[AnnJS]

First off, the BIOS: I found one thing that had to do with ACPI, but I wasn't totally sure if it was the right thing to change or not. It was under "Power Management Setup" and was called "ACPI Suspend Type". It was set to "S1(PowerOn Suspend)" but could be changed to "S3(Suspend To RAM)". Is that what I should change?

As for "Nsvpismal" and "Splsipnia": They don't exist anywhere... The event log doesn't tell me a location where they should be either, just that they couldn't be found.

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Let's leave the BIOS settings as they are for now. Have you got some time to spend on this tonight/today (whichever is appropriate there )?

I think those entries might be "leftovers" of something that has been removed at one time or another...perhaps malware that was partially removed. I'd like to try to rebuild the registry hive and see if that rids your system of them. It might straighten out the other problem, too. No way to know that yet, though.

How has the temperature been running? Somewhere around 30C to 35C would be nice.

wannabe1

[wannabe1]

Let's leave the BIOS settings as they are for now. Have you got some time to spend on this tonight/today (whichever is appropriate there )?

I think those entries might be "leftovers" of something that has been removed at one time or another...perhaps malware that was partially removed. I'd like to try to rebuild the registry hive and see if that rids your system of them. It might straighten out the other problem, too. No way to know that yet, though.

How has the temperature been running? Somewhere around 30C to 35C would be nice.

wannabe1

[AnnJS]

I'll be awake for another 2-3 hours or so before hitting the sack, if that's enough time. If not I can always stay up a bit later than usual, that's no problem!

Aha, I see. I did have a pretty pesky malware a while back actually (which warranted my first post here ), so it wouldn't surprise me if it's something like that.

The temperature has been running pretty consistantly around 20°C for Temp1, but the other entries like HD0 and CPU are around 50-54°C (which sounds awfully hot to me, but I dunno).

Edited by AnnJS, 22 October 2005 - 07:06 PM.

[wannabe1]

Anything 50C or higher is pretty hot. You might want to invest in a can of compressed air and clean the CPU cooler out...that may be part of the problem.

Got your fingers all limbered up? I'm going to give you a bit of typing to do...

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 22 October 2005 - 07:11 PM.

[wannabe1]

Insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer.

Press a key to boot from the CD

When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console. (If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you want to access from the Recovery Console).

When you are prompted to do so, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.

At the Recovery Console command prompt, type the following lines exactly as they are below, pressing ENTER after you type each line:

md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak

delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default

copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default

Type exit to quit Recovery Console. Your computer will restart.

You might print these instructions out!

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 22 October 2005 - 07:16 PM.

[AnnJS]

The CPU cooler, huh... I'll try my best to do that! I've actually never seen cans of compressed air being sold over here, but then again I live in a small town (with one, very small, computer store), so hopefully I'll be able to find that for sale somewhere.

*flexes fingers* Alrighty, I'm off to try that then!

[wannabe1]

I used to get compressed air at an office supply store (Staples), but any place they sell or service computers should have it. I now use a filtered compressor...

[AnnJS]

Ok, I've now finished doing all that. I typed in everything exactly as you said and it went fine, but...

When the computer booted back up, I had a generic Windows wallpaper on my desktop instead of my own custom one and the only icon on it was the trashcan. Once I recovered from the almost-heartattack I had, I quickly checked to see if the harddrive had been deleted or something equally terrifying. But thankfully, everything was still there. However, when I looked at my files I saw that a lot of file extensions (like WinRAR and so forth) didn't seem to show up with the proper icon; almost as if the program wasn't installed! I poked around a bit, and what I think happened, is that my normal user-account was deleted and only the administrator one remains. All the files and programs are still technically here and working, but it's not being recognized. For example, I went into the control panel and clicked the "add/remove programs" and the installed programs list showed up completely blank. Just stuff like that, like how there's no virus program or firewall running right now and oooooohhhh crap I better go see if I can get them running ASAP!

[AnnJS]

Ok never mind what I said about programs still working, since it doesn't apply to my virus program or my firewall (but useless stuff like WinRAR works). I tried to atleast enable to Windows firewall, but it couldn't be started "because of an unidentified problem". So right now I'm completely unprotected

[wannabe1]

Don't panic...You're ok...

Remember the registry we backed up on floppy?

Put the floppy in the drive, open to that file, right click on it and choose merge. Accept the change.

Edited by wannabe1, 22 October 2005 - 08:38 PM.

[wannabe1]

AnnJS...

We didn't take anything off the machine...just changed the registry. The backup will put things back as they were. Let me know how you make out...

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 22 October 2005 - 08:52 PM.

[AnnJS]

I did the merge thing, but it didn't appear to have done anything so I rebooted the computer. And well, some things are back... For example the Windows update icon is back in the tray (the little shield), as well as the icon for Roxio CD burner. A couple of programs are also added to the list that pops up when you click the Start button (although some of them, like the virus program and the firewall, won't work). But that's it, everything else is the same and still only the admin account exists. I tried merging once more, and this time it gave me an error saying "[File Path] could not be imported. All data could not be written to the registry. Some keys are opened by the system or other processes.". So I rebooted the computer in safe mode, hoping that would help, but I got the same error again.

[wannabe1]

Let's look at System Restore...see if you have a restore point say....this morning or last night and try to restore.

[AnnJS]

Phew, that fixed it *wipes sweat from brow* Good idea, I was so stressed out I didn't even think of that myself Although the most recent restore point I had was from the 19th, but what the hey; it fixed it

[wannabe1]

That's why it's so important to back up when you start something like this! Sorry if I caused any panic....

Back to the 19th...that means no SP2? Hmmm got it on cd, too! Do you have a firewall running?

wannabe1