[Caracas]

You mean you are logged in, but you see nothing on your desktop?

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hit control-alt-del to bring up taskmanager

under processes, is there an explorer.exe process running?

[gerryf]

hit control-alt-del to bring up taskmanager

under processes, is there an explorer.exe process running?

[trimtran20147]

You mean you are logged in, but you see nothing on your desktop?

Yes, blank desktop. I can log in andout with different users. The Task Manager dont have anything under log in name, no EXPLORER.EXE or anything.

[trimtran20147]

hit control-alt-del to bring up taskmanager

under processes, is there an explorer.exe process running?

No explorer.exe or any thing under the user name.

[gerryf]

from within task manager

File > new task
explorer.exe
<enter>

does your desktop load

[trimtran20147]

from within task manager

File > new task
explorer.exe
<enter>

does your desktop load

it flashes the TASK bar then went away, back to blank desk top

[trimtran20147]

from within task manager

File > new task
explorer.exe
<enter>

does your desktop load

it flashes the TASK bar then went away, back to blank desk top

any other suggestion??

[trimtran20147]

from within task manager

File > new task
explorer.exe
<enter>

does your desktop load

As you can see in the attached picture I can start a DOS windows but the EXPLORER wont work. I can see it show the TASK BAR as soon as I run EXPLORER.EXE but it closes itself right away. I am to a point that I just about to start over. But the DELL XP CD does not allow me to reinstall fresh OS. If you have any suggestion that you think it will work then I will try to repair the desktop. Here are what I have in the PC. 2 HD and 2 CD/DVD DRIVEs. C,D are on one HD. E and F are the CD/DVD drives. G: is the second harddrive also has OS installed on. The G: drive is the OEM 40GB come with DELL, along with the 2 CD drives (of course I replace one of them with the DVDRW/DL 3 days ago and that's where all the trouble begins), and I added 160 GB which is where C: and D:. I just look at the CMOS something is very strange. The Primary MAster it knows the 40 GB but the Primary Slave say OFF and I could not set to drive, it does not know. I dont know what happen here but in WINDOW mode it knows every drive.

Remember when I did the REPAIR option using the XP CD, it shows E:\WINDOWS\. But now in DOS window on the blank desktop it shows G: is where WINDOW dir. resides. Could it be that somehow in the registry it change the drive letter where WINDOWS resides that 's why the desktop is gone?

[Caracas]

Ok, let me get this straight:
When you bought the PC, there was a 40 GB HD attached and 2 CD drives.
3 days ago you changed 1 CD drive with a DVD drive and added a 160 GB HD.

You should check in BIOS:
- your 40GB Dell HD is primary master (and therefore C:\ drive)
- your CD and DVD drives can be a) secondary master (CD) and slave (DVD)
or b) one CD can be primary slave and the other CD/DVD can be secondary master
- your 160GB can be primary slave (a) or secondary slave (b)

you realy need to check the jumpers on your HD's and CD/DVD's

greets

[trimtran20147]

Ok, let me get this straight:
When you bought the PC, there was a 40 GB HD attached and 2 CD drives.
3 days ago you changed 1 CD drive with a DVD drive and added a 160 GB HD.

You should check in BIOS:
- your 40GB Dell HD is primary master (and therefore C:\ drive)
- your CD and DVD drives can be a) secondary master (CD) and slave (DVD)
or b) one CD can be primary slave and the other CD/DVD can be secondary master
- your 160GB can be primary slave (a) or secondary slave (b)

you realy need to check the jumpers on your HD's and CD/DVD's

greets

not quite:

3 days ago I changed the DCRW to DVDRW. All the drives were there before. I added 160BG a long time ago so this got nothing to do with the problem I have. I wsa checking the CMOS and I find it strange how it show in the CMOS. I have changed nothing any jumpers. The jumper on the OEM CDRW was on CS (computer select) and so is my new DVDRW and this is the only thing I exchange. Remember that after theDVDRW put in the PC boot normal. It all screw up when I intsall Roxio 6 and it had to remove ver 5. When it rebooted after removing ver 5 the desktop never comes back and it suppose to come back to complete or to start install ver 6. All I know when I click on SETUP.EXE to run installation of version 6 it asked to remove ver 5 and I clicked YES. When it was done, it asked to reboot to continue with ver 6 and that was it.

[trimtran20147]

Ok, let me get this straight:
When you bought the PC, there was a 40 GB HD attached and 2 CD drives.
3 days ago you changed 1 CD drive with a DVD drive and added a 160 GB HD.

You should check in BIOS:
- your 40GB Dell HD is primary master (and therefore C:\ drive)
- your CD and DVD drives can be a) secondary master (CD) and slave (DVD)
or b) one CD can be primary slave and the other CD/DVD can be secondary master
- your 160GB can be primary slave (a) or secondary slave (b)

you realy need to check the jumpers on your HD's and CD/DVD's

greets

not quite:

3 days ago I changed the DCRW to DVDRW. All the drives were there before. I added 160BG a long time ago so this got nothing to do with the problem I have. I wsa checking the CMOS and I find it strange how it show in the CMOS. I have changed nothing any jumpers. The jumper on the OEM CDRW was on CS (computer select) and so is my new DVDRW and this is the only thing I exchange. Remember that after theDVDRW put in the PC boot normal. It all screw up when I intsall Roxio 6 and it had to remove ver 5. When it rebooted after removing ver 5 the desktop never comes back and it suppose to come back to complete or to start install ver 6. All I know when I click on SETUP.EXE to run installation of version 6 it asked to remove ver 5 and I clicked YES. When it was done, it asked to reboot to continue with ver 6 and that was it.

Additional Note (based on you think the primary master with 40GB should be C: like a normal PC): Please dont take this and try to think this has something to do with the problem I asked for help. Let me tress the point again. I did not changed any thing 3 days ago except replacing the OEM CDRW with my new DVDRW/DL. At this point the PC boot up with no problem. The blank desktop happened when I installed Roxio 6 and it asked to remove Roxio 5 already existed in the system.
Here is the reason the boot drive (Primary MAster 40GB) is not C:\
I think because the CDdrive and the DVD drive are (were and are, I did not changed any of these jumpers) both set on CS not SLAVE or MASTER like in normal configuration. Therefore my 40GB is G: even though it is on Primary IDE and set as MASTER. And the 160GB has two partitions as C and D. I dont understand either but I never set to CS on anything before. So I think it must be the reason why it is.

So here are what I have:
C and D are two partitions from 160GB set as primary slave
E is CDROM drive
F is my new DVDRW/DL
G is the OEM Prmary Master 40GB

Just want you know what it is but I dont think we should worry why the drives labels like this. Because it is like that before the problem occurs.

I still think when Roxio 6 remove ver 5 and reboot the system it must have delete or screw up something in the registry. Dont Microsoft has some program to rebuild the desktop if it corrupts which I think it is.

[trimtran20147]

Ok, let me get this straight:
When you bought the PC, there was a 40 GB HD attached and 2 CD drives.
3 days ago you changed 1 CD drive with a DVD drive and added a 160 GB HD.

You should check in BIOS:
- your 40GB Dell HD is primary master (and therefore C:\ drive)
- your CD and DVD drives can be a) secondary master (CD) and slave (DVD)
or b) one CD can be primary slave and the other CD/DVD can be secondary master
- your 160GB can be primary slave (a) or secondary slave (b)

you realy need to check the jumpers on your HD's and CD/DVD's

greets

not quite:

3 days ago I changed the DCRW to DVDRW. All the drives were there before. I added 160BG a long time ago so this got nothing to do with the problem I have. I wsa checking the CMOS and I find it strange how it show in the CMOS. I have changed nothing any jumpers. The jumper on the OEM CDRW was on CS (computer select) and so is my new DVDRW and this is the only thing I exchange. Remember that after theDVDRW put in the PC boot normal. It all screw up when I intsall Roxio 6 and it had to remove ver 5. When it rebooted after removing ver 5 the desktop never comes back and it suppose to come back to complete or to start install ver 6. All I know when I click on SETUP.EXE to run installation of version 6 it asked to remove ver 5 and I clicked YES. When it was done, it asked to reboot to continue with ver 6 and that was it.

Additional Note (based on you think the primary master with 40GB should be C: like a normal PC): Please dont take this and try to think this has something to do with the problem I asked for help. Let me tress the point again. I did not changed any thing 3 days ago except replacing the OEM CDRW with my new DVDRW/DL. At this point the PC boot up with no problem. The blank desktop happened when I installed Roxio 6 and it asked to remove Roxio 5 already existed in the system.
Here is the reason the boot drive (Primary MAster 40GB) is not C:\
I think because the CDdrive and the DVD drive are (were and are, I did not changed any of these jumpers) both set on CS not SLAVE or MASTER like in normal configuration. Therefore my 40GB is G: even though it is on Primary IDE and set as MASTER. And the 160GB has two partitions as C and D. I dont understand either but I never set to CS on anything before. So I think it must be the reason why it is.

So here are what I have:
C and D are two partitions from 160GB set as primary slave
E is CDROM drive
F is my new DVDRW/DL
G is the OEM Prmary Master 40GB

Just want you know what it is but I dont think we should worry why the drives labels like this. Because it is like that before the problem occurs.

I still think when Roxio 6 remove ver 5 and reboot the system it must have delete or screw up something in the registry. Dont Microsoft has some program to rebuild the desktop if it corrupts which I think it is.

7/13 9:17pm

update: I can get RegEDit up from Task Manager. Why the Explorer still does not work! Is there anything I can look in the Registry???