Another "IRQL NOT LESS...." - non-profit needs help!

Our non-profit was just donated an HP Pavilion. It seemed okay when we got it, but was riddled with viruses, spyware and trojans.

I followed all the instructions in the "do this first" thread in the spyware forum, but now I get the "IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL" blue screen during start-up. It will boot in safe mode, and had networking capability yesterday. Today it won't even connect to our network when I boot in safe mode with networking.

I've started to uninstall all the security patches that the spyware article mentions, but they don't seem to want to uninstall properly. Any ideas? We're stuck, and really need this computer for our youth programs...

 

I have been researching this problem and found that it is narrowed down to drivers not getting there way the only solution is to backup any drivers you have and start going through them one by one updating and checking for errors in device manager it can take some time but I have fixed it a couple times by uninstalling faulty buggy drivers and finding better ones elsewhere on the net goodluck.

 

Before you try anything drastic you could try this:


Boot off a 98SE floppy

at A:> FDISK/MBR

exit Fdisk, remove floppy, restart.

Can't hurt and really worth a try.

 

Problem is that when I boot in safe mode (the only way I can get it working right now), device manager is empty - nothing listed at all. I'm not sure if this is a function of safe mode, or something else that has gone wrong...

 

No it's not a function of Safe Mode, you should still have basic access to Device Manager.

These sort of errors can be difficult to resolve.

If you have the Windows CD, you could install Windows over itself or use System File Checker, but if the CD is available the best option is to do a format and reinstall with only the hardware you require and remove anything else.

 

Turns out the plug and play service was disabled. I turned it back on and it fixed the device manager issue. So I started disabling drivers one by one, starting with the graphics adapter and it induced a new BSOD, one that wouldn't even let me into safe mode. That was also resolved, but now leaves me with another problem, XP hanging up on the Welcome screen:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=58068

 

Do you have the Windows CD?

If so, try the Recovery Console.

As I've said before though, if you do have the CD, I think you are better off removing any surplus hardware, checking existing hardware for XP compatibility and doing a format and install with updated drivers.