!Restored: xp pro troubles after ac 9 install

[aahatimo]

i have been having problems with xp since installing v9 yesterday.
the taskbar / start menu is no longer available. it shows up, but i get the hourglass when mouse pointer is over it. on shutdown, explorer hangs. upon reboot my desktop goes into recovery mode. i uninstalled / reinstalled java thinking that the v9 install did not work correctly. rebooted, same result. i have also uninstalled v9, re booted, same issues. i cannot get to system restore since the start menu is not available.
i left phone message w/ gsus tech support this afternoon, no response. they closed down for the weekend 1 hour later.
now i really am ready to go to a mac!!!
any ideas?

[Anonymous]

The PowerMac G5's ARE pretty cool.

But seriously, I haven't made the move to XP yet, but in Win2K (and NT) I found that repair and recovery options were generally unreliable. Every IT guy I've talked to agreed that the only real fix is to erase the drive and reinstall everything.

While I hope that XP is better, I rather doubt it. Large IT organizations (the guys with the most clout at MS) prefer the simplicity of the initialize and restore process (usually from a standard disk image) than to futz around trying to fix it.

Is there a restore option on the install disk? This might be worth a try, but on my Thinkpad install disks "restore" means erasing everything and restoring the drive to the way it shipped from the factory.

[aahatimo]

thanks for the reply, matthew!
i have been waiting for the next generation powerbook, but it sounds like they may not be out for a while. i guess i have not been using my notebook away from my desk very often and still would have that mobile option available if i went ahead and made the move to a g5. i think i will copy a bit of this post to the hardware area.
back to my troubles i may go a head and install a new networked harddrive i recently purchased, a ximeta 80 gig 7200 rpm 'netdisk'. http://ximeta.com/products/index.php then i can backup my 20gig notebook drive there and do a clean os install. i wish i had one of the hitachi 60 gig 7200 rpm hardrives to install and really update my old notebook but that may have to wait.
i have never tried to do a restore myself. does anyone have any experiances, good or bad, with that supposed alternative to a complete os reinstall. has anyone experianced this issue when installing ac? i have had a few problems before, but nothing like this where ac9 & pm will open, but windows itself is affected?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Matthew wrote:
While I hope that XP is better...

Indeed it is! 😉

Tim,

I hope you haven't already done a clean OS install.

The Repair function of XP does indeed work well ... as does System Restore. Don't resort to a reformat and clean install until you've exhausted those options! If you do, you'll lose ALL of your settings and also have to reinstall all software...

Have you tried Safe Mode yet? If not, reboot your computer, and start tapping the F8 key after the initial BIOS screen and you'll get a boot menu with Safe Mode as one option. Try doing a Restore from there. In fact, you might even try uninstalling AC9 from there first. Hard to believe AC9 caused this, but you never know.

If that fails, insert your original XP install disk and boot from it. (You may have to change BIOS settings or press a key on reboot to boot from CD.)

If your computer was already upgraded to XP SP2 and you do not have an SP2 installation disk (almost nobody does), you may need to create a 'slipstream' cd by following the instructions at this link:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp
I created one last night in less than 30 minutes.

Proceed in the XP menus as if you are going to install. You will come to a point where it notes that you appear to have an XP installation on such and such a partition. It will offer you the option to repair it ("R" key)... If you do that (last resort before reformatting here), it will attempt to update all system files that don't match the installation media. Prior to SP2, I have had success with this on two client computers ... all user settings remained intact and life was normal again. I assume that with a slipstreamed SP2 CD, that the same would be true now if your computer has already been upgraded to SP2.

If this all sounds intimidating, find a local computer guy who understands what I just wrote. 😉

Good luck!

Karl

PS The behavior that you describe seems consistent from my experience with a failing hard disk. Installing AC9 should not cause this kind of behavior. When you have things recovered, or even beforehand in Safe Mode, you should do a complete surface check of your system volume - probably c: (right mouse C: from My Computer/Explorer, Tools tab, click "Check now..." then check "Automatically fix file system errors" AND check "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors".

[aahatimo]

carl,
thanks for your assistance.
i just replied via pm so i would not fill up actalk w/ my troubles.

[Anonymous]

Karl,

Thanks for the updated info. Maybe I'll shut up about Windows for a while until I find and install that XP upgrade I've had kicking around for over a year. I'll just have to figure out how to make it look better (or at least as good as Win2K) the standard XP appearance makes me gag.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Matthew wrote:
Thanks for the updated info. Maybe I'll shut up about Windows for a while until I find and install that XP upgrade I've had kicking around for over a year. I'll just have to figure out how to make it look better (or at least as good as Win2K) the standard XP appearance makes me gag.

No worries. The 'look' of XP is relatively customizable ... and certainly can be made to look like Win 2000 ... down to the logon dialogs/etc if you have XP Pro.

Karl