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A six-month search concluded today, as I have finally found my Windows XP disc. I never thought of looking in the wardrobe before. Hopefully, now I've found this and can restore the critically important missing files, my computer will be able to boot up unassisted by multiple system restores and being hit with a hammer. Windows File Protection is running now, and is hopefully restoring the files that escaped.
I'm going to reset now and see if it's worked. Stay tuned to see if my computer ever starts up again!
Update: Ysy.
So I'd better give some information on how to recover if you ever find yourself in a similar situation - I know that reading other people's experiences with the problem helped me. You can probably stop reading now if you don't want to scare yourself, it's a bit like reading a medical dictionary.
The problem was that Windows would either go through its startup sequence and then freeze without getting off the "Windows XP Home" screen with the scrolly progress bar, or get past it, groan, and reset itself. Looking in the Event Viewer (under Administrative Tools) revealed these two valium-prompting messages.
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine CoCreateInstance. hr = 0x80040206.
The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 8007043C from line 44 of d:\nt_qxp\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemobj.cpp. Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error.
As you might expect, contacting Microsoft Product Support Services to report the error resulted in nothing happening at all and the help system admitting it had no idea what the problem was. So, to Google it was.
Among all the terrifying theories of corrupted memory and overheating components, I found a couple of things that were helpful - the first of these was a suggestion to reinstate the user named "ASP.NET Machine A". It seemed a bit unlikely to me, but I tried it anyway as I remembered deleting it shortly before the problem started (it had inexplicably appeared when I installed my Radeon 9550). This involved reconfiguring .NET again in one easy step:
%systemroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\aspnet_regiis.exe /i
After that, the second suggestion was to use Windows File Protection to see if any of the system files had become corrupted (src /scannow). I am continually amazed by the amount of helpful things that Windows XP provides just in case everything goes a bit wrong. This stage was what involved the use of the CD, and after the aforementioned rifle through my T-shirts, I went back into Event Viewer and found that there were now approximately forty million messages like this one:
Windows File Protection scan found that the system file c:\windows\system32\lz32.dll has a bad signature. This file was restored to the original version to maintain system stability.
I am unsure how that number of files managed to destroy themselves in that space of time, but somehow, after I restarted the computer and retreated from the room to get away from the tension, I returned and found it on the friendly blue login screen again, the first time that it had started correctly since December.
Sorry about vomiting all that DOSness onto your Friends list, but there's a chance that you'll need it one day. In other words, I'm not sure what the problem was, and I don't know what solved it. A career as an IT technician awaits.
I'm going to reset now and see if it's worked. Stay tuned to see if my computer ever starts up again!
Update: Ysy.
So I'd better give some information on how to recover if you ever find yourself in a similar situation - I know that reading other people's experiences with the problem helped me. You can probably stop reading now if you don't want to scare yourself, it's a bit like reading a medical dictionary.
The problem was that Windows would either go through its startup sequence and then freeze without getting off the "Windows XP Home" screen with the scrolly progress bar, or get past it, groan, and reset itself. Looking in the Event Viewer (under Administrative Tools) revealed these two valium-prompting messages.
Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine CoCreateInstance. hr = 0x80040206.
The COM+ Event System detected a bad return code during its internal processing. HRESULT was 8007043C from line 44 of d:\nt_qxp\com\com1x\src\events\tier1\eventsystemobj.cpp. Please contact Microsoft Product Support Services to report this error.
As you might expect, contacting Microsoft Product Support Services to report the error resulted in nothing happening at all and the help system admitting it had no idea what the problem was. So, to Google it was.
Among all the terrifying theories of corrupted memory and overheating components, I found a couple of things that were helpful - the first of these was a suggestion to reinstate the user named "ASP.NET Machine A". It seemed a bit unlikely to me, but I tried it anyway as I remembered deleting it shortly before the problem started (it had inexplicably appeared when I installed my Radeon 9550). This involved reconfiguring .NET again in one easy step:
%systemroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\aspnet_regiis.exe /i
After that, the second suggestion was to use Windows File Protection to see if any of the system files had become corrupted (src /scannow). I am continually amazed by the amount of helpful things that Windows XP provides just in case everything goes a bit wrong. This stage was what involved the use of the CD, and after the aforementioned rifle through my T-shirts, I went back into Event Viewer and found that there were now approximately forty million messages like this one:
Windows File Protection scan found that the system file c:\windows\system32\lz32.dll has a bad signature. This file was restored to the original version to maintain system stability.
I am unsure how that number of files managed to destroy themselves in that space of time, but somehow, after I restarted the computer and retreated from the room to get away from the tension, I returned and found it on the friendly blue login screen again, the first time that it had started correctly since December.
Sorry about vomiting all that DOSness onto your Friends list, but there's a chance that you'll need it one day. In other words, I'm not sure what the problem was, and I don't know what solved it. A career as an IT technician awaits.
