When ever I try to copy large amounts of data from my server to this machine via my home network, Windows will lock up hard. When I go to reboot, which I have to do by pulling the power plug, Windows XP will not boot again because the OS has become corrupted. I had a harddrive fail a few months ago after this happened...I thought it might be a coincidence, but now that this is starting to happen again I'm afraid of losing my data once more. Of course, I backup frequently now. But daily backups aren't practical for me. What could be causing Windows XP to crash and fail like this? I have an ASUS A7V266E motherboard and an Athlon XP 1.4Ghz processor. I can supply more specs if this would be helpful. Thank you.

This is a very unusual event, most people can manage to copy gigabytes of data without problems. How are you managing this network? How you connect PC-to-PC with a Serial, Parallel, Ethernet Cable or other method? Do you connect through a Hub, Switch or Direct? Do you share an internet connection and is it active?

i think I've seen this before, does your motherboard have two (or more) ide channels and one of them is faster than the other?? UDMA 100 and a UDMA 66? if so, try running your hdd off the udma 66 channel. i maybe way off, but this rings a bell. Also you could try setting your network card link speed to 100mbps half duplex. This is better than 100 full anywya.

I am using a Linksys router to connect everything.

I don't have a solution, but I am having the exact same problem - although I was not using a network to copy files. I have an EPOX motherboard and an Athlon 1.0Ghz processor. I can supply more specs if this would be helpful. I was trying to copy large files (18G) from one HD to another. Both hard disks are connected to my mother board. In my case, a few minutes into the copy, the screen went blank, and the HD stoped. There was no way to restore. So I pulled the plug and attempted to re-boot. No luck. Now, Windows XP will not start. I have tried to restart many times. At first, I could get to a menu that asked how to restart - safe mode, from last know good config, or Normal start-up, etc. Regardless of my selection, the computer hung. Now, I can not seem to restart the computer at all. All I get when I turn the power on is a blank screen. Please can somebody tell me what to do to restore my system. help!