Programs hang at boot time

heh.. I DID have it fixed and DID do a GHOST of the drive 3 days ago... then when it was corrupted I tried to restore the image and THAT was corrupted too (bad CRC error). SO even my backup ******* up. That's why I had to reinstall everything a second time (and now it looks like a THIRD time in only 45 days!!). I just can't seem to win... I'm ready to give up on win2000 and stick to win98 until I can afford winXp (went to buy it and it was $300!!).

 

Well if you are going to reinstall once more I can sure help you configure it for security and help verify backups

You cain't blame this all on 2k. 2k is way way more stable than 98 and will take more punishment from Viri and other ill behaved programs before failing. Whatever it did to 2k it would have done more to 98. But Virus's and worms and trojans can damage them all. That is what happend here this time anyway.

Ok!

Let me know?

But in prep for this (if you want to do it) what size is your HD, how many partitions. And do you have Partition Magic.

Mike

 

QUOTE]But in prep for this (if you want to do it) what size is your HD, how many partitions. And do you have Partition Magic.[/QUOTE]

I have 2 hard drives and both are 7.6 GB:

#1 is partitioned:
-C: Win2000 - 1,835.5
-D: Data/Apps - 1,835.5
-E: Data/Apps - 1,835.5
-F: Data/Apps - 1,819.8


#2 is partitioned:
-G: Win98 - 3,412.2
-Linux Boot - 7.8
-Linux Red Hat 7.1 - 3,702.4
-Linux Swap - 203.9

I do have Partition Magic, but why do you ask? I partitioned my drives the way I wanted to/required ages ago, as shown above.


In any event, offf I go to reinstall win2000 and win98 all over again for the 3rd time <sigh>... see you in several hours...

 

Hi Mike

Again sorry late getting back to you! But seems you have it goin on....

Went back to work on Wednesday and now playing catchup. Late getting in last night.

The reason I asked is I didn't know you had partitions at all.

On your backups, you need some way to verify that it is good.. Did you find out why the one you needed was corupted? Was it on a CD or the second HD?

Get a good firewall that watches both directions. I prefer ZoneAlarm 2.6. Yeah I know they have newer but they added some things I don't like and I hear that the newer versions have some problems. If you don't have a router consider that for its natural firewall features.

Since you have both 2K and 98 do not use the same Virus scanner on both so you can get another opinion if you suspect or after one finds something confirm it with the other. I use Etrust (Inoculateit) on my 2k and AVG on the 98. And even a 3rd different scanner in Linux.

I did not think to suggest but this is another reason to install 2K to FAT32. Actually 2 reasons 1. the 98 virus scanner will see drive c: if it is FAT and 2. have a problem like you had where you can not get to CMD or run any thing you would have access from dos/98.

Get MailWasher and use it! Use only Kazaa Lite.

Finally these:
NSClean cleanups and exploit fixes
http://www.nsclean.com/freebies.html
http://nsclean.com/dsostop.html
http://nsclean.com/htastop.html
http://nsclean.com/0click.html
http://nsclean.com/socklock.html
http://nsclean.com/sclean.html

Good luck!

Mike

 

Well, I finally got the system to install and upgrade. BUT another virus tried to sneak its way in "Ratsou.exe" (was classified as a 'downloader/apher) Luckily my virus checker was already installed and stopped/cleaned/removed it. STRANGE that these viruses can hit so quickly, I mean I had JUST reformatted and reinstalled and only went online to apply the win2000 SP3 patch when it was detected. Makes me wonder if the Microsoft site may itself have a virus problem.


I also found a quicker way to allow restoring my boot to win98 instead of having to reinstall it again after the win2000 reinstall (just backup up the req'd system files from my C drive and then just copied them back when I had finished installing win2000 again: then I could boot to win98 as well).

The files I copied/restored were:
autoexec.bat
autoexec.dos
boot.ini
bootlog.prv
bootsect.dos
config.sys
io.sys
msdos.sys

The bootsect.dos held the boot to get back to win98.


I'm about to re-ghost my C: drive BUT this time I'll do a 'check' after to make sure the .GHO image file isn't corrupt (had a bad CRC last time and Ghost couldn't restore/decompress it). That's when all the trouble started again afte trying to restore C from the image.

Sooo... after a week and several reinstalls... let's see what happens next...

Hmmm... what's that rapping... tapping.. tapping at my chamber door?...

 

Found out why my disk image was corrupt every time. I was running Norton Ghost from a dos window instead of from DOS proper. Since I was still in windows the file always had a bad crc when created. Once I booted to dos and ran it from there the image file was ok (did a verify/check on it).

SO, hopefully if I have to restore win2000 I can just do it from the disk image now and not fiddle with all these installs <g>!


One thing left though:

I've got win2000 running with the patches/SPs applied now, BUT on occasion I still get one of two errors on one of two programs:

The programs:
-ntoskrnl.exe
OR
-win32k.sys

The errors:
-page-fault-in-nonpaged-area
OR
-mode-exception-not-handled


It happens at different times and not often, but still happens (once I was browsing in explorer, another time I was opening a folder in the search utility, yet another time I was closing an IE window). I'll get either error on either program. Going to check the MS knowledge base to see if I can find any more details.

 

Hi Mike

See this

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prmd_stp_ccgm.asp

and this

http://www.osr.com/ddk/ddtools/bccodes_4qsn.htm

This can be as simple as a corupted page file or as bad as some bad memory. Or a bad install of some software especially related to antivirus.

I would clear the page file use XpAntiSpy:

http://www.webattack.com/get/xpantispy.shtml

Pretty good help on each selection but do select Clear pagefile at shutdown "

XpAntiSpy and uncheck the clear Pagefile at shutdown, as we only want to clear it once.

Also check for a disk error
command prompt

chkdsk /r

And then you have the virus that hit as soon as you reinstalled? Question is did it do damage before it was fixed.

Mike

 

I ran the pagefile clear and then unchecked it after reboot. I'll see if it seems to help.

I've also gotten these three blue screen errors (once each) at random times. ALL 5 errors have to do with one of the two programs I mentioned before:

Errors:
-fat_file_system
-irql_not_less_or_equal
-bad_pool_caller

I'm wondering if I should run the Win2000 SP3 patch again, in case something was lost?

I haven't installed any new hardware so the first two links you provided don't seem to apply. As for the virus checker, it seems to run fine on win98 and didn't seem to have caused any problems before. Regarding the virus it caught, if it did do any damage how could I possibly know what?

I'm looking up these 3 new errors on MS to see what they represent. I have seen references regarding the first 2 errors that say there are specific fixes but none have been put into a service pack yet (makes me think they are either being ignored, being dealt with on a case by case basis or there MAY be a new SP(4?) for win2000 in the works, although with XP out, maybe not).

 

Well, it seems I crash 15 minutes after reboot every time with one of those errors. I found 3 links that talk how to debug the problem, but they involve messing with the registry to enable the utilities/options which I don't really want to do at this point.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;192486
Modified=20DECB116D0BC30116

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;244617
Modified=202207296D0BC301AE

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;265879
Modified=80AA3A396E0BC301DA

They also talk about the memory pool being mismanaged and that it could be a driver problem. There's also mention of applying the latest SP which I did, but makes me wonder again if maybe it didn't take completely. Think I'll apply it again and see if it helps.

 

Mike - from looking over those three articles, I think I'd try getting new drivers for video, printers, and any other hardware you can think of.

Also check for a bios update.

Install what you find and run the SP one more time.

 

10-4 to Newt

I am beginning to suspect memory. How many sticks do you have? If 2 remove 1 then test if still problem, rotate the other and retest.

If 4 remve 2 still problem, rotate.

Will not hurt to be sure.

As for Newt's suggestion not only the BIOS but the motherboard chipset drivers.

Mike

 

I've installed the most recent video drivers, and my motherboard chipset and BIOS drivers are also the most recent from their web site. As for the RAM, I ran a diagnostic sw on my 2 simms and they are fine (DocMemory).

I've applied the SP3 again and am going to see if it helps. I downloaded the full version because the SP3 provided on the MS website uses the net to install and I kept getting an error on the 'mingliu.ttc' file in the SP that said it couldn't install it (message said to get a copy of the SP that didn't install from the net, which I did).

...and I wait and watch.. again...