"
Sooooo many times Windows updates get blamed for system problems when
in most cases it is not the updates that cause the problem - it is
applying the updates on a system that has some other problem.
You may not know your system has a problem, it could be some out dated
file, a driver, etc. or some malware that you have and everything runs
fine as far as you know. Then you apply some Windows updates, and the
incompatibility becomes immediately apparent - when your system that
was running fine, suddenly malfunctions.
Since the last thing you may remember doing is applying XP updates and
then you have a problem, the blame gets placed on the updates when in
fact, there is some other problem that you don't even know you had.
This just happened a few weeks ago with KB977165 (I'll just pick this
one since it is recent). The updates comes out, it gets applied, most
systems work fine with the update, but there are a lot that have a
BSOD on reboot. Everyone panics and blames MS and says their update
is no good. After a few hours (literally) some smart people discover
that it is not the update - it is applying the update to a system that
already has a botched atapi.sys file from some malware. Using
Recovery Console if you fix you atapi.sys, the update works fine.
Did the update cause the problem? No. Your infected atapi.sys in
combination with the update is the real problem. The update works
just fine on NNN thousands of well maintained systems that do not have
this secret malware. It only causes a BSOD on NNN thousands of other
systems that are infected - because the malware was just sitting there
waiting for an opportunity to strike. If your system was not already
infected in the first place (now it is your fault!) this would not
have happened, so please stop blaming MS.
Now, this ...0071 thing sounds like an incompatible file of some type
and can be complicated - or easy and you have tried some good things,
but I need to work in a comfortable environment and ERD is not it.
Make a bootable Recovery Console CD and start with chkdsk /r on all
your HDDs.
This is not the same as any recovery disks that might have come a
store bought system. If you are not sure, make a bootable XP Recovry
Console CD and be sure.
For each of your hard disks, you should then run:
chkdsk /r
For example, from the Recovery Console prompt, enter:
chkdsk c: /r
You can create a bootable XP Recovery Console CD when no XP media is
available:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic276527.html
For each of your hard disks, you should then run:
chkdsk /r
For example, from the Recovery Console prompt, enter:
chkdsk c: /r
I can't find a screen shot of that error right now, so do this:
If you can only boot in Safe Mode and are seeing a BSOD, choose the
option:
Disable automatic restart on system failure
Then you can see the BSOD when it happens again.
Click File, Save Selected Items and save the information from the
dumps to a text file on your desktop called BSOD.txt. Open BSOD.txt
with a text editor, copy all the text and paste it into your next
reply.
Here are some BSOD blue screen of death examples showing information
you need to provide:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/Windows_XP_BSOD.png
http://techrepublic.com.com/i/tr/downloads/images/bsod_a.jpg
If there is nothing, say there is nothing, but do the best you can -
hopefully a file name is on that screen - I have some ideas but no
examples.
Send the information pointed to with the red arrows (3-4 lines
total). Skip the boring text unless it looks important to you. We
know what a BSOD looks
like, we need to know the other information that is specific to your
BSOD.
There is probably a dump file in c:\windows\minidump. Check and see.
Look at the dates. You need the most recent one(s). Delete or move
all the others so you don't get mixed up. We just want the crash
dumps from this problem.
If you boot in Safe Mode and the system hangs, what is the last thing
on the screen? It is usually the next thing coming after that (that
you can't see) causing the problem, but knowing what comes right
before it is helpful. That is the last thing you see - what is it.
Describe your peripherals - KB., mouse, printer, external HDD etc.
What can you say about the system make and model? If home grown, what
hind of motherboard, etc. Do the best you can.
I don't think you can say there are no corrupt system files. Maybe
you mean you don't think there are any corrupt files or there is no
indication?
Thanks to you and the next poster, Peter Foldes, I have a lot of tasks to
accomplish, and I am grateful for everything you have both provided. I
followed the stuff you gave me awhile back as well, and it seems like I may
be getting closer to a solution the more things I try. I don't have access
to many resources -- I live in the Northwoods.
A couple things that you asked: My system is an HP Pavillion stock OEM XP &
keyboard, MS optical USB mouse (not wireless), 80G hdd. I totally accept the
consensus that it is likely some form of malware is at fault, yet I may have
corrupted something myself by fooling around and tweaking as I also did
prior to the problem along with updating. I am not down on MS about
anything, I just assumed that so many updates at once had the appearance of
a possible cause. It turns out that just before getting your post, I found
the list of updates were installed correctly but used the ERD Wizard to
uninstall them anyway.
The reason I say the system files are not corrupt is that ERD has a
diagnostic/repair scan of system files that comes up No Corrupt System
Files.
I have achieved(?) so far as to be able to boot to the multi-colored WIN XP
logo screen with the sliding blue bars in normal mode lasting several
minutes, but then it goes to the Black Screen, then error. In safemode it
goes straight into one dark scrreen that lists drivers then freezes (the
last one on the list is
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\hotcore3.sys)--
shortly thereafter in any mode the error screen appears.
The error screen says that windows hs been shut down to prevent damage to
the computer. SESSION5_INITIALIZATION_FAILED. "Check to make sure any new
hardware or software is properly installed", (the reason I thought the
immediately preceding updates could be at fault). There have been no
hardware changes. It instructs to disable BIOS memory options such as
caching or shadowing (I have not found these anywhere yet). But then it goes
on to tell me to go into safemode, which fails.
Thanks a heap, I am going to continue with what you gave me as time allows
and hope to get further feedback.
frog
