya

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sound like you have a virus to me. do you subscribe to norton? I know people who have it but don't subscribe so it isn't up to date. are you running service pack 2 yet? if no you should be. I wouldn't delete all of documents and settings. but you could probably gt rid of application data safely (i had a virus hiding in there one time and deleted it)

 

Format is your friend. then SP2, then defreag, then pu you programs back on. also turn off windows firewall and gt zona alarm. subscribe to Norton or get another scanner.

 

that is all i can think of.

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Well, first you need to get rid of that Norton jerk, and use AVG Anti-virus instead. :xp:

 

I also recommend some running Spybot - Search and Destroy, as well as doing an Adaware scan.

 

Go into msconfig and check your startup items. Just make sure that everything is in order there.

 

Reformatting sucks, so try everything you can before that. :)

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Originally posted by InsaneSith

Not really, Windows is a whore. It loves to be first, when you have 2 you get problems.

 

Well if you say so, i have never tried it myself so I can't say for sure.

 

There are some network lab (for teaching networking and the like) computers at uni that have 4 versions of windows running. 98, 98se, NT and another one that I can't remember. they seem fine.

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I have two partitions. 10GB Partition: Win98 80GB Patition: WinXP

 

Norton seems to have cooled off now, no more problems. I have also uninstalled the Longhorn Transformation Pack 9.0 (visual add-on that messes with sys files). Reinstalled Windows and everything looks OK.... for now. I just need to LiveUpdate (****in' 35 MB!!!) Norton and everything will be back to normal. I hope.

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Originally posted by Sivy

either way a re-format is your best bet.

 

REFORMAT?

 

 

Why is it that you people always format the harddisk??

 

Just so you know: one can DELETE a harddisk WITHOUT formating. Also: XP recognizes a previous installation and ASKS if it should be deleted.

 

I don't see any reason in wiping everything off a disk just because windows is going to need a reinstallation. Me for instance, I have a HUUUUGE warez archivedata collection directory which I never would format away.

 

;P

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