Author Topic: PC keeps freezing (Read 9213 times)

SarahR · « **Reply #45 on:** August 12, 2005, 13:55 »

I remember when we installed the 2nd hard drive we had a few problwms because the jumper on the 1st one wasn't on master, it was on something else so we had to change the jumpers on the 2nd one to something different.
I think i remember we had to set it so that they were on the same IDE cable. It was a while ago so its a little hazy

Sandra · « **Reply #46 on:** August 12, 2005, 14:23 »

I tend to prefer the two hard drives to be on the primary IDE channel and the CD and DVD drives on the secondary IDE channel.
It shouldnt really matter too much how they are set up though, as long as the jumpers and the cables are set correctly.
The end connector on the IDE ribbon cable should connect to the master drive whether its a hard drive or a CD/DVD drive.
The middle connector goes to the slave.
I think the boot drive is better being set as the master on the primary IDE but if you have set a dual boot system up they seem to work ok with the second OS on either the primary slave or as master or slave on the secondary IDE channel so I suppose it doesnt matter too much which way round they are.
It just seems more logical to have the OS on the master on the primary channel

SarahR · « **Reply #47 on:** August 12, 2005, 22:36 »

Ok, well i've formatted my C drive, but i can still see files there that haven't been deleted. I know i formatted it this time because it asked me if i definitely wanted to delete it, etc...
I went through all the options, chose my C drive and asked if i wanted to overwite the last windows installed and then asked if i was sure!
The dual boot is also still there.
I'm losing faith...!

Sandra · « **Reply #48 on:** August 13, 2005, 00:50 »

Thats why I said select the option to delete the partition that has the OS on :roll:

Then create a new one and install to that

SarahR · « **Reply #49 on:** August 13, 2005, 00:54 »

I tried to delete the partition but it wouldnt let me! It would only let me overwrite.
Will have a more detailed look after the weekend. have a very busy weekend to get over first and them will be straight on it on monday!

Sandra · « **Reply #50 on:** August 13, 2005, 00:56 »

I will see if I can find or write exactly at what point the option comes up at Sarah, before monday for you.
Is your C drive a single partition or have you got a second partition on it ?

SarahR · « **Reply #51 on:** August 13, 2005, 00:57 »

It says i have an 8mb partition as well as the large one and then the F drive has just the one

Sandra · « **Reply #52 on:** August 13, 2005, 01:01 »

Yes they always have an unusable 8mb partition for some reason.

You definately booted from the CD and didnt run it from inside windows did you ?
Thats the only way it wouldnt let you delete the partition as far as I know :?

SarahR · « **Reply #53 on:** August 13, 2005, 01:05 »

That might be why, a friend of mine who's a computer student told me to format on windows, i guess he was wrong! explains a lot.
Will do it properly when i can. Do i change the settings in BIOS to boot up by cd?

Sandra · « **Reply #54 on:** August 13, 2005, 01:18 »

Yes thats all you do Sarah

I have seen this on a webpage so I will paste the relevant part just in case you arent sure on the process and add a few bits that werent just as clear or explicit as I would have liked.

Quote

Set the PC to boot from CD in the BIOS.

When the PC starts it will have a line at the bottom of the screen saying "Press any key to boot from CD"
If you cant find the "any" key, Simon spent two weeks looking for it once :wink: Just hit the space bar

NB. At some stage in the reinstallation the PC will reboot and the same line will appear again, DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING AT THIS STAGE after a few seconds it will boot up and carry on with the installation, if you press a key you will start from stage 1 again and go round in circles

At the Welcome to Setup page, press ENTER to continue.

Press F8 to accept the Windows XP Licensing Agreement.

If an existing Windows XP installation is detected, you are prompted to repair it. Press ESC (do not repair).

All existing partitions and unpartitioned spaces are listed for each physical hard disk. Use the arrow keys to select the partition where you want to delete the partition, and then press D to delete the existing partition.

If you press D to delete an existing partition, you must then press L (or press ENTER, and then press L if it is the System partition) to confirm that you want to delete the partition. Repeat this process for each of the existing partitions that you want to delete, you can delete teh 8mb one but theres no need as it will recreate it anyway.

When all the partitions are deleted, you can then select the resulting unpartitioned space and then press C to create the new partition.

Type the size (in megabytes, or MB) that you want to use for the new partition, and then press ENTER, or just press ENTER to create the partition using the maximum size.

If you want to install Windows XP, use the arrow keys to select the partition you want to install Windows XP on, and then press ENTER.

Select the format option that you want to use for the partition, and then press ENTER. The options are::

* Format the partition by using the NTFS file system (Quick)
* Format the partition by using the FAT file system (Quick)
* Format the partition by using the NTFS file system
* Format the partition by using the FAT file system

I usually use the NTFS quick option as that knocks out the MBR (master boot record) the full takes longer as it scans the hard drive for faults, either will do though.

Then just follow the normal installation procedure as you have already done.

That should see you with a nice new clean installation of XP, ask me if theres anything that youre not sure about.
Dont forget to go back into the BIOS afterwards and set it back to boot from the hard drive as the first boot device

SarahR · « **Reply #55 on:** August 13, 2005, 01:22 »

ok, that seems easy enough. one final thing, which format option do you suggest i use?

Sandra · « **Reply #56 on:** August 13, 2005, 01:26 »

Ah youre getting to be too quick for me Sarah :wink:

I just went and edited my post to add that part

Either NTFS Quick or Full. If you have plenty of time do the full one but the quick one is usually sufficient

SarahR · « **Reply #57 on:** August 13, 2005, 05:55 »

Well i formatted again (couldn't sleep), this time i did it properly, i know this cos my F drive is now a D drive!
My pc froze again after about an hour of being on.
I have the 'DCOM' error twice at the same time:
DCOM got error "The service database is locked. " attempting to start the service BITS with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{4991D34B-80A1-4291-83B6-3328366B9097}

and 2 Tcpip errors earlier on:
TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts.

My pc was fine during the formatting and installing processes, no freezes or anything.

Sandra · « **Reply #58 on:** August 13, 2005, 12:48 »

Was this after you had set the network up and gone on line Sarah ?

I came across this which is exactly the same error message from the event viewer log :

http://blog.thedevins.com/archives/000488.php

So its looking like its something related to your network again :?

Do you use the network for file and printer sharing or just to share the internet connection ?

If you only use it for the internet connection then disable or uninstall all
the networking protocols and then see if it still connects to the internet and works without freezing.

If it wont connect to the net it may need TCP/IP but as I have only just got up my brains not fully in gear at the moment :roll:

Xp connects to the net normally without needing to run the network wizard when its on an ethernet connection to the router but I am not sure which protocols it uses, probably the TCP/IP one :?

SarahR · « **Reply #59 on:** August 14, 2005, 01:51 »

Yes, it was after i'd installed the network when it froze again.
I only use the internet connection, never managed to work out the file sharing malarky!
I did try uninstalling some network protocols but then it came up with the windows error pop up for the wireless adapter and popped up every few seconds! Could you tell me which ones i can safely remove?

No rush, let your brains wake up again, am working a 12 hour shift so won't be back till this time tomorrow, just having a wind down after a hard days work before bed...