To clarify, don't do the sfc /scannow bit in Safe Mode; it only works in normal mode.
Thanks!
Hi just as a warning the dial a fix ruined my c drive and I had to reinstall my whole c drive. After reinstalling my c drive the ccleaner now works great. I guess I should have backed up all my files and reinstalled my c drive in the first place. Use the dial a fix program with extreme caution. I think its just better to back up the files you need and reinstall your drive. Thank god most of my files were on my d drive so I didn't loose much. I did download the dial a fix form the main site.
Mike
Exactly how did Dial-a-fix "ruin" your C: drive?
Exactly how did Dial-a-fix "ruin" your C: drive?
While I was using it in the middle of the process I got a blue screen with some letters on it but it happened so fast that I couldn't read the message. Then my laptop restarted, when I tried to click on anything most of the programs wouldn't respond and the ones that did couldn't do much. I think it screwed up my registry cause it completely wiped out my system restore so I couldn't restore my system. I tried to back up the files I had on my computer but I couldn't back up any files no matter what I did. I tried copying them to a cd, dvd and even tried backing up my files into an external hard drive and nothing worked. The programs kept crashing and I finally decided to reformat and reinstall my C drive. Since most of my files were in my D drive I decided to only reformat and reinstall my C drive. Thank God it worked and most of my files were saved since they were located on my D drive now I know what my D drive is for lol. Sorry but dial a fix is not for me.
Mike
P:S: I just went to the site on dial a fix and the text was pulled out. The problem that was described on the DJ Lizard site sounds very familiar I guess I'm one of those 5% with the problem.
That sounds a lot like the problem I had.
Blue screens of death and data loss are not among the symtpoms, so you probably had a corrupt registry to begin with. Dial-a-fix can't cope with pre-existing critical problems just like most programs can't, but registering DLLs definitely will not cause blue screens of death. The problematic file was the new mshtml.dll that Microsoft just pushed out in the Optional section of Windows Update. But yeah, it won't cause your system to restart, so you had something much, much worse. The part about System Restore not working (was it just blank?) is part of the symptoms. However, if you had been able to get online from another computer, I could have shown you how to manually revert your registry to a previously working one, but you opted to format instead. Next time, just shoot me an email from whatever computer you can get to, and I'll give you the steps on how to do a manual system restore (which only requires that you have a Windows XP installation CD).
Here's a tip for your new installation: disable automatic restart. Right-click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery Settings > uncheck "Automatically restart".
Next time you get a blue screen of death (and you may soon, if you have an intermittent hardware defect) you'll be able to read the STOP error code so a technician can help you (instead of it auto-rebooting, which was dumb of Microsoft to put in there in the first place). If the error you had was similar to PAGE FAULT IN NONPAGEABLE AREA then it probably was pre-existing registry corruption, which you fixed by formatting/reinstalling.
If it was an intermittent memory failure, then it may not crop back up again for a while (because hardware has the distinct ability to be "slightly defective" and very intermittent).
I recommend doing a memory test now so that you know your new installation is safe too: www.memtest.org
You can download a bootable CD or bootable floppy maker. Boot to memtest86+, and make sure it passes the test at least 5 times.
Anyway, I suspect that it was just a corrupted registry hive and everything will be fine now.
I think it was a corrupted registry. Yea the system restore was blank. Thanks for offering to help but I'm afraid I couldn't have done a manual restore cause I don't have the original copy of windows xp. My laptop was shipped with recovery disks instead I'll never buy a pc without the original windows disk, too many disadvantages.
Is there an i386 folder on your hard drive somewhere?
Start > Run
C:\path-to-i386-folder\winnt32.exe /cmdcons
That should allow you to install recovery console as a boot-time option, so that you can hardcore manual repairs (with guidance from a tech, like me) without needing an install CD
Is there an i386 folder on your hard drive somewhere?
Start > Run
C:\path-to-i386-folder\winnt32.exe /cmdcons
That should allow you to install recovery console as a boot-time option, so that you can hardcore manual repairs (with guidance from a tech, like me) without needing an install CD
I'm afraid I don't have it I even opened up the hidden files and still nothing. Even though everything is good now I would like to be able to repair the registry if I ever had to do it again.
Mike
Hi Mike,
You need, and should have i386 on your computer. I have these...
C:\winxp\i386
C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386
C:\WINDOWS\Help\iis Help\common\i386
Actually, after looking at everything the programme does, it unregisters DLLs, then changes the registry, and then reregisters the DLLs. Were you to have a hardware failure while the DLLs are unregistered, you'd be lucky if the WINDOWS even boots up, because some of those DLLs are essential to WINDOWS. So yeah, the programme didn't actually mess up your hard drive, it just made it very vulnerable while it was fixing it, and you just so happened to have a crash in the meanwhile.