Blank desktop

This morning I walked into my home office and I had a blue screen saying a major error occurred and physical memory dump was in process. I powered down and tried to reboot...the monitor was completely black, nothing. I turned the computer off the tried to start up this evening. It did boot and all seemed well, then I got the blue screen again. When I try to reboot, I get a completely blank desktop and can not access anything. Prior to this everything had worked fine. When rebooting I get a message that there was a registry error, but it was repaired with a back up...but still just a desktop with no icons or access to any of the software.

 

More details, I am running windows wp sp3. I did go into safe mode and selected a restore point. On reboot it said it was not a valid restore point as there was an improper shutdown. I will pick another point. If all works, do I need to do anything else?

 

On the blank desktop if you hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete does task manager open. Can you click New Task and enter explorer.exe?

 

I managed to do a system restore. The machine then ran a chkdsk scan and it seems to be working for now, I have my full desktop and access to all the programs.

 

I would try running chkdsk using your windows CD. Basically boot off of the CD and when it asks you if you want to press 'r' to boot into the recovery console, do so. Log on to your installation of windows if it asks you to and then enter "chkdsk c: /r" and press enter.

 

well now I can not even boot. It goes through the POST then I get "disk error" press alt, ctl delete to restart". I tried booting from the XP disk....I select the CR rom drive, and nothing happens. I went out an bot Vista, figured I would just upgrade and hopefully that would cure the problems, but I can not get past the "disk error" press alt, ctl delete to restart". I can not even get into safe mode.

 

I take it everything was fine then you rebooted and got the "disc error"? Are you getting the disk error with no discs in the CDROM?

Because things seem so random, I would download the HardDrive Diagnostic utility from the Manufacturer's website and check the HD for errors. Both Western Digital and Seagate/Maxtor have a diagnostic utility that can be downloaded and burnt to a bootable CD. They will check your HD for errors. Do both a quick and long scan.

 

Everything appeared fine but I had to reboot after some software updates and now I can not get past the post screen. I can not get into safe mode. With or without a CD in, I get a "disk read error occurred" "press ctl+alt+del" to restart. When I try to boot off the widows CD, i get hit any key to boot from CD, I get a message that it is check the system, and then it just sits there with a blank screen.

I am guessing that I am looking at buying a new hard drive and doing a fresh install?

 

I can't be sure it is the HD. Try taking out the CD and turning off the PC and letting it sit for a couple of hours then restart. Often a failing Hd will work briefly after given a chance to cool down. If it begins to start Windows after a cooling off period, it is likely the HD.

If that is the case you may be able to copy the data off the HD to a new one.

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Can you give the exact wording of the check system message?

 

I'm sure it is a hard drive problem. To add to what sach2 said:

sometimes at work, when we have a dying hard drive the customer really needs files off of, we stick it in the freezer overnight. This helps keep the chips from heating up for a while and lets us get the files we need off of it.

It is not a permanent solution, but it can help you get some files off. Basically you need to get a new hard drive and load windows on it.

 

Your right, I am sure the HD is toast, well the funny thing is, about a week after I built this computer, WD came out with the 300g 10,000 rpm drive and I wished I had it---well, I guess I will............thanks all

 

Guess that was not so easy. I ordered a new hard drive, the WD Raptor 300gig 10,000 rpm unit. When I started to install Windows XP,,,,,lo and behold,,,,the blue screens started coming up. I did a bit more research and figured maybe it is a memory problem. I am currently running memtest-86. It has only been running about 2 hours and is only showing 14% tested....but under the summary it says there were 172 errors. Under test 1 it shows 80 errors, the line for test 2 seems to be indicating 32766 errors....I assume this constitutes bad memory? Will let it run overnight

 

Your memory needs to be correct 100% of the time. Therefore, I would consider 1 error enough to constitute bad RAM. You may try taking your RAM out and putting it back in to ensure they are getting a good connection with the motherboard. If you are still getting errors after that, find out which stick is bad and replace it.