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Hey guys, im brand new to this forum, but it looks like an awesome place to find help, learn more, and share your knowledge, so i will most likely be here alot more.
To get to my problem, i recently reformatted a friends eMachine with her factory windows XP disc, after install it reboots, and takes me through the process where you select your time zone, name your computer, etc. After selecting my timezone, i try to give the computer a name, and it freezes.
I have tried the following to resolve this issue, with no luck:
1. skipping the naming. still freezes.
2. using different types of names (alpha numerical, numerical only, alpha only). still freezes.
3. reinstalling windows. still freezes.
3. using a different hard drive that already has windows XP installed. Computer will not accept the drive, a blue screen with an error message flys by (too quick to see anything) and then it goes to the"windows did not start correctly" screen, and no matter what option i try, it will not boot up.I am at a complete loss to why the computer is freezing at the naming process, as i did not think it was that significant. The computers warranty has run out, and calling for assistance is $20, and i dont want to have to charge my friend any more than i have to.
Please help?
"i recently reformatted a friends eMachine with her factory windows XP disc"
To clarrify a bit. This an Emachine restore CD that you are using and not a Microsoft winXP install CD, right?
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
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Someone may have an answer, I don't, so in the meantime here is another way.
formatting eMachine xp
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=formatting+eMachine+xp&btnG=Search&meta=
eMachine xp install
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=eMachine+xp+install&btnG=Search&meta=
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yes this is the eMachine install disc specifically for that computer, not a regular xp install disc.
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You didn't by any chance do some repartitioning of the drive, did you?. If you did, I think it was a bad decision. I suspect that Emachine puts a special small partition on the drive for recovery. That's what most OEM manufacturers do.
If that's not it, I have no idea.Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
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Try killdisk,Just unzip and copy to floppy disk.It is a bootable program.
http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm
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No, i didnt repartition.. i actually wanted to because there was a good bit of spyware and probably a few viruses etc on it, but i couldnt find any option to do it in the setup program that was offered (it was all automatic, didnt really give me any choice).
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Hmmm. I was pretty sure that was the problem. I wonder if someone else did it.
You could boot from a win98 startup floppy, run 'fdisk /status' and see if there is a small partition along with the big one.Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
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"No, i didnt repartition.. i actually wanted to because there was a good bit of spyware"
Just in case you aren't really familiar with partitioning and formatting, the following is a brief explanation.
Partitioning does the basic preparation of the drive. It creates partitions, which are actually logical drives.
Then the drive(s) are formatted, which deletes any data on a drive and prepares it for adding data.Formatting would have taken care of any viruses.
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
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"Formatting would have taken care of any viruses"
Really? I've heard there are some very rare cases of viruses and/or spyware being able to survive a format (very rare cases), and that you should delete/reset the partitions to be 100% sure that you got everything. Dunno.. this was from a computer science professor at college.. He claimed that an extremely smart virus could actually cause the format to not touch a certain part of the drive, and it would survive the format.
Either way, i didn't reset the partition(s) and i still havent found a solution for my problem.
Big thanks to Street1 for the link to the killdisk program, seems very usefull and i may use it in the future when i cant find way to partition a drive normally. Some of the rescue and restore disks just don't offer any option to do it.
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Hi
having just reinstalled an iffy emachine & coincidently used Street1 route to a clean Hdd, (worked fine after that:) was a bizzare virus using a mirc loader, anyway well sorted.
heres another thread having similar issuethough odd answer i ve not heard of before may work for you
http://www.anetforums.com/posts.aspx?ThreadIndex=57309
also check your recovery disk isnt damaged.
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"Really? I've heard there are some very rare cases of viruses and/or spyware being able to survive a format "
That's correct. A virus can be installed in a Master Boot Record. But like you said they are very rare, and like I said earlier, you don't want to repartition an OEM system like Compaq, Dell, etc, because you will lose the ability to recover. If you 'know' a virus is in the MBR, then you should find a fix for it instead of repartitioning. In fact it's always best to find removal instructions for viruses.
There are DOS programs that can detect and remove viruses.
1stepbeyond, are you saying that Emachine does not have a recovery partition on the hard drive? Or did you use a Microsoft install CD to do the recovery?
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
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Hi Ham30
his was a emachine recovery all in one install cd or dvd i cant remember except i was at that point of frantically backing up his data b'cause the pc threw a wobbler every 10 mins or so. actually you have raised me a good point to double check for rec partition as he has other emachines so ill look next time im there.
Can a virus sit in the recovery partition and do its 'stuff' from there?
ty & regards
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Hi 1stepbeyond. Thanks for answering my qusetion.
It's certainly possible. But I seriously doubt that a virus writer would write one specifically to hide in an Emachine's hidden partition. It would take a lot of work to disassemble the Emachine recovery code and then any virus would only affect a limited number of Emachine users.
Do yourself a favor BACKUP!
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Hi Ham30
re above, i checked,,
it was a official emachine 2cd recovery disk set which has a image file approx 700meg .gho file (is this standard?) & driver folders , and no hidden hdd partition.the other pc's came with stock m$ home Ed cd's.
regards
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