Re: Lost desktop facility

On 4/24/2009 3:24 PM Tim Med*** "tweaked" on too much Starbucks said:
Rayo,
Please try re-posting in:

microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

....you may well get a better response.

I have had something very similar happen. I've tried the remedies you have suggested to Rayo. No joy. Then I noticed if I pressed CTRL+ALT+DEL to invoke task manager suddenly my task bar came up and the desktop populated with icons. But I wasn't out of the woods. I left task manager up and running, to see if I could identify any trends in behavior. While certain apps behave like a drunken sailor, others run smoothly. The one common denominator is anything connected to desktop, my documents or Windows Explorer. This was making me a little crazy. I used "Check it" and put my entire system through the tests. Everything passed. This is where crazy comes to be useful.

I have a WD IDE 160 G drive where Windows XP SP3 resides plus all my most used apps and data storage. It's not very noisy but there's a sound that any hard drive makes when the actuator arm is moving. It is barely audible. In fact it falls into one of those sounds you really need to listen for to hear. When my system halted with anything involving dialogs or apps that read folders and/or files and display their location the way Windows Explorer does, I got a funny feeling. It's the kind of feeling you get when you quickly have moved from a big city into the country. It's a feeling that something audible is missing.

You can laugh, but I decided to repeat the hard drive tests that passed and listen to my hard drive with a stethoscope. That's what I said, a stethoscope. While running the test where everything passed, the drive had a background wherr...sound. But there was also a lively popping sound. It was not really popping, more like the sound you hear when tiny little seeds or small bits of sand fall onto a slightly resonating surface.

Then since the halting then resuming happens the most when changing from one folder all the way to another parent or root folder... I listened again. At first there was the seeds or sand fall. Then it abruptly stopped. Excluding the background wherrr.... silence. Then I heard amuffled ka-thump, ka-thump sound. This went on for quite a while, maybe 10 seconds or more. At that time Task manager was displaying Explorer_SOMEFOLDER not responding. Exactly when it changed back to Running, I heard the seeds/sands sound again as Explorer moved from Documents and Settings back to My Computer.

It slowly dawned on me. I was hearing "sticktion". If specific drive heads pass over the same spot over and over again it becomes magnetized. Eventually the actuator will not be able to unstick the drive head and you get head crash. The hard drive is DOA.

While my drive is still functioning, I've backed up everything to my backup drive. Only one Folder Read error, it is most likely the sticktion point. Before I run off to buy a new hard drive, I am going to have a friend check things out with more sophisticated and appropriate equipment than a stethoscope. That way I won't spend money on a hard drive if other critical components are about to fail too.

Rayo, before you wipe everything and try to reinstall Windows and everything all over again. Even with data backup, this is a very daunting task. Have your hard drive checked. It may be giving you a warning sign that it is about to fail altogether. Or it may be another component that produces a similar effect. Usually with a video card it may work displaying dos but then when displaying a graphical environment like your desktop, it may freeze. So, if you don't have anyone handy WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Bring your system to a repair shop for a diagnostic. If it turns out it's the hard drive, you can replace that yourself with a little instruction.


It may turn out to be something in the Registry; there is hope. If you have Norton System Works or similar, there is a Registry repair tool. DO NOT USE IT UNLESS YOU KNOW HOW IT WORKS AND WHAT IS SAFE TO DELETE!!! I MEAN IT!!! If you are confident using it go ahead, but be certain that you've activated any undo capabilities first.

As for me, I am almost 100% on the money that my problem is hardware related as there is a pattern to when the ka-thump and when the seeds/sands sounds are heard.

Good luck, there is hope for those who research thoroughly and then move to the next step.



--
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Brian M. Kochera

mailto:brian1951@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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