Computer Meltdown - Help!

[MightySlacker]

So last week, my computer would lock occasionally, and it wasnt a big deal. However a few days ago, it started locking up during the windows boot screen. That caused me some alarm.

I did all the diagnostics and defragging and cleanup and whatnot, and there was no problems to be had.

Then it refused to boot up, freezing at the windows screen. After about an half-hour, it finally said "error in hal.dll" which is a windows file. I couldnt find my restore disc, but I borrowed a disc from a friend and repaired it. It froze a few times during the boot from the CD< but eventually it kicked in and the computer worked fine....

...until I woke up the next morning, and it was frozen. And refused to boot again. I then decided just to do a full system restore, and went through the process. It seemed to work fine and dandy, and everything was fine las tnight...

...until this morning where it was frozen again. Still freezing during the windows screen, and now it freezes during a system restore.

Some other points that might help:

- It does the memory check thingy at the beginning fine, and recognizes all the drives and keyboards and stuff

- It will not boot in safe mode, and it always seems to get stuck at a file along the lines of "partition(2)/drivers/system32/agp440.dll

- The system restore disc I tried the repair with was a dell windows xp disc, and mine is a compaq

- When I did the full system restore, all my files were still there, it just brought back all the crap the computer had when I bought it

- Comp specs: about 2 years old Compaq Presario, Athalon 2200+, 256 RAM, Windows XP Home, 40GB hard drive, DVD and CD drives, no previous problems, heavy use but light downloading

So the question for YOU is: What's wrong with it, and how do I fix it? Now its been a while since i was competent in computers, but I figured it might be a hard drive problem. If I were to get a new HD, how would I get all my old stuff off the old one? And how would I get XP on it since I dont have my system disc?

I am probably going to need to get a new desktop anyways, since this will take too long and a lot of my business interests are online-dependent. And I also figure with a decent size HD and labor costs, it's be about half of a decent new desktop (like the 299 dell package they have). But if possible, I would like to get my files off my old one, and if it gets repaired I can give it to my little sisters. Thanks for any help in advance.

Dave

[jaykrue]

I'm guessing a corrupted hard drive. You might have a miniscule scratch somewhere on the desk before the hd was installed on the motherboard and it might've been messing up the write procedures. If you have another computer and a hard drive enclosure with a USB connection you can transfer your files that way (but be sure there's enough space on the good computer). Or if you want to map it to another hd exactly how it is, you can 'image' it using any number of programs out there (I use Norton Image). But I think if you do it via enclosure, you'll be able to scrutinize and see if any errors are being transferred (and confirm whether or not it's the hd).

If it's the motherboard, check your video card and see if it didn't come loose in the agp port.

[Theenternal]

Im going to go with possible failed hard drive, or bad memory module. Have any spares, or a friends stuff to swap around and test?

[daschrier]

Check your system temps too....my buddy accidently unplugged his CPU fan and the same thing started happening to him. While this may be a remote possibility, it's also the easiest to diagnose.

[ArthurDigbySellers]

Since the error is referencing the agp440.dll, it sounds like an issue with your video card drivers. Have you upgraded anything to do with your video card lately?

I'm assuming that since it is a Presario that the video card is onboard AGP and that you cannot disable it or remove it? If you could remove/disable (via the BIOS) the AGP card, you might get past that error and actually get into the OS. Your resolution and color depth would most likely be crap, but hey, at least you could use your machine again. If you were interested in troubleshooting further, you could look up the most recent drivers for your vid card and try to install it again.

If you do get past the error, you could connect a USB HD (as suggested above) and copy your data over. Once you got your new machine, you could transfer your data to the new one.

If you do get a new machine and decide to rebuild the old one for your sis, you're either going to have to pony up for a copy of XP or find alternative methods.

[Theenternal]

things going well?

[ITDEFX]

when that happens to me (the agp thing) or i get constaint windows has detected an error bah bah when i start it up (desktop)..it usually fixes it self :| but if I can't get all the way to windows..guess what? I nuke it (reformat the system). With windows xp, i dont have to format often. Actually the last time i formated my system is when I did a complete upgrade (CPU/MB/Video/Memory/Case/etc) and that was sept 2004...been running the install of xp since 2002! Before xp, I would have to reformat/reinstall ME every 3-5 months :(