Dying OS: Resuscitation?

Anyone know the trick for this one? My OS is dying (or has died?). First it
wouldn't boot properly: It got stuck at various bits such as recognising
that I was using a Microsoft Optical IntelliMouse which uses a perfectly
normal PS2 emulation. The desktop would start up but the mouse wouldn't
work. So I put a PS2 in and the OS started. Then it didn't like my
Microsoft keyboard which admittedly has some relatively advanced functions
like USB sockets which never worked ('cos PCs don't put out enough power to
power them) Then it would boot sometimes. Still getting hung up 50% of the
time when I put the IntelliMouse back in. Then the keyboard would light up
on POST and completely stop taking any commands thereafter. SO I put a more
standard keyboard in.

So then, as it is a Dell with no OS disc, I got sick of all these problems
and put a generic XP install disc in for the purpose and did an SFC
/purgecache followed by a SFC /scannow. (it HAS had autoupdate running) This
ran OK and didn't seem to replace anything (or does it replace everything it
needs to, stealthily?) Then everything started working normally and
reasonably fast (it IS a P4 with 128 meg and a few hard drives on which I
can put a 256 meg swap file)

Now however I cant start it at all: Every start crashes just after the XP
splash screen: The little orange balls zip across the screen under where it
says XP twice and then it crashes to a blank screen. It used to crash to a
cursor but now it doesn't even do that. Safe mode shows the same thing: It
gets as far as the agp440.sys (which is the last entry followed by which it
should go to the splash screen) and stops completely. Same with safe mode
command prompt. Last known good configuration gives me roughly the same as
normal start: A blank black (lit up) screen. Loading defaults into BIOS does
nothing, nor does checking BIOS manually. (this Dimension 8100 does have the
latest BIOS which I loaded a week or so ago)

There is nothing particularly critical on this which would prevent me from
doing a full system recovery, wiping the C partition but I wanted to cure
the problem rather than reinstall and hope it will go away when I have
finished installing all the proper drivers which might actually be causing
this problem. Is there anything in recovery console to deal with this
situation if the generic OS installation disc will let me get there? (it
probably will). Or is there some other trick I can try?

OTHER SYMPTOMS: It would never recognise its Buslink XP drivers for its
external USB drive: The system would find the drivers and then hang
installing them, with the little envelopes flitting from the left folder to
the right one and never installing the drivers. AND it intermittently
decided not to recognise its Archos USB drivers for my MP3 player which
worked sometimes and sometimes not. This was the instant reason for
rebooting into this dead situation: I plugged the Archos drive in and the
system wouldn't see it either as plug and play (which it should have done as
it had been used on this system before) or in the find new hardware wizard.
I should add that the USB drivers for this drive showed up OK in device
manager but I thought the system might see the drive if I reinstalled the
drivers from their unzipped install file.

This system had NAV and no email capabilities so it isn't a trojan or a
virus or malware (one of the last things I was able to do was to run an
updated Spybot and Adaware which found nothing other than the DSO Exploits
and Alexa reg entries which Adaware ALWAYS finds and always deletes).

That is a good idea but it assumes I can get into the OS which is the very
problem I am trying to cu The whole system now freezes just after
loading (?) the last sys file a safe mode boot shows you when in verbose
mode (agp440.sys) and whereas (up until yesterday) I was able to start one
time in four or five, now I cant start this OS at all in any way.

IF I can start with a BartPE or Knoppix CD, where can I find the event
viewer so I can transfer it on Notepad to floppy to put on another computer
to post here? Or what is it called so I can possibly do a search for it?

There is also a probably irrelevant event log kept in the BIOS which told me
about failures to POST, and invalid checksums which didn't seem relevant to
a system which loaded drivers up to the very last one always shown on a
verbose mode start and booted to just past the XP splash screen so I deleted
those entries and restarted. (When it wouldn't start after that, I did try
to look at this entry and it shows empty).

Look in the Application and Systems logs for Event Viewer for persistent
Warning and Error Reports and post copies here.

Well I cant find any DrWatson log files anywhere using BartPE. But I did
find something called eventvwr.msc which I assume is a bit long to post here
(56kb). I saved the SYSTEM bit which is even longer (104kb) . It shows lots
of innocuous entries detailing things like tcp/ip errors but the most recent
of which show some kind of problem with something called sparrow which seems
to have occurred at about the time the computer last wouldn't start which
was early yesterday evening: (but it also shows something occurring this
morning with something which looks significant called W32Time, which is
curious as nothing has happened this morming on this computer at all save
that the verbose message has been hanging there since 5 last night???)

Type Date Time Source Category Event
User Computer
Warning 12/7/2005 6:07:30 AM W32Time None 36
N/A VAIO
Error 12/6/2005 5:02:51 PM sparrow None
4 N/A VAIO
Error 12/6/2005 5:02:44 PM sparrow None
4 N/A VAIO
Information 12/6/2005 4:28:18 PM W32Time None
35 N/A VAIO
Error 12/6/2005 3:51:50 PM sparrow None
4 N/A VAIO
Information 12/6/2005 12:16:25 PM Service Control Manager None 7036
N/A VAIO

There is nothing in the security part and the application part shows nothing
which looks significant (and certainly nothing happening after mid-day
yesterday)

"news.microsoft.com" wrote in message
...
Anyone know the trick for this one? My OS is dying (or has died?).

If you can boot to CD, then do chkdsk c: /r on the boot disk. This HD
is IMO fatally flawed, but chkdsk might allow you to at least make a
backup of the files.

Q

The chkdsk seems to find nothing wrong with this disc (the C drive being one
of four partitions on the HD itself)

"This HD
is IMO fatally flawed, but chkdsk might allow you to at least make a
backup of the files.

Q