Random Errors (WinXP)

Heya,

I've picked up a few parts from friends recently, including a new motherboard (Model: K7SV266AD Chipset: VIA KT266A&8235; A Syntax Board), a new 80g Western Digital Hard Drive. I formatted the HD and Installed Windows CP Home w/SP2.

The installation worked fine; installed my drivers afterwards. And then I went to install a game, and it started Erroring on me. So I thought it was the game itself. Tried another - Same result. So I began wondering aobut drivers. I went through and made sure every driver was up-to-date. And then when I launched Internet Explorer and went to a website (Skype's Website to be exact) - IE crashed. Didn't even load the website. It did that with a few other random websites; I didn't see any real consistancy there. AND when I download files, half of them won't launch correctly. An error about the file being corrupt appears. This is true with any .exe and .zip file. I figured it was possibly due to a connectivity issue and temp file deal. So I deleted the files from IE's Cache and tried again - no dice. It's really any file at all. Ranging from CCleaner (which I downloaded from this site) to Microsoft Update files.

Another problem is trying to install Java. At one point during the download, it says "Data1.cab is corrupted" etc.

Now, I did get one game to install, but after a few moments, it crashes. I took note of the mentioning of a Kernel32 issue. I'm unaware of why that would cause any problems - then again I'm not extremely literate in these things; thus my asking for help. I've also gathered that it could be some sort of registry issue? But again, I have no idea how to go about setting matters straight.

I'm quite stumped and anyone who could impart a few words of wisdom would be a tremendous help.

Many thanks in advance.

 

Ah..Doh.

Well, I was more worried about a software issue. Is it simply a bad piece of Hardware? Say, for instance, Ram? I've had my suspicions about it actually. Or more of a driver/hardware combination?

Many thanks for the reply, I sincerely appreciate it. =]

 

Have you tried a chkdsk and running the XP recovery console?

 

I've tried checkdisk, no issues.
I'm not real sure on the windowsXP recovery console - In all honesty, I can't navigate it very well..

If you could give any advice in that field, that'd be great as well. =]

 

Boot from your XP CD, make sure your CD drive is higher priority on the boot list (in your bios) than your HDD, otherwise it won't boot it will go straight into windows.

When prompted, press R to start the recovery console. Choose the option to scan your installation for errors and replace any bad files.

You might need to enter your admin password during the process.