Ant wrote:
On 6/7/2012 3:47 AM PT, Paul typed:

Interesting. It looks like my video card or driver is failing when I
completely disable all of its accelerations without the rare and
random hard crashes. You can read more about it:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33988430 ...

I see they've already suggested a clean install, so you can eliminate
a few software variables.

If you don't have enough disks to do a clean install, what you could
do instead, is find enough room on other disks, to image over your
WinXP setup, then delete it. Then, do your fresh install and test.
When finished, restore the image from some other storage device. I
did that just the other day.

Yeah, the problem is tht it is not easy and quick to reproduce the issue
for clean install testings. I wished there was a live disc or something
to try it without touching my/adding another HDD. Also, I have
disabilities (can't even use a screwdriver) so it is not like I can work
inside my computers.

To back up the existing WinXP image, all you'd need is a Linux CD, plus
enough room to store the image on another drive. You may have enough
hardware in the computer, to do the whole thing. The only difficulty,
is disconnecting drives for safety while doing an OS install. I'm
paranoid about these things, but you don't have to be. So all you need is:

1) WinXP disk (hopefully a small partition, easy to backup)
2) Another disk, a place to make a backup of (1)
3) An OS capable of backing up (1). In a pinch, you can do it right
from WinXP, using Macrium Reflect, and preparing a Macrium Reflect
boot CD for restoration purposes. You'd double check the Macrium Reflect
CD worked, before deleting WinXP :-)

I prefer to use Linux, because I already have a proven collection of liveCDs.
And the "dd" program will back up anything, since it doesn't even
consider the file system type. And since I know I've captured the MBR
(sector 0) plus any partitions I need, I know I've backed up everything.
The only time I've "blown it", was making a math error once when setting
up the block size and block count, to the "dd" command. A little dyslexia,
and your partition is a bit shorter than it's supposed to be :-( Did I mention
being *very* careful ?

4) Your WinXP installer CD, to do the install.

HTH,
Paul