Re: explorer.exe is damned

Kento wrote:
1. Nod32 is the only live scanner. The others only run boot and manual scans, and during the manual scans I make sure to stop Nod3 live. Never more then 1 scanner is running.
2. I have tried last known good config, but that didn't do anything. Safe mode didn't work.
3. My data and programs are shared across two hard drives, adding to 400GB... the largest hard drive other then the two is a mere 20GB, hardly possible. Though I suppose I could reinstall XP on the 20GB and use the two other hard drive as slaves... they're all SATA.
4. I have tried burning liveCDs, but my burning program, MagicISO, gives me errors upon trying to start and burn any CD. The only CD I have available is an old Ubuntu, which doesn't support NTFS read/write.
5. Administrator has a password I do not know... perhaps I have a boot CD around that can find it, though I doubt..

Plus I might menntion, There have been no new downloads, installs or anything of the such for about a week, it was one day it worked, shut down, and the next it didn't....

In order to back up your data, you need more equipment. If you don't want to buy it, take the machine to a local computer professional. This will not be a BigComputerStore/GeekSquad type of place. You don't want to write to NTFS from Linux. You want to use Linux to either burn your data to DVD or to copy the data to an external hard drive. I prefer Knoppix to Ubuntu for rescue work, but that's just me.

Once you've retrieved your data - and please note that you cannot retrieve program installations - you can try and repair your Windows install. Depending on your skill level, you may be able to load a rescue CD such as one built from Bart's PE (a professional computer repair shop will have other rescue tools) to see what is happening and possibly repair it. The alternative is to do a Repair Install of Windows and if that doesn't work, a Clean Install.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install How-To
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows - What you will need on-hand

Why do you not know the Administrator password? Glancing through your previous posts, I don't see where you said whether this is XP Home, Pro, or Media Center although I might have missed it. Here is information about retrieving a missing Administrator password:

In XP Home, boot the computer into Safe Mode. Do this by repeatedly tapping the F8 key as the computer is starting up. This will get you to the right menu. Navigate using your Up arrow key; the mouse will not work here. Once in Safe Mode, you will see the normally hidden Administrator account. The default password is a blank.

In XP Pro, you do not need to go into Safe Mode. At the Welcome Screen, do Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to get the classic Windows logon box. Type in "Administrator" and whatever password you assigned when you set up Windows.

If you reset the built-in Administrator account's password in Home or have Pro and don't remember the password, use NTpasswd to change the built-in Administrator account's password to a blank.

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

If you can't get into the built-in Administrator account or explorer.exe doesn't function correctly, then do the Repair or Clean Install.

I understand that this isn't what you wanted to hear, but without being able to see your machine and perform tests on it, there is nothing else I can suggest. There is no way for me to know why this happened without having the machine in my shop.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
.

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