In safe mode, remove your video card & sound card drivers. Then, there will be a chance of your system booting normally.
If not, try resetting your bios settings to a safe state. I'm glad that my system has Win2K installed twice, booting the second basic Win2K & backing up & copying the system & software files from the main booting Win2K makes (not possible any other way) backups/restores/unrestores a breeze. It's too bloody bad that this capability is blocked in WinXP. ____________ Brian Guralnick [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2003 6:23 AM Subject: [PEDA] Roxio, Nero, Virii and crashes > HELP!!! In attempting to uninstall DirectCD, I've gotten my system into a > state where it won't boot! Sorry if I'm off-topic, but I'm desperate and > these lists are the best resource I've found for help. Others may save > themselves much grief by learning from my experience. I'm cross-posting to > the DXP list as well. > > My recent queries on the web encouraged me to buy Ahead Nero to replace > Roxio's DirectCD. Thus far, that advice still seems to have been good - Nero > is far superior to DirectCD, and far more stable. > > I had them both installed and peacefully coexisting. On advice that I should > not have two CD burner packages installed, and the realization that I'd never > use DirectCD again, I uninstalled DirectCD. I've since learned that Roxio's > DirectCD is in and of itself the worst virus infection I've ever seen. It > won't uninstall cleanly, their "tech support" is no help, and now my system > won't boot. When I boot into Windows 2000 Pro, it appears to boot normally. > In searching the web I've found that many others have come to similar grief, > but no solutions to my specific problem. First sign of trouble is that while > my auto-start apps are still getting settled in, a box appears saying > "Preparing to install...." with no appname. Its cancel button does nothing. > About ten seconds later, the box goes away - and then comes back. Total of > about 6 times or so, and then the system does a normal shutdown and reboots > Again, and again, and again. > > I've killed almost a full day on this so far, with no end in sight. > Spelunking in the registry finds many hundreds of entries sprinkled all over > the place, referring to Roxio, DirectCD, etc. I spent a couple hours deleting > absolutely every registry entry which looked remotely related. This was only > a "crippleware" version of DirectCD that could just barely write a data CD; > any other operation took me automatically to Roxio's website to buy the full > version. Thus I'm not only pretty ticked at Roxio, but also at Dell. Dell > preinstalled this on the machine, and the sales pitch implied I was getting > the full version. Thus I consider this to be bait-and-switch, plain and > simple. So Dell is now on my blacklist too (it wouldn't have taken much after > their fiasco with proprietary power supplies, but that's another whole story). > > I've tried unplugging the CD drive and rebooting, unplugging all the USB > peripherals on the theory that something there is trying to install, etc., > all to no avail. I've already run the Win2K Repair from the CD; no joy there > either. So I'm getting ready to reinstall Win2K, and cringing at the thought > of all the drivers etc. that I'll need to set up again. > > There is a slim chance that this might have been precipitated by a virus > other than Roxio, because one of my clients had a particularly nasty virus > infection last week. But I haven't downloaded any executables from them, and > I'm well-guarded against other forms such as macros. And the problem showed > up right after I ran Ahead's driver clean utility. > > My best guess at present is that Roxio left something around which now > detects that the rest isn't installed, and it's trying to repair the > installation. But that's only a guess. > > I can get to the Windows recovery console, and also to Safe mode. but haven't > had any luck repairing things that way. Any and all tips gratefully accepted!! > > Steve Hendrix > > * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
