Explorer Startup Problem

When I turn my computer on, it boots fine and everything, but when it starts windows and goes to the desktop, that little error box pops up, that tells you theres an error in the program and it's gonna close, the one that asks if you want to send a report of the problem. it says the error is in explorer. this happened once b4 and was fixed by rebooting but thats not working now. so nothing will show up on the desktop, it'll just be empty and i can't click anywhere or do anything.

 

Hit the F8 key early and often beginning imediately at system start. You will see after a time the Advanced Boot Options Menu. Choose Safe Mode. Logon as Administrator. Create a brand new user, Administrator priviliged, with a username not previously used on the computer.

Logoff. Logon as this new user. Is everything OK now? I understand your desktop will be a little empty, but is it completely blank as before, and do you still get an Explorer error?

 

That was the first thing I tried, but when I select Safe Mode it never even makes it to the desktop. Lines of file names show up and stay on the screen forever, just white words on a black screen. heres the first line of the list:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk)partition(2)\Windows\system32\drivers\viaide.sys


whatever that means...

 

That is the driver for your hard disk controller.
But it is the driver(s) that do not appear on your screen that are at issue.

I would do a non-destructive repair of XP. I note that this should get you going again, but the issue could be virus related, or could be hardware related.

http://www.informationweek.com/LP/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897&pgno=1&queryText=

 

i actually think it might be a virus or spyware, i've had problems with that forever cuz i was on a network at college and they had huge virus issues but lately i haven't had the time to manually take them all off (last time it took me about 8 hours), so i've just been taking them off with a program every other day or so but they always come back... so anyway, i read the page saying to run an antivirus or spyware program, but how do i do that when explorer won't open?

btw, thanks for your help

 

Using a second computer with CD burner, you could create a Bart PE disk with antivirus scanners: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder//Default.aspx?kbid=913628