HELP! The mysterious problem.....any ideas?

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

I tried this one, but the system restore is returning an error message and the system info app doesn't run either.

I'm no expert but this doesn't sound good at all. Depending on how well your data is backed up, I'm wondering if it might be easier to consider an OS re-install at this point. It's a pain, considering all of the service packs and apps that need to be re-installed, but sometimes it is worth it just to be back to a nice clean system.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

I'm no expert but this doesn't sound good at all. Depending on how well your data is backed up, I'm wondering if it might be easier to consider an OS re-install at this point. It's a pain, considering all of the service packs and apps that need to be re-installed, but sometimes it is worth it just to be back to a nice clean system.

Actually, there's a less drastic option. Boot from the Windows install CD and hit "r" when it asks if you want to do a repair. That might do the trick (though you should probably make sure you've got copies of photos and other important files, either on Chris's computer, or burn 'em).

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Actually, there's a less drastic option. Boot from the Windows install CD and hit "r" when it asks if you want to do a repair. That might do the trick (though you should probably make sure you've got copies of photos and other important files, either on Chris's computer, or burn 'em).

Good point and definitely worth a try. I haven't always had the best of luck with the repair feature but it's definitely worth trying first. I would consider my advice of an OS re-install to be an absolute last resort.

I'm also probably a bit jaded. I just spent 3 days trying to get a USB port to function on my laptop. After numerous driver downloads, reading pages and pages of technical docs, trying to repair the existing info and basically trying every thing I could think of, I finally said the hell with it and started from scratch. The nice thing is that it fixed the problem and runs smoother than it had in a long time. Had I not done this, I don't know that I ever would have solved the problem.