I have a Dell Precision work station 370 series computer. This use to be in one of my offices along with a Dell power edge server. I had since closed my office down and transfered the comps into my office. The server is in my sons room and has no seen issues. Up until I had the work station in my office, I had no issues. It was sitting for a few months befor it got set up in my home.
After setting it up I was in the process of transfering some things from my HP laptop onto the work station. I was also getting rid of unused or unwanted programs. I then noticed this problem. This is an email I sent my friend who is a network admin or something:
Whats up kid. Quick question. I have my office computer that I had in my office, now in my home office. I set everything up (not networked) and all is cool. I am cleaning up some [bleep] on my comp and transfer [bleep] from one comp to another. When I go to “add/remove programs” through Control Panel, it does not give me the option/tab to remove. Now, I just downloaded a printer program and Mozilla Browser. Those programs I just downloaded I do have the option/tab to remove, but all of the programs that were on the computer previous I have none. I went through administrative tools and could find nothing since I am assuming there is something that is blocking me from the previous setup. Now, I can go into Program Files folder and delete the files there, but when I go back in the Add/remove programs it is still showing on there.
What I did realize is that when I go to the start menu and programs, I click on it and it starts to install it and then said the disk is needed blah blah blah. So, I am assuming that the program is not on the comp, but why still under the add/remove?!?!? The program in question is a dell paint shop program initialed as JASC and this is a dell computer, but why does it do this with all other programs….everything from SmartFTP to Adobe etc.??
It’s weird because I don’t even have half the programs that are on my computer listed in the add/remove list. Its like it populates, but not all. On my laptop I have everything from Yahoo messenger to Microsoft Office and they can all be changed/removed.
Just wanted to tell you one more thing. Even when I went into Regedit.exe and the following path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Uninstall
The only files that were under this folder were the ones I downloaded (HP printer program and its associated programs and Mozilla). Other than that there was nothing.
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This was the first thing I noticed. Then I started to have problems with the computer freezing on me, making me have to pull the plug frequently. I also had a problem with my comp not detecting a USB device or telling me something was wrong with the USB port, but working again after several tries at plugging and unplugging the device again. Another problem that I had (which I might have resolved) was my dell wireless antenae'd driver going out. I would have to keep uninstaling it and then installing it again. It would always have a yellow exclamation next to it in device manager. Finally I just took the disk and reinstalled the driver again and it hasn't given me a problem in the past day.
My IT friend said that it sounded as if something deeper was an issue and that he did not suspect a virus (have run every online scanner, bit defender, spyware programs and run a standing Rising Anti virus and nothing has shown up). He suggested that I try and repair my OS. So I found instructions online on how to proceed. I took the disk that dell supplied to me and I was told to restart my comp. I clicked on the "install XP pro" option and a window popped up that asked either UPGRADE or fresh install. I choose UPGRADE since it would keep my programs. it then proceeded to check the system and then initiate a restart. Once it restarted it would go from the Windows intial screen and then say "checking system configuration". after that I would get an error message on a blue screen saying "setup cannot find a CD ROM drive" followed by other info that if it was a SCSI or something to that afect to proceed in a certain manner. At the bottom it says F3=Quit, but when I hit it nothing happens. The comp is frozen so I have to push the power button to restart. I verified in BIOS that my BOOT sequence had my CD ROM first. Now everytime I go to start my computer I get to the screen that asks which operating system to use.....either XP Pro or XP Pro setup. Its already on setup and if I do not change it fast enough it goes to the CD_ROM error screen.
As i don't have a lot of info on this computer and whatever I did need I backed up on a cd, I do not have a problem wiping out my whole system and starting from scratch. However it seems that I cannot even do that with this latest error. I have tried going into F8 and going to my last known good settings, but everything is still the same. I am about to run Hijack this and then post it on the appropriate thread, but if someone could help me out it would be greatly appreciated.
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