Trying to prevent reinstalling WinXP
Working on a Dell laptop for a friend of a friend. WinXP takes forever to boot. . . over 3 minutes. Also takes about the same amount of time to shut down. There is no task bar, CTRL+ESC does nothing.
Working on a Dell laptop for a friend of a friend. WinXP takes forever to boot... over 3 minutes. Also takes about the same amount of time to shut down. There is no task bar, CTRL+ESC does nothing. Windows key does nothing. I can get into device manager and only driver missing is display driver. I have downloaded the chipset and wireless and ethernet drivers from Dell and they install but I still have no access to anything. It is WinXP SP2. Have downloaded the ISO of SP3 to install but pretty sure that is not going to fix it. I think he had a virus and had weak AV protection. Would run SFC but can't as I have no start button. Is there another way to run the command prompt? Ran CCleaner and got a few hits but nothing stands out in the registry portion. What is the best way to scan for virus when there is no anti-virus loaded i.e. best portable external scanner? USB seems to be hit or miss as well so something I can write to CD would be better. Any additional info I can provide. I don't want to have to reinstall if I can just recover it but I think I am headed down the new install path.
Participate on our website and join the conversation
This topic is archived. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast.
Responses to this topic
Working on a Dell laptop for a friend of a friend. WinXP takes forever to boot... over 3 minutes. Also takes about the same amount of time to shut down. There is no task bar, CTRL+ESC does nothing. Windows key does nothing. I can get into device manager and only driver missing is display driver. I have downloaded the chipset and wireless and ethernet drivers from Dell and they install but I still have no access to anything. It is WinXP SP2. Have downloaded the ISO of SP3 to install but pretty sure that is not going to fix it. I think he had a virus and had weak AV protection. Would run SFC but can't as I have no start button. Is there another way to run the command prompt? Ran CCleaner and got a few hits but nothing stands out in the registry portion. What is the best way to scan for virus when there is no anti-virus loaded i.e. best portable external scanner? USB seems to be hit or miss as well so something I can write to CD would be better. Any additional info I can provide. I don't want to have to reinstall if I can just recover it but I think I am headed down the new install path.
You should look forward to a reinstall of Windows. It is the best way to go and also it is sometimes quicker than troubleshooting. A reinstall will fix issues that you are not aware of. Make a repair disk and drive image so you don't have to do a complete reinstall next time.
James M Singleton
