windows won't load xpsp2 media center (xp/sp2)

[shiryo]

Observed symptom/'behaviors: when I turn on my computer 1) I get the initial HP screen (normal) 2) blank black screen (normal) 3) the windows xp screen w/ the lillte sweep bar (normal). THe initial windows screen does the little sweep bar for 10-14 seconds - 4) then the computer shuts down, restarts (not normal) The computer then loops through behaviors 1-4 for as long as I care to sit there.

What I have tried so far: following the instructions from MS 'window xp : how to fix a computer that won't start" I have ( this order)

1) press f8, select ' last known good configuration ..." I get the same behavior as above.
2) I'd recently (2 weeks ago) installed a sony camcorder - hardware (firewire & usb) & installed software (more about software below) - I removed the cables for the camcorder's base station - (not the ports on the computer) - tried to start computer and got the same behavior as above.
3) press f8, select 'safe mode' - safe mode lists a page of file names all part of win32 then - got the same behavior as above.

Recent changes & observations -
As noted above I installed a sony 'handycam' camcorder - the computer recognized the hardware. I installed one cd of software which seemed to load ok, later I occasionally gor error messages on start up or shutdown saying the software had a missing file - bad install - reinstall - well I never got around to that. Also there was a second cd of software - did not get this to load at all. However, other than these error messages the computer seemd to be working OK.

Interesting stuff from 'taskmanager'
1)svchost.exe - eating 20 -50% of CPU - I'd read some about that this is form a recent MS update.
2)spysweeper - eating 10-50% of CPU - I created a problem ticket with those guys - I haven't seen a resonse from them. However, If I close down spysweeper - it no longer eats cpu.
3)I have a maxtor onetouch backup drive - if you have a scheduled backup that is supposed to occur & the maxtor harddrive is turned off at that time - one of the maxtor programs eats a bunch of cpu.

Other info -
I use pc-cillin for viruses - realtime virus protection is enabled, last sweep for viruses was a little over a week ago. - no problems indicated.

The last things I did before the startup loop happened was:
Loaded pictures from a digital camera, organized them - ran disc cleanup and defrag. Unfortunately, I deleted the 145 picutres from a family vacation from the camera card & had not yet copied them to my maxtor drive.

So I am wondering :
1) Any suspected caused/ proposed solution that I can implement?
2) does this sound like a virus/malware & do I need to take it in for cleanup?
I am not slamming here - (& i'm not sure of the board etiquette here) just an observation and question - last year my daughters computer got a virus - we took the computer to geek squad - while they did clean up the virus, other aspects of their service was not all that I hoped for. So, any opinion about 'data doctors' ?

Any help is most welcome - shiryo

[StuartR]

the best bit of news in your post is that
> I have a maxtor onetouch backup drive
because I have a feeling you're going to be needing that backup.
Have you got an image backup of your system?

What I would suggest is take the disk drive out of this computer and get someone to back up all your data, using a different computer.

Then you can try any or all of the following...
<UL><LI>Rstore your last working backup from that onetouch backup drive
<LI>Boot from a Windows CD and attempt to do a recovery of Windows
<LI>Use the HP recovery partition / CD to recover the system back to its factory state[/list]Once you have a working system again you can restore your data from that backup.

StuartR

[shiryo]

thanks Stuart R -

I did think I was probably going to have to do a recovery.

If you or someone else pleases, a couple of other questions:

1) Does this problem sound like it could be caused from malware? - I'd like to pretty sure that this is not malware, beacuse if it is - I'll take the computer to a computer repair place and let them deal with it, rather than try to do this myself.

2)What is an 'image backup''? Is it other than data files?

3) While I can easily pull the disk drive out of the computer, I do not know how to, or have a friend who does, know how to 'attach' the drive to another computer as a peripherial drive. Also if this is viral, etc. I do not want to infect another computer. Can someone recommend an information source, or tel me, how to 'attach' my c drive to another computer?

4) Almost all of my data is backed up to my maxtor, except my vacation pictures. I deleted them from the SD card after putting them on the c drive, but had not gotten them to the maxtor backup. Are the pics recoverable in some way from the SD card? Please describe the process.

5) If I do a recovery to the factory state - I will lose the install of a lot of software. Some of it is MS, like office 2003, frontpage. Does MS allow you to reinstall. I thought you had to register with them for the software to keep working. Is this correct?
Also I have bought several pieces of software off the internet, Zip, etc. I put the file.exe for these pieces of software out on my maxtor drive. THinking that these were the install files. Is this correct.?

Thanks lots

SHIRYO

[shiryo]

Once again thank you Stuart for all the info.!

I've made plans to have the computer diagnosed & repaired next week.

I'm greatful to learn about 'trueimage' and ghost' and sd card recovery software. I have a compact flash card for my digital slr that came with a peice of recovery software which has helped me before. Always like to have more tools in my pocket.

After my computer is repaired I will add another post to the thread, with intendt that my experience may be helpful to another person.

And yes I put the extracted .exe files not the loaded programs on the maxtor. Silly, I know that won't work.

Have a great day - I'm very happen the web page exists, its a great resource.

ShiRyo

[StuartR]

I'll try to reply to your questions, and hopefully some other people may also contribute suggestions...

> 1) Does this problem sound like it could be caused from malware?
It is possible, but this would not be my first guess. It sounds like some kind of corruption, or incorrect driver versions.

> 2)What is an 'image backup''?
It is a complete backup of the entire disk, created with a tool like TrueImage or Ghost, that can be used to recover when this kind of problem occurs

> Can someone recommend an information source, or tel me, how to 'attach' my c drive to another computer?
I would not feel happy to describe how to do this if you have no experience of opening up computers and moving the parts about, it is too likely to lead to damage. It would be better to find someone who can do this for you. If you let us know what country / state you live in then maybe a lounger from a similar area will be able to recommend somewhere you could take it

> Are the pics recoverable in some way from the SD card?
I think it would be better to try to recover them from the hard drive, but if you haven't used the SD card since deleting the files then you could try one of these tools.

> Does MS allow you to reinstall
This shouldn't be a problem - you may have to phone them to manually activate but they are generally pretty good about this

> I put the file.exe for these pieces of software out on my maxtor drive.
Do you mean the exe files you used to install the software? Or just the programe you run after the installation?

StuartR

[StuartR]

Good luck, do please let us know what happens.

I have edited my previous post to add links for TrueImage and Ghost.

StuartR