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Old August 13, 2003, 01:36   #1
Jules
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Windows XP emergency! What do I do now?
No, it's not the worm thing, first of all.

My system was booting up normally, the desktop was all in order, although noticeably absent from my system tray was the Norton AV icon. Problem was nothing worked, including My Computer. Anything I'd tried to access, the hourglass icon would appear for a few seconds, then nothing. Although Pinball seemed to work fine.

I called Dell Support, the technician walked me through repairing my Windows installation with the reinstallation CD, and now everything seems in order. But I'm wondering if there's anything else I need to do (reinstall drivers, etc.). Is there?

Also I'm curious as to what the heck happened to cause this in the first place. Anybody have an idea?

Thanks.
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Old August 13, 2003, 01:39   #2
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yo

your emergency is over

nothing else to do

kick back and relax

although you might want to make backups of your important files
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Old August 13, 2003, 01:42   #3
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Quote:
Originally posted by Ted Striker
yo

your emergency is over

nothing else to do

kick back and relax

although you might want to make backups of your important files
Yes, I've been quite lazy about that these past few months. Needless to say I will be updating my backup CDs.
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Old August 13, 2003, 02:21   #4
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Get yourself a Lindows box... and you'll see how Lindows Rocks
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Old August 13, 2003, 07:51   #5
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only get lindows if you have broadband. it sucks harder than any other linux distro if you don't have it.

in any case, i suggest redhat, or gentoo, debian instead.
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Old August 13, 2003, 08:20   #6
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If you get RedHat or Mandrake make sure you install the devel packages.
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Old August 13, 2003, 11:14   #7
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Wait for Mandrake 9.2. Lindows sucks, Red Hat is good, Mandrake is a bit less stable but looks/acts better on the desktop. 9.1 is a bit dated though... was released March this year.
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Old August 13, 2003, 11:21   #8
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Debian stable release
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Old August 13, 2003, 11:21   #9
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Just wipe it and install Windows 2000. Better than XP as far as supported products and better than linux because it can play all your games.
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Old August 13, 2003, 11:27   #10
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OTOH, how often do you see "Linux emergency, I need MAJOR help!" threads?
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I try not to break the rules but merely to test their elasticity. -- Bill Veeck | Don't listed to the Linux Satanist, people. - St. Leo | If patching security holes was the top priority of any of us(no matter the OS), we'd do nothing else. - Me, in a tired and accidental attempt to draw fire from all three sides.
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Old August 13, 2003, 11:57   #11
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Rarely, because the few people who do use Linux will, in emergencies, either ask "How do I go back to Windows?" or sort their troubles out themselves (using Google and more technically inclined forums than Apolyton for help)...
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Old August 13, 2003, 12:05   #12
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That is one of the reasons why I despise windows and its users, because it cripples people and teaches them that they cannot figure things out on their own, they have to ask someone who already knows.
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I try not to break the rules but merely to test their elasticity. -- Bill Veeck | Don't listed to the Linux Satanist, people. - St. Leo | If patching security holes was the top priority of any of us(no matter the OS), we'd do nothing else. - Me, in a tired and accidental attempt to draw fire from all three sides.
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Old August 13, 2003, 13:33   #13
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On linux, stuff rarely if ever goes wrong that a) wasn't the users fault or b) cant be fixed relatively easily, or c) hasn't occured before so fixes and procedures are known (not that c is all that common either).

When I was running linux, quite literally nothing messed up, only things that went wrong were because of me. I'm using windows XP right now because of that... slackware has so much potential for fiddleing that I dont get any work done.

When windows messes up, which even now (and I've updated system in light of worm), theres less way of knowing whats going on, and any immediate cures feel half assed because I dont have ultimate control (source code access).
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Old August 13, 2003, 15:49   #14
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New problem:

Now everytime I run ScanDisk, I get the message "Windows was unable to complete the disk check."
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Old August 13, 2003, 16:08   #15
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Get a third party disk checker and run a surface scan. Now.
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Old August 13, 2003, 18:59   #16
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Ok, I downloaded a program called Disk Checker and ran it. Here's what it looked like when it was finished:
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Old August 13, 2003, 19:03   #17
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ok, well your first problem is that godawful colour scheme. get that sorted and the whole thing'll look better.
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Old August 13, 2003, 19:04   #18
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Make a bootdisk. Use that bootdisk. Then scan.
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Old August 13, 2003, 19:09   #19
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Old August 13, 2003, 19:13   #20
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Quote:
Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Make a bootdisk. Use that bootdisk. Then scan.
How do you make a bootdisk with WinXP? There's no DOS.
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Old August 13, 2003, 19:22   #21
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I think even when XP installs, it allows you to create a bootdisk. Can't tell you for sure though, as I don't use XP.
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Old August 13, 2003, 19:41   #22
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You can open "My Computer", press the right button on Drive A, select Formant, and then select 'Create a DOS boot disk'. That works in Windows XP
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Old August 13, 2003, 20:11   #23
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Thanks for your suggestions, but the problem seems to have worked itself out.

This time when the check disk options came up, I checked "Automatically fix file system errors" before clicking Start. Then a lengthy error message popped up saying that it couldn't perform the scan because it needed exclusive access to certain Windows files. It then asked me if I wanted to schedule the scan for the next time I started Windows, so I clicked Yes and rebooted. So the scan executed, some errors were fixed (can't recall exactly what; it went too fast), and now I can run disk check in Windows again. Problem solved...hopefully.
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