Topic: Weird problem

[Sandra]

Barra has asked me to post his latest problem for you to solve.
His pc was slowing down and showing that it was slow on resources.
He deleted a few files that had somehow appeared on his desktop after downloading some files off a friends FTP server and rebooted.
Since then it will not boot into windows, he gets an error message repeated over and over saying windows cannot update %1:to %2

Any idea what this means and what steps to take other than reinstalling ME  

[Adept]

Will it get into Safe Mode so he can do a System Restore Sandra?



Sounds like a golden opportunity to get rid of ME and install XP to me

[Sandra]

It wont go into safe mode on ME for somr reason Adept.
He has dual boot with ME and XP and for some reason it has never got into safe mode on ME but he can in XP.
Unfortunately as hes never been able to get XP to recognise his adsl modem if he uses systm restore it will go back to the day that I installed XP so he may as well run the ME restore disc and then have to update everything for the ME updates  

Update to that it will now go into safe mode on ME but then crashes  

[Adept]

Has he tried scanning for a virus on the ME partition from within XP? A Scandisk wouldn't hurt either

[Sandra]

Looks like hell have to format as he cant even get the ME restore floppy to go past 75% before it crashes  

[Clive]

Oh poor Barra!  It's little wonder I hate downloading anything at all these days.

[Simon]

Yes, I never download anything iffy off of any site that looks the slightest bit 'unofficial'.  

Has Barra tried getting into the recovery console, and doing a repair installation?

[Sandra]

Cant access it in ME as he cant boot into ME in normal windows or safe mode Simon.
If he boots into XP then his restore point would be the day I installed XP for him months back  

[ketamininja]

Since he is dual booting, you will have a boot.ini file that will explain (to the BIOS if you like) where each version is located on the HDD.

It seems that this information if incomplete or has an error in it. Open this in DOS mode to check it out if you can.

Also, a system restore in XP should still go back to a recent time, and not when it was first installed - it will show dates anyway so worth a look just to confirm.

[Sandra]

Its academic now K as he formatted and reinstalled ME but if he has never created any restore points on his XP sysytem, as he has rarely used it would it know of any from his ME one ?
I would have thought that it was as independant as having two PCs  

[lobo]

If he was dual-booting the PC with ME on one partition and XP on another then only the XP partition would be restored

Brian

[ketamininja]

I thought XP would look at all partitions, but ME only at one? Well, it was just a guess... academic purposes are always good, youo never know when someone may be looking this thread up for info!

[Adept]

XP System Restore does exactly that - restores the XP operating system.

If there were parts of XP on the ME partition, it would restore them if needed. But if XP is, as is usually the case, installed on just one partition, System Restore will restore the system files on that.

[Barra]

Reformatted :'(
And Sean, Im sticking with ME!
As ME and XP were partitioned on the same drive I've lost my dual boot anyway .Qui sera sera