How long does it take to repair Windows?

[bapplebo]

.. by booting from the CD? Mine is apparently stalled at 34 minutes remaining.

On top of that, if it does stall for too long (say 3-5 hours), what is the best course of action to take?

 

[MF29]

Re-try the repairment?
It shouldn't really stall, It depends on if your installation CD is scratched, it could be other reasons that I am not aware of.

 

[bapplebo]

Thanks for reply. I've tried restarting it twice, and it always gets stuck on the same area. Installing Windows > Installing Devices > 34 Minutes Left.

CD is not scratched, but if this doesn't complete overnight (which I will leave it on for), I'm going to find another Windows XP cd.

 

[Pemalite]

If that doesnt work, try installing a copy of XP over your old one, Just dont format. Another option is safe mode and restore! (If you didnt disable it!)

 

[MF29]

Try burning the installation CD to a CD-R and try that.

 

[|Overlord|]

Try burning the installation CD to a CD-R and try that.

You'd be making a copy of a bad cd. If a certain file of the cd is corrupted, then you'd be creating another bad cd, not to mention if the disk has read problems it could have errors all through the copy that carry over to the copied media. Different drives all so have a tendency to be sensitive to scratches, fingerprints and dirt.

After speaking with bapplebo on msn, he said he may go through with a reinstall of windows or a reformat. He has run himself through the repair console and ran chkdsk (Haven't heard anything further from him though as he went offline).

If that doesnt work, try installing a copy of XP over your old one, Just dont format. Another option is safe mode and restore! (If you didnt disable it!)

He said he disabled system restore on msn, so a system restore approach is ruled out.

 

[Fire Phoenix]

.. by booting from the CD? Mine is apparently stalled at 34 minutes remaining.

On top of that, if it does stall for too long (say 3-5 hours), what is the best course of action to take?

Redo it. I've had the same thing happen to me. Shut the computer down and try again, it should fix the problem (worked for me)

Take the CD out, wait for windows to load, press F10 for the system recovery.

 

[bapplebo]

Thanks for the replies. I've decided on reinstalling Windows XP over my current installation, since I probably have too much junk anyway.

Another problem. I'm worried with this message:

"All files, subfolders, user accounts, applications, secuity and desktop settings for that Windows installation will be deleted."

Common sense says that I will not lose data, since I'm not formatting or anything. But can anyone confirm that that message will not make me lose important data (on other partitions).

 

[Killface]

I had this problem when i was installing Windows on my cousins new computer (that i built for him btw). I restarted the install and it still froze... I finally decided to clean the CD and that seemed to work well.

SO, even if the disk appears clean and undamaged, i'd still clean it just to be sure.

 

[bapplebo]

Thanks guys. I installed Windows XP again over the old installation, and its running pretty smoothly.

New issue: My GFX card is crashing randomly. It's not overheating. And it's underclocked (slightly, say about 20-50 mhz per clock).

Any help?

 

[Sandstorm]

What GPU is it, are you using the latest drivers, are you using the latest version of DirectX?

 

[Pemalite]

Try placing the cards speeds back to normal.
And update your drivers! or try the Omdega driver set! (Worked for me in the past!

http://forum.esforces.com/showthread.php?t=66901
And theres a handy utility called CCleaner Thats also helped me fix things with dodgy installs and uninstalls.
When does the problem happen? What happens when it crashes? any artifacts or what not on the screen? Cleaned ya fans in the computer so that your devices can breath?
If theres an error message can you write it down and tell us?

What GPU is it, are you using the latest drivers, are you using the latest version of DirectX?

Well it -shouldnt- matter what version of direct X it is anyway.
Also try going to Start >> Run >> Type: dxdiag
And run the graphics tests. If you see any artifacts let us know. ^.^
You havent done any volt mods? played with any bios settings that you shouldnt have?
If the computer has been running for long periods of time, is the processor and Graphics cards Heatsink very hot to touch?

 

[|Overlord|]

Fyi Bapplebo uses a X600. I agree though with Pemalite, you should clean your pc for dust has it will have an negative effect on you're system's cooling. Would be an idea though to make sure you have got the latest version of DirectX seeing as how you just reformatted (depending if your XP disk also installs SP2 along with it as well). If you have recent drivers but a much older version of DirectX it's a combo for poor performance or issues (also depending on what games you play too).

 

[Sandstorm]

Well it -shouldnt- matter what version of direct X it is anyway.

You are aware that there are unstable versions of DirectX, are you not?

 

[bapplebo]

What GPU?: ATI Radeon x600 PRO
Using Latest Drivers?: No, im using Omega Drivers 3.8.252, which is based off Catalyst 6.6 IIRC
Latest Version of DirectX?: Yes.


When does the problem happen? When I'm playing a fairly recent game, such as NWN2.
What happens when it crashes? I can still move the mouse, and I can still hear the music, but nothing is moving. After say 1 minute of waiting, it reboots automatically.
any artifacts or what not on the screen? Nope.
Cleaned ya fans in the computer so that your devices can breath? Slightly, I suppose I'll do that again later.
If theres an error message can you write it down and tell us? Nope, no error messages.

 

[Sandstorm]

What happens when it crashes? I can still move the mouse, and I can still hear the music, but nothing is moving. After say 1 minute of waiting, it reboots automatically.
any artifacts or what not on the screen? Nope.
Cleaned ya fans in the computer so that your devices can breath? Slightly, I suppose I'll do that again later.
If theres an error message can you write it down and tell us? Nope, no error messages.

Sounds like your GPU may be shot, or overheating. One of my friends, we'll call him Ray for the sake of simplicity, recently had a problem like that. After inspecting his GPU, he noticed one of his fan fins was missing. Further investigation found out where it went: It was lodged a little lower in the heatsink, preventing the blades from spinning. And because of that, his GPU went.

EDIT-- I used to have an old GeForce 5600 card, and it would do pretty much the same thing as it overheated. It tended to overheat, because we changed the heatsink to a liquid cooler. But the liquid cooler was compromised (it had leaks in the base unit, not on the GPU itself), which allowed unwanted additional heat, and so it was insufficient. I would try to play games like ESF, and would get a great 180fps, but as I played, the GPU got hotter. At some point, the GPU would become poorly responsive, 3 to 8 frames per second, and eventually would become unresponsive and just be the same frame.

 

[|Overlord|]

Sounds like your GPU may be shot, or overheating. One of my friends, we'll call him Ray for the sake of simplicity, recently had a problem like that. After inspecting his GPU, he noticed one of his fan fins was missing. Further investigation found out where it went: It was lodged a little lower in the heatsink, preventing the blades from spinning. And because of that, his GPU went.

EDIT-- I used to have an old GeForce 5600 card, and it would do pretty much the same thing as it overheated. It tended to overheat, because we changed the heatsink to a liquid cooler. But the liquid cooler was compromised (it had leaks in the base unit, not on the GPU itself), which allowed unwanted additional heat, and so it was insufficient. I would try to play games like ESF, and would get a great 180fps, but as I played, the GPU got hotter. At some point, the GPU would become poorly responsive, 3 to 8 frames per second, and eventually would become unresponsive and just be the same frame.

Sounds like it was a bad water block or not attached properly .

I'd go get the latest drivers from ATI's wbsite and get rid of the omega drivers for the sake of stability and see if the newer drivers have been tweaked/fixed for certain issues in different games (which you can check buy looking at the release notes).

 

[Sandstorm]

Sounds like it was a bad water block or not attached properly .

Thank you, it was the water block that had a leak in it.

 

[bapplebo]

Overlord: Didn't you say on MSN that newer drivers are for newer cards, and that installing them may do more damage than good?

 

[Kaination]

Actually, there shouldnt be only one driver. Not sure about ATI, but on the Nvidia page, theres a lot of sections like the updates for

Geforce and TNT2
Geforce 8800 Series
Geforce Go 7 series
Quadro
RIVA 128 / 128ZX

I'm not sure how it is on the ATI site but maybe searching for something like that might help. I'm not sure how updating the driver can actually corrupt it.