[GabeD]

Hello everyone, I am working on an older Dell P4 with Win XP which is having some odd problems. First of all, when it loads up there are no desktop icons, only the background picture. I've tried hitting CAD to see what I could see but all that happens is that the hourglass comes on for a second and then goes away. Same thing happens with ctrl-shift-esc. You can not bring up the Task Manager menu. Clicking the right mouse button also does not bring up a menu. I figured that I might try to do a system restore in Safe Mode though when I restart and hit F8 and choose to go to the safe mode, I get the "Safe Mode" text around the outer edges of the screen, but still no desktop icons. I haven't found much in the CMOS which I can play around with, just standard settings options.
As far as I know, this computer was working ok until a few days ago when it started to intermittently have the no desktop icons problem. The user says that the problems seemed to correlate with their virus program, though I am not sure. I have tried all the startup under options under the F8 menu and booting with the XP sys disc to see if any rebuilding could be done though have made no progress. Any suggestions?

Thanks a lot!!

Gabe

[Elvandil]

Can you get the Task Manager in Safe Mode?

[GabeD]

No, Safe Mode acts just like a regular boot and the Cntl-Alt-Del and right mouse button don't do anything.

[Elvandil]

Can you get Safe Mode with command line? You can start System Restore from there.

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

[GabeD]

When I tried to go to the safe mode with the command line it just went back to the normal Windows safe mode, no command prompt.

[StuProg]

Sounds like your OS is pooched.
Sorry, buddy.

[GabeD]

K, thanks for the help, I've been saving the system reinstall as a last resort. ; )

[Elvandil]

Recovery time. Do you have the XP CD or a recovery partition on that machine? A repair would keep all your files and programs. But it really looks like you are infected, so a repair may have variable results.

[GabeD]

We do have the XP system disc. Unfortunately I won't have access to the computer again until tomorrow though.

[Elvandil]

You could try a repair, at least to get access for file recovery.

Repair Installation Instructions
or
How To Run A Repair Install
(How to Repair Windows XP by Installing Over top of Existing Setup)
All you do is boot from the CD. When it asks if you want to repair and to press "R", don't. Continue with the installation just like you were installing for the first time.
You will then get a license agreement and it will ask you to press F8 to agree. Right after that screen, you will see a list of Windows installations that setup found. It will ask if you want to repair it. Read the directions on that page!!!
Then, you will actually press "R" this time and XP will re-install.
When done, you will be back to your familiar desktop with everything looking just like it did before. But all your Windows Updates are gone and you will need to get those again.
If you have any problems booting from CD, set the CD to boot earlier than the hard drive in BIOS setup, or come back for more help. If you don't get the "Repair" option to press the second "R", then your registry is too damaged for a repair and you need to restore an earlier copy of the registry.

[GabeD]

Ok, thanks for your help, I will give it a try tomorrow.

[GabeD]

Hi again, I finally got a chance to do the repair install and for some reason once it got to a certain point it would reset the computer each time automatically and I could not finish the process. I just ended up reformating the computer and with the fresh XP install it seems to be fine now. Guess that was pretty much the only option at that point. Anyway, thanks again for the help.

Gabe

[Elvandil]

Too bad, but I'm glad you got it running. Now, make a backup.

Macrium Reflect

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