Missing/inaccessible grpconv.exe, and others Windows "fun"!

Hello. I rarely ask for computer help, as I tend to be pretty self sufficient in these matters, but this really has me frustrated and its most likely out of my league. The entire thing is a series of events, that may be connected, may be not.

About a year ago a friend asked me to get a system of his, which was having "issues" up and running. I forget what hte problem was, but it didn't take me more than an hour to fix. After a while he donated this system to me. All was going well with it until a power surge during a storm screwed her up pretty bad.

After screwing around with it for awhile, (she wouldn't boot past POST) I finally had the "bright" idea of resetting the CMOS. Which got her right up and on her feet again. The only catch was that the Hard Drive seemed to be fried. But after a reformat, and reinstalling Windows XP (with Win2Flash), she gave me no problems for about half a year or so.

Then a few weeks ago, I booted her up, and was informed that the BIOS had been reset to factory defaults. She couldn't find/load the bootsec, so again I reinstalled WinXP (and again through Win2Flash). And again, for a few weeks she worked well. Though at this point, I decided to never power her down for more than enough time it took to reboot... avoiding the problem maybe, but it worked...until I accidentally forgot and powered her down.

Again the BIOS reset, and again I had to reinstall WINXP, and again through Win2Flash. Only this time I got an error message while finishing up the reinstal (right around device registration):

Mkay...so I click the confirmation button, and she proceeds to instal. Reboots, boots into windows desktop with this message.

The the same error on system32\SSA.exe

After pulling my hair out for days trying to figure out what was up, I finally gave in and decided screw windows. Installed Ubuntu 11.04, which worked fine. But after discovering, after a few days, some of the kinks of the OS, I decided I was still too addicted to windows, and took yet another stab at trying to reinstal.... I'm a glutton for pain really...

Same errors as above.I spent a little time poking around, trying to figure out what is going wrong by experimenting with what I could and couldn't do on this instal. The results of the experiment are as follows.

Spoiler

1: Tried to run notepad.exe (from system32) same cannot access error.
2: Tried running IE from start menu, and system32. Same error.
3: Created a new text file on the desktop (right click -> 'create text file') Worked fine.
4: Repeated #3 in system32 and My Documents. All text files I created I am able to save, edit, load, normally.
5: Created (successfully) a shortcut to desktop to those notepad files.
6: Tried to create a shortcut to NOTEPAD.exe in system32. Failed with same error for rundll32.exe. After confirming error, warning box pops up saying

7: Tried to create a shortcut to IE. Same errors as above.
8:Tried accessing various programs via the Control Panel. Again fail to access.
9: Tried running cmd and msconfig via "Run" in start menu. Same cannot access errors on both accounts.
10: Contemplated the meaning of life. Failed with another cannot access error.

Now my personality, if you couldn't tell by now, is that of stupid persistence. But I'm really have no idea what the heck is going wrong...and if I do give up, I'll just end up coming back to it in a few days anyway... I have perused the internet, looking for anybody with a similar problem, but seem to be unable to find anything useful.

As a side note, with the recent slew of reinstalling, I have fully reformatted every time, trying both the NFTS and FAT32 file systems (for both the flash drive and the hard drive) thinking that this might have something to do with the error, to no avail though.

So... any ideas? Is the system just so screwed it should be made into a paper weight? Or am I just over looking something obvious? Or is god trying to tell me to go Linux?

Thank you in advance.

-Dead Ed

TLDR?

During reinstall, get error Cannot access file, path, device, on grpconv.exe. Once Windows XP boots up, get eh same error on SSA.exe and DPsFnshr.exe. Unable to access most every exe (except notepad but only able to if I right click and create new, and only load them up.) Reinstalled with win2flash.

Spoiler: System Info

Motherboard: Foxconn (not positvive on the model #) Phionox Award Bios 6.00PG
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.4ghz
Hardrive: Western Digital 200gig
Display: Nvidia GForce 6600

 

I haven't replaced the battery yet, though plan to shortly. Though, could a dieing CMOS battery be the underlining cause of the other errors I'm experiencing?

I was talking with a friend last night, and he brought up the idea of registry damage. Now, where as this seems more likely a possibility. But, isn't the windows registry rebuilt every install (unless I'm very very confused, it should be), and I'm not getting any other 'symptoms' that would like point to that.

What about some sort of hard drive failure. Yet again, the same from above apply. There would typically be more symptoms, no?

 

I am having the exact same problem!! Did you ever find a solution??!! I cannot find anyone else with this problem....fingers crossed :confused

 

Sorry gotti240, I got nothing for you.

Eventually I just gave in, and replaced the hard drive and used Windows 7, and gave up on the win2flash. And everything went off without a hitch afterwards.

Its been awhile now, but if I recall I came to the educated guess (mostly just guess) that it was some kind of sector failure.

It still doesn't make much sense to me me though, and the wise old Internet seems not to have any answers either.

Best of Luck


Also:

Prior to picking up a new HD, I discovered that the USB drive I was using had some alzheimer-y issues in the past. If I were you I would start by making sure your installation device, be it cd or flashdrive or llama, is not corrupted or damaged.
-DeadEd