AnnieMS

winxp tab ed sp3 on thinkpad x41 I've had weird behavior on this computer forever but currently I keep having to reinstall applications [firefox 3xes this month] and some functions I can't get to work - like the on-screen keyboard and lenovo's access connections. It seems like critical files are getting corrupted altho I haven't found any of my personal files recently corrupted. At one point I couldn't open disk defrag, device manager or run chkdsk, but running system file checker fixed that - but not the access connections or on-screen keyboard. I have avast 5 prof, malwarebytes free and sypwareblaster and use windows firewall & a router. I recently had to replace the hdd under warranty. Lenovo's toolbox and HD Tune say it's ok. Lenovo's toolbox said memory is also ok. I also ran memtest for 24 hrs to check memory and no errors were found. I keep the hdd defragged and run chkdsk monthly. I ran lenovo's software update and all the critical and important drivers were up to date - that function won't work now and won't reinstall. I followed the pinned clean your computer post and also ran ccleaner, superantispyware and spybot s&d and 2 online scanners - bitdefender and trend micro housecall. All they found were a few tracking cookies. After running all that malware detection could my computer still be infected by something? Do I need to run a hijack this or a rootrepeal scan? Will reinstalling winxp clear any infection? Do I need to erase the drive before reinstalling? Do I only need to worry about scanning the MBR if an infection has been IDed? I'd appreciate any help on determining what I should do at this point.

Thanks dencorso, <br><br><br>Edit<br>I'm going to have to do a reinstall. I found an old [2006] article on making a winxp te install disk using the i386 folder on the thinkpad and a winxp disk. Since my tablet is sp3 and my install disc is sp2 this may not work - then I'll use the lenovo recovery disks. IF I get a good install this time around I can then make a backup w/ partition save.<br>end edit.<br><br><br>I read over the info at the partition saving website, made a bart pe disc w/ partition saving on it and booted from it w/ my ext hdd attached. I found a partition on the ext hdd by trying different drive letters in command prompt until I recognized the folders of one of the partitions on the ext hdd. I wrote down the partition's name when I booted back into windows - from the instructions that's how I'll recognize it in partition saving.<br><br><br>I didn't understand from the instructions exactly how this works. There were some instructions about running partsave.exe within windows to create files and dividing those files into sizes to burn on dvd's - I don't think I need to do that since I'm using the windows version vs the DOS version and I'm not trying to save an ntfs partition onto itself. I don't think I have to mount the ntfs volume on the ext hdd either. I do have to turn CTRL + ALT + DEL off in windows before shutting down and rebooting into bart's pe altho I don't know why. I don't CTRL + ALT + DEL or login when bart's pe loads.<br><br><br> I used the latest version download vs the savepart.cab plug-in download for bart pe. I loaded the folder that savepart installed when given the option building bart's pe and savepart.exe is one of my choices when I browse the run command, so I think it will work. There weren't any instructions on what to do w/ the cab file download. I guess you just point to it when given the option building and bart's pe can extract from cab files?<br><br><br>So do I run partition saving and direct it to that partition on the ext hdd when it gets to the "saving mount" part? It doesn't look from the screen shots that I can direct partsave to a folder, but only to a partition. Will partsave create a file on the partition w/out overwriting the folders/files already there?<br><br><br>I don't know why I'm getting those br's in my posts when I hit the enter key and I don't know how to get rid of them. <br><br><br>Edit: I had to reinstall firefox again - it crashed on opening. Now Word is crashing on opening - but in a continuous loop of crash-automatically reopen-crash so that I have to shut down windows to end the process. It doesn't hang around in task manager long enough for me to end it there. I still can't open the tablet onscreen keyboard and I get numerous messages that acs.exe has crashed on loading windows.<br>I reran malwarebytes and avast scans and nothing was found. I'm rerunning system file checker. I redid the lenovo quick hdd scan from the lenovo recovery partition last week and as it runs it shows sector numbers and says 0 errors so it appears to be checking for bad sectors on the windows partition. The log report I get at the end doesn't say anything, tho. If I didn't watch the scan being done I wouldn't have seen the 0 errors. <br>

I rechecked hitachi and their utilities exclude the C4K60 series. Lenovo support only offers a "quick test" that I've already run both in windows and from the thinkpad's recovery partition [outside windows] I don't think the scan from the recovery partition is a sector by sector scan because it runs too quickly [as per its name] and it doesn't give you a sector by sector report. Maybe it checks sector headers for that 7 that means bad - I don't think so but now that I understand disk image type scans better I can run it again. I think it's the same test as from w/in windows. In which case it runs a funnel test, a random seek test, a surface scan that checks for accurate reading and a surface scan that writes and then reads to check for accuracy. It also checks the SMART status. I just remember it ran quickly and found no problems. <br><br>There's also a firmware update on lenovo that checks the firmware revision number, tells you if you need it and offers to do the update. I haven't run it because the supported model numbers don't match the model number of the new drive. The firmware revision date is 2007 and my drive was replaced in 2010, so theoretically it shouldn't need a firmware update. <br><br>I don't know why the model # changed w/ the new drive. Supposedly per forum posts the only 1.8 drives that fit in the thinkpad x41 are the hitachi travelstar C4K60's. It's a pata drive connected via an adapter to a sata interface. I don't think hitachi still makes the C4K60's and IBM doesn't make drives anymore, so I don't know what hdd I have now exactly. I was guessing maybe lenovo put a C4K60 HDA in a new casing. . Hence my suspicion that the drive could have problems. <br><br>Is there a 3rd party utility that will run a diagnostic sector scan? It doesn't have to be free if it's not too expensive.

I've read the links on disk imaging problems, but I'm going to need to read them again. I've only associated disk images w/ backup cloning programs - not w/ diagnostic uses. But I guess the ability to read the hdd directly at the sector level for troubleshooting purposes lead to backup cloning programs? I've been thinking in terms of diagnostic scans rather than disk imaging. Back in the old FAT days I think it was called a raw scan or low level scan and when the format changed to ntfs that level scan wasn't available for awhile. The purpose of doing one, per my understanding, was to note the number/frequency of bad sectors being hidden as a sign of impending drive failure. In my case it would be sectors going bad corrupting my files, then being hidden by the hdd controller. Is that what I'd be looking for? I'll check the hitachi and lenovo support sites again for a utility. The thinkpad has a Hitachi Travelstar C4K60 and the diagnostic utilities excluded that drive, but things may have changed so I'll recheck. The memtest scan ran for 24+ hours w/ no errors reported. My hdd was replaced under warranty and may well be rebuilt so I think there is a chance it's the culprit. I've also suspected that 1) the lenovo winxp tab ed install is flawed or 2) the "automatic" update processes aren't automatic enough or 3) winxp tab ed itself is a problem. Was winxp tab ed around long enough before it was replaced by vista and then win 7 by those who could afford to for people to determine if it was equivalent to winxp? Was it basically winxp prof w/ a few changes that shouldn't affect its stability? I had 1 winxp prof computer and 1 winxp tab ed computer and the tablet always had way more crashes and error messages than the winxp. If there is no hardware cause for the tablet's problems I will need to do a reinstall, but I don't think it will solve anything unless I do it differently. I checked w/ lenovo support and the tablet isn't hardware compatible w/ win 7 - one video thingie I think. The thinkpad is a neat little tablet - if only it would work.

I plan to run memtest for 24 hrs. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't supposed to configure it to run different tests for that 24 hrs. My windows memory diagnostic is on cd I think. If I can find it I'll try burning it to a dvd. How do you acquire a sector by sector image? Is that a scan that directly scans the hdd so that the bad sectors compensated for and usually hidden by the os or the hdd controller are seen? I checked Hitachi and lenovo for that type of utility but neither had one for my particular hdd that I could find. I've run the same surface scans thru lenovo's toolbox and HD Tune that found the bad sectors on the previous hdd. I've been reading about making an installation disc for winxp tab ed so that I could try a clean install, but the instructions are for sp2. Since my tablet is updated to sp3 I don't think it would work. I might could reinstall to sp2 via recovery options, make the install disc, then do a clean install. Reinstalling from the recovery partition or the recovery discs [iffy w/ my external optical drive] is a mess since it puts the machine back to 2005. I was hoping after the last install to figure out how to do backup cloning of the hdd so that I never had to update both winxp and lenovo's drivers and weed out the bloat again.By the time I got this latest installation to the point where Windows update didn't find any more updates and lenovo's software update didn't list any critical or important updates I started having one problem after another or several problems together. Maybe if I could do a clean install w/ uptodate lenovo drivers and then just have to update winxp, winxp tab ed would work. Tripredacus, I don't know how those br's w/ bracket got in my post. I just started a new paragraph - via the enter key. I wondered what they were when I posted. I'll try not to do whatever I did again.

My external dvd drive is apparently not reading cds, but I burned the iso to a dvd and am running the memory test now. It's been running 13 hours, 10 passes, 0 errors. Do I just let it run for 24 hrs or do I press c and configure it to do a 24 hr test? I did something like that w/ windows memory diagnostic on another computer. I didn't find any instructions on the memtest webpage. What are the scroll lock and unlock options for?<br><br>Also, could these dll problems result from bad usb or firewire connections to an external hdd or an external hdd going bad? Winxp has slowed down/frozen when I've had my ext hdd attached recently and I've had error messages about being unable to write the $mft file to the external hdd drive letter. The dll problems started way before that problem, tho. The same drive attached to my mac hasn't given me any problems yet, but I just read from it when attached to the mac. I copy files to it when it's attached to the tablet pc.<br>

winxp sp3 on thinkpad x41 Today I went to open a pdf and got the message that adobe's core dll hadn't loaded. Repair thru add/remove programs didn't work. The tablet's onscreen keyboard won't open and 2 dll's are listed as faulting modules in event viewer. Access Connections [lenovo software] crashes on startup and lists another faulting module dll. In the last month I've had to reinstall firefox twice, word and paperport each once. Disk defrag wouldn't work but running system file checker fixed that. At one point chkdsk, disk defragger, device manager & I forget what all wouldn't open - again system file checker fixed that and event viewer listed several file replaced by SFC. I've had these "dll problems" since replacing my failing hdd and reinstalling via lenovo's recovery disks. I use avast 5.0 prof which updates itself daily or more often as needed and total scans have been neg. A scan by malwarebytes was also neg. I've used lenovo's toolbox, both inside winxp and from the thinkpad's recovery partition [outside winxp] to scan the cpu, memory, & hdd [including surface scan] and everything checked out. A scan by HD Tune also found no problems w/ the hdd. Any ideas what could be corrupting my dll cache? Or is some winxp function/file damaged?

winxp tab ed sp3 I tried to open device manager today via rclicking my computer and got "run a DLL as an App has encountered a problem etc", rapidly followed by "DrWatson Postmortem Debugger has encountered a problem etc." Both [rundll32 and drwatson] remained running as processes in taskmanager. I also tried opening device manager via the System applet in CP , via run > "devmgmt.msc" and doubleclicking devmgmt.msc in windows/system32. Somewhere in there I got an error message stating "An exception occurred while trying to run "C/windows/system32/shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL "C:\Windows\system32\sysdm.cpl,System" System event viewer has faulting modules irprops.cpl [if that's infrared I have that disabled since I don't use it] & devmgr.dll for rundll32.exe and hang module hungapp. For drwtsn32.exe there's faulting module dbghelp.dll. I can open some .msc's ok - certificates and diskdefrag and event viewer - by doublclicking on their .msc file. Computer management gets me an error message that "MMC has detected an error in a snap-in" and recommends shutting down and restarting mmc. That didn't work. If I choose the option to open keep mmc running and ignore the problem snap-in, computer management opens ok w/ the other snap-ins. I tried the old restart windows, but no go. Googling for rundll exceptions and searching here for rundll hasn't provided anywhere to start. Any suggestions?

Well, honestly, I'm not the cause of my computer problems - except those times I keep working when I'm too tired and do something stupid. That usually involves deleting something [not a system file] I shouldn't and I usually have a backup somewhere. Regarding security, I'm more concerned about the possibility/likelihood of my personal files being accessed or my computer's resources being used w/out my permission than I am about viruses. I'm behind a router, automatic updates is set to notify me and I install all security updates, I only install software from a site vetted by McAfee or Norton, I don't p2p, facebook or visit porn sites. I've always been careful, altho the way even trusted sites get hacked makes me nervous. I do spend most of my time in an administrator account because I end up troubleshooting so much or learning by doing the examples in what I'm reading and the runas trick in a power user acct was never enough - you can't troubleshoot networking problems that way, for one major reason. I always had to log off my other account and into my administrator account and then back again and that got old quick. My power user account mostly sits around waiting for me to get the computer finally working smoothly, which never happens. But since I'm the owner of the computer, it would be nice to be able to use it as an administrator securely, since I am doing administrator things in between my wordprocessing and spreadsheet work. By "working" I mean I want word and paperport to stop crashing and I want to be able to reliably burn bu data cd's [now dvds and dvd dl's]. I want to be able to burn DVD RAM and DVD+'s and use the UDF drag and drop, not pick one method and then hold my breath whenever I go to do a bu. I want my optical drive to stop disappearing from explorer and device manager whenever I run windows media player. I want error messages in event viewer to make sense and I don't want to boot up one morning and suddenly find a blue screen and hours of troubleshooting ahead when there was no warning the day before of any problems or there was a bunch of error messages that led nowhere and problems coming and going that didn't match the error messages. I want to set up networking once and be able to file share between my computers and access the internet. I want a clear explanation of how windows authenticates for file sharing. Since MS insists I use IE for some things, I wish it would stop crashing and not come w/ a long list of security vulnerabilities I have to attempt to plug up even tho I don't use it because it's integrated into windows. When I have to reformat/reinstall I don't want to have to install 60 security updates. MS should have a download available for both win2k and winxp that includes sp4 / sp 3 and all the critical security updates after those sp's. Considering windows tendency not to load itself properly and not to system restore itself reliably, WinPE should have been available to the common peasant windows owner - not just the aristocrats and land owners. Macs aren't for everybody and I've only known a few people who had them. They were 100% happy, however, w/ their choice and they also were actually doing their work or play on their computers while I was spending hours trying to get mine to print or burn a cd or access the internet or etc., etc. For someone w/ time, energy, $ and the ability to gather the necessary info and do the necessary troubleshooting a pc can offer a lot more than a mac, but I'm lacking in all of the above. I'm not sure yet a mac will work for me and I'm hoping if I end up w/ another pc that win7 is really a different animal than win2k or winxp. Or like C-3PO, I'm doomed. I got a computer to give me some necessary help in coping w/ disabilities and my choice of a pc hasn't worked out very well. I am planning on downloading word 2007 and giving it a try - hoping it doesn't crash on my thinkpad. I read it was very different than 2002/2003 [i'd like to stop having to relearn how to do everything for awhile so I can actually just do] and didn't have the customization features I use heavily in word 2003. One reason a mac may not work for me - I don't know how different Word 2004 or Word 2008 for mac is from the word I know and use.

One can view cookies via the Privacy Tab under Tools > Options. I don't know if/how you can view cookies w/ Firefox not open, but I had way too many cookies listed for having just opened the browser, including msfn cookies. So I don't think Firefox is clearing them per my settings. So I cleared them and I had to login to msfn. I tried signing out and it didn't appear that I had so I used Tools > Clear Private Hx and tried again. I got the message I couldn't log out because I was already logged out, but the page changed from one w/ Sign Out under AnnieMS to one w/ the un & pw log in boxes. So I can't really figure out what is going on, but I think it's firefox and not msfn and it looks like I can now log out. I'm going to check cookies when I first open firefox and check firefox support for info on cookies not clearing when set to clear on closing. I looked at Fiddler. 1 GB RAM is "highly recommended" and I've only got 512 MB. Now that I can log out, is there any point in installing and using Fiddler?

Thanks for all the replies, I tried re-seating the memory. Since I've never done it before, I'm not really sure I've done it now. W/ the first one I felt like I reseated it well, but the 2nd one was trickier. I should have just taken that one out since the next "freebie" I can try is removing one dimm. As CoffeeFiend pointed out, I've had a lot of different sx's [sorry symptoms] progressing from a missing hal to beeps. I don't know if they could all be from bad RAM or are symptomatic of a bad mobo or maybe both. I've also wondered about the power supply - I think it's only 125 W. I had 350W when I configured my compuzone computer and I thought 250W was standard. When I plugged the power back in after doing the memory re-seat the computer turned itself on and beeped at me. I could only turn it off by unplugging it which is new. The beeps still sound like 1-3-2 to me, only the first beep sounds like 1 long and 1 short - like it's communicating in Morse code. My decision to buy a mac is based on the two win2k and two winxp computers I've tried to keep working and secure - not just the dell. I really can't afford a mac - and I may actually not be able to afford one once I figure out how much extra the software I'll need will be. But I really need the reliability and security mac's seem to offer. It's true mac's don't offer the options that pc's do - that's the trade off to have the software compatible w/ the OS w/ the hardware. And not being sold in the numbers pcs are, they will be more expensive. Maybe if I'd been able to afford an acer back when I got the first win2k computer.... but the bottom line is that neither win2k nor winxp were the secure OS's promised, programs supposedly win2k/xp compatible constantly crash, and networking mostly doesn't work. If it turns out I can't afford the mac I'll have to try again w/ a new pc - win 7 this time. And my word 2003 won't like it and I don't like what I've read about word 2007.

Thanks cluberti, Yes, I think that's what I need to get - a public PKI. If I'm remembering correctly, you can encrypt email using a public/private key - but then you have to get the private key to anyone to whom you want to send an encrypted email - somehow in a secure manner. I thought the second way was to have a verified signature - thru VeriSign or another method, but maybe I've got the different ways you can get a verified signature confused w/ the different ways you can encrypt email since VeriSign or another authority can be used for both. I was wondering if anyone has actually done this - gotten a verified signature or encrypted their email. Just reading about it can be very different from actually doing it . Currently I'm not using Outlook 'cause it keeps crashing, so it's moot at the moment.

Thanks Tripredacus. But that link led to a thread on forwarding to a private ip and not email encryption. Maybe I copied the wrong link.

Thanks gamehead200, I'm getting tempted to skip the security updates, that's for sure. What I should do next time I have to do a reformat/reinstall of the OS is install Word before updating winxp sp2 and see how word xp runs in winxp without any updates. Then update winxp to sp 3 and see how word xp runs on it w/out updating word. Then update word.

Firefox 3.6.3 w/ NoScript, BetterPrivacy, LinkAlert, WOB & java plug-ins on wink2k sp4 I had the same thing happen to me today - when the logged-in page loaded it immediately went back to the log-in page. Except that I'm posting on the problem of being unable to log out, so after it toggled between log-in and logged-in [without me ever entering un&pw, just clicking the log-in link], I simple clicked on Enter the forums and I was logged in. I've got both reg and flash cookies set to clear on closing firefox. I'm going to try and find where cookies are stored on the hdd or if I can view the cookies thru firefox like I could w/ IE back when I used IE and see if they are really clearing.