I'm about to throw my dad's PC up the garden...

cheese_dave

cheese_dave

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Not content with keeping from me a potential antique straight razor, my dad has added insult to injury by asking me to have a look at his somewhat cake-holed PC. I think a hardware error has occurred on it, possibly memory. I've done my usual recovery options (low level HDD scan, replacing system files from those in the windows\repair directory, etc... I'm no n00b at this), but no joy. At the moment I'm trying to do a Windows XP repair from the Windows CD. I've tried two different LEGAL copies of XP, and three different CD drives, and I'm still getting "setup cannot copy the file... blah", where "blah" is a different file every time. I've scoured the interweb for days and found nothing. I'd do a reformat and reinstall (I've managed to back all his data off to an external drive), but I have no confidence that that would work if I'm getting those sort of copy errors.

This is all a bit low level PC support I know, but everyone's been such a help with the shaving side of things that I thought I'd throw this one out to see if anyone's seen such a thing before.
 
I have not seen these woes for a while so my help is somewhat limited.

firs point if you are having this many issues, then definatly do a fresh reinstall from a fresh copy. Give up on the repairs it wont work.

It does sound though like hardware, it could be any of the following memory processor of motherboard.

First stop get yourself a CD called ultimate boot disk.. google will stick you in the correct direction.

There really can be a million issuesto this, but I would start with a full memory test using the UBD I mentioned above then move onto a full fresh install using a original CD. then afer that you have to start thinking of bigger issues.
 
Thanks Millay. UBD is indeed a top utility disc, and I've used it in the past with great success. It's not been able to do much with this monster though, and I think that's because, as you suggest, it's a fairly low-level hardware issue. I'm not encouraged by the fact that my dad bought this PC from someone he refers to as "The Chinaman". I think, once I've burned a DVD of the data I've extracted onto my external hard drive, I'll suggest my dad returns this thing to The Chinaman for repair. After, of course, I've removed all evidence of my tamperings... (don't worry, it was long out of guarantee).
 
Just running MEMTEST-86 (dunno why I didn't think to do this before - maybe I am a n00b after all), and the screen's all red and we're up to 430,000 errors and counting. Think I might just be paying a visit to Mr. Crucial...
 
cheese_dave said:
Not content with keeping from me a potential antique straight razor, my dad has added insult to injury by asking me to have a look at his somewhat cake-holed PC. I think a hardware error has occurred on it, possibly memory. I've done my usual recovery options (low level HDD scan, replacing system files from those in the windows\repair directory, etc... I'm no n00b at this), but no joy. At the moment I'm trying to do a Windows XP repair from the Windows CD. I've tried two different LEGAL copies of XP, and three different CD drives, and I'm still getting "setup cannot copy the file... blah", where "blah" is a different file every time. I've scoured the interweb for days and found nothing. I'd do a reformat and reinstall (I've managed to back all his data off to an external drive), but I have no confidence that that would work if I'm getting those sort of copy errors.

This is all a bit low level PC support I know, but everyone's been such a help with the shaving side of things that I thought I'd throw this one out to see if anyone's seen such a thing before.
Click to expand...

Last time i had a problem exactly like that, it turned out to be a slightly cranky hard drive, after i replaced it, windows installed fine, but if you are getting errors from memtest it could be the RAM. but if it's always stopping on the part where it's copying the files from the XP disc and not stopping at other places i would not have thought so.

Normally if the RAM is dodgy, then a general sign of that is if the computer stops dead and totaly freezes up during normal use, was it freezing up on your dad before you tried to help and reinstall XP ?

bet it's your hard drive !

Steve
 
cheese_dave said:
Just running MEMTEST-86 (dunno why I didn't think to do this before - maybe I am a n00b after all), and the screen's all red and we're up to 430,000 errors and counting. Think I might just be paying a visit to Mr. Crucial...
Click to expand...

Yea sounds like a momeory problem to me, thats my fav app on UBD.

If there are two sticks of ram (not common in modern computers) whip each one out in turn and see if its one or both that are up the swanny.

But RAM is cheap nowadays so yes Mr Crucial is probably a better bet than Mr Chinaman
 
If you wanna give the harddrive a good going over then spinrite is your app.

Im quite happy to think its just memory, a reinistaltion of XP involves lots of writes and reads of data between memory DVD and HD so fS style errors can be caused by the dodgy RAM.
 
My dad's description of the original failure leaves a lot to be desired. He tends to use incorrect terminology when referring to what's going on with his PC, talking of such things as "rubbing out" (deleting a file OR clicking on an option to make it go away), and "bugs" (generally viruses), so it's hard to know exactly what went wrong in the first place. He talked about blank screens and requests for passwords that he's never had before, etc. I brought it home and I've had BSODs and repetitive reboots and all sorts of craziness with it.

I've run chkdsk and its many variants a number of times on the HDD, plus done a full scan of it with one of the utilities on UBD. It's one of those things where you start off trying to get it all back in the least destructive (and expensive!) manner possible. I've seen crashes of various types over the years, and built a number of computers for myself and other people, so I know the sort of things that can go wrong. This one smacks of randomness. My gut feel is that a hard disc failure would be more consistent than this. There's only one memory stick in the case. 512GB for WinXP, bleh. I checked in my spares box but there was nowt. 1GB of the correct memory from Crucial is £30, I think that's a fair starting point, so I've ordered it. If that doesn't cure it I'll look at a new hard disc I promise. After that we're probably talking a motherboard failure, and since I've just had my wife's laptop motherboard fail, I would say that by the laws of chance I wouldn't get another within a week.

Thanks for all your advice and tips, guys. This forum rocks bells, from food to computers to shaving and beyond.
 
Well, 1GB of new mem arrived today, enabled me to copy all the necessary files off the WinXP CD Rom and progress onto... the next part of the recovery that doesn't work :x
 
Are you using a recovery console? this is probabldy due to the fact that it buggered up during the process so many other times.

drop to the recover console and type chkdsk /r to repair all system files and see if you can boot the OS after that

Otherwise it might be time to back up the files and reformat im afraid.
 
You are of course right, a windows box does like a full re-install preiodically, its getting less of an issue with Vista and 7 but XP can be like getting a new computer.
 
If it was my PC I'd have reformatted the smegger by now. But it's my dad's, and I don't know how he has it set up, so recovery to a point in time and getting it back to him how it was when it jiggered (or just before it jiggered, actually) is my preferred option.

I've been using the recovery console to drag files back from windows\repair, then tricking it into booting so that I can go into the System Volume Information directory and heave registry stuff back from there. At the moment, though, once I've done that it reboots and tells me I need to activate Windows. "Activate away!" I say gleefully, knowing full well that I'm using a legal OS and not some johnny knocked-up copy. "Activate?" it says back. "How can I when I can't connect to the internet?".

It won't let me get to a Start menu so that I can fiddle with my LAN connection settings. Nor will it let me boot in Safe Mode when Windows isn't activated. There is an option to activate by telephone but... but that would mean talking to a real person... I mean, where's the fun in that?
 
cheese_dave said:
There is an option to activate by telephone but... but that would mean talking to a real person... I mean, where's the fun in that?
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I've done this in the past, don't worry it's all pre-recorded automated menu bollocks, not a real person in sight :D
 
Stitch306 said:
cheese_dave said:
There is an option to activate by telephone but... but that would mean talking to a real person... I mean, where's the fun in that?
Click to expand...

I've done this in the past, don't worry it's all pre-recorded automated menu bollocks, not a real person in sight :D
Click to expand...

This man is quite correct, its all automated, and very more that often unless you are using a really dodgey key will give you the activation code. There reason being that if you are happy enough to phone up then you must be using a good key.

Twice i have spoken to an operator, basically because we were using a shared key. and still its all been good.

just make the call the worse they can say is no..


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