Crap!

[Imogene]

After ten or so years, I fear my computer may have finally bitten it. It can't even get to the login screen any more. Sadly, there was no preamble to its sudden departure. Every time I try to boot up now, it gives me an error that winlogon.exe can't access the memory. I reseated the memory and RAM, and no change. I can't even get the thing to log into safe mode.
The sad part is, I just got a test from a prospective employer for my 3D modeling skills, and I was going to do some work to prove my skills this weekend. I apparently no longer have the disc I had 3Ds on, and I can't find my XP disc, either.
Any thoughts?

[Broomjockey]

Moved this to tech help.
As for the problem, sounds like your hard drive might be in trouble. It passes POST, right? Gives a little beep while booting up, then continues on to XP? Only now it isn't continuing on. The only thing I can suggest is if you can burn a CD and change your computer to boot off CDs is get a Linux LiveCD to test if it's the hard drive or not. If it boots from the CD, you're going to need to either get a new hard drive or get your hands on an XP Cd, probably both.

[Imogene]

Oops, didn't realize there is a section for this sort of thing.
And, yes, it passes post, I got the beep, it just doesn't get to the logon screen.

[Broomjockey]

yeah, then it really sounds like a hard drive issue.

[Imogene]

Hurray, and here I am with absolutely no way to buy a new one... Have a job that hasn't called me back to put me on the schedule yet, I've had a few random interviews... waiting for the results of my disability physical... no credit left, no money.
Note to self: New computer once I am stable enough to buy one.

[draggar]

delloutlet.com can be your friend.

[Imogene]

Let me rephrase, Draggar, currently, the only money I have is a single dollar in my wallet, and random change waiting to be sorted on my dresser (once I get the damn coin roller working). I have no money to buy a computer at the moment, and no job to get money, though I did get 'hired' by a store I have now had three interviews with. They're just waiting for my application to go through, as I understand it.

[Pedersen]

Unable to access memory?

Could be a few things. Depends on which memory it's trying to access, and what, actually, is doing the accessing.

First off, I'd get a malware scan or three done. Make sure to use the full scan settings. You'll probably have to do it from safe mode, though.

Now, if that shows nothing, I'd try a tool called memtest86. It can tell if the memory is bad, basically by stress testing the memory to find out if some of it is bad. If some of it is, you might be able to remove a stick of ram to get by for a little bit.

Finally, if it is the hard drive, being unable to access the memory would mean it's trying to use the windows paging file. Turn off virtual memory, reboot the computer, run a full scandisk and defrag (probably have to do so in safe mode), and then finally reenable virtual memory. This should move the paging file to a different section of the disk, which should fix it. Again, all of this would have to be run from safe mode, most likely.

To quote from http://jasonkneen.blogspot.com/2006/...al-memory.html:

You don't how to turn off the paging file? In Windows it's just right click on My Computer, then click Advanced, then Settings under Performance, click advanced tab and then CHANGE next to virtual memory.

Select the drive that says it has a paging file and select NO PAGING file then click SET. OK everything and reboot and you're done!

Note, if it is a hard drive, you must replace it as soon as possible. The trick outlined here will just buy you some time. Tech speak mode:

Your drive is organized into what are called blocks (high level view, you can get lower and look at cylinders, sectors, platters, etc). These blocks are places to store data. Every drive has some extra blocks that they do not report to the operating system, and the drive has what is called a "bad blocks map". Basically, if a block is detected as going bad, the drive marks that block as "do not use", and uses one of the hidden blocks to replace it. The problem comes if a file is residing on one of those bad blocks. Then the drive sees it is in use, and unable to mark it as bad, since it contains in use data. Unfortunately, since it knows it can't read it, it also can't move that data to one of those extra blocks.

What my trick does is give the drive the time to stop using those bad blocks, and start using some of those hidden blocks instead. The Windows swap file is one big file that, from the drive's perspective, never changes its location, but always has those blocks in use. Since we've turned off the swap file, those blocks become not in use. Scandisk will allow you to find out if too much of the drive is damaged. Defrag gives the drive the ability to rearrange all bad blocks away (if possible). And then, once all the cleanup is done, you can turn the swap file back on, giving you normal performance back.

Tech speak mode off now

Once you've used that trick, though, the drive becomes suspect. If you don't want to run the risk of losing your data, you have to switch to a new drive as soon as possible. As a rule, once a drive starts to fail, it's a short interval before it completely fails. You don't want to be in that boat when it happens.

I know, it's not a lot of help or hope, but it's something to try out. Good luck with it.

[Pedersen]

Doh!

Broomjockey just pointed out a misread on my part. You can't even get it to boot into safe mode. Okay, any windows using friends in the nearby vicinity? If so, take the drive to their computer and do all those steps. In fact, that's even more preferable, since then you're not trying to repair a broken operating system from inside of itself.

[Imogene]

Thanks for the thought, Pedersen, but unfortunately, any time I try to get to safe mode, the comp boots into it partway, then redirects itself back to attempting to boot the comp regularly.

[MrSmiley]

Thanks for the thought, Pedersen, but unfortunately, any time I try to get to safe mode, the comp boots into it partway, then redirects itself back to attempting to boot the comp regularly.

You can also try to boot to command prompt (should be on the list underneath Safe Mode). From there you should be able to chkdsk each of the drive letters at least (type chkdsk /r) and get more information on the situation.

If the checks turn out fine, then it could just be windows itself which has somehow gotten damaged... if you have the Windows CD handy, you can pop it in the drive and access the recovery console to do a repair install, which basically checks and replaced corrupt files. If this doesn't work... well there's still steps we can do...

On the other hand, if the chkdsk checks don't turn out fine (e.g. report bad sectors), then Pedersen's advice regarding the hard drives should apply.

[Chromatix]

If you can get hold of a Linux boot disk of some kind, boot to the Linux root shell and type:

badblocks -sv /dev/hda

If that tells you something about the device not existing, or if it seems to be testing the CD-ROM rather than the hard disk, try /dev/sda instead.

This will tell you if the hard disk cannot read some of it's blocks. If so, that's a Bad Thing and will involve a new hard disk - you might be lucky and get a warranty replacement.

If it comes up clean (as well as the other tests), you probably have a software problem, which is much easier to fix without any money - Fdisk, Format, Reinstall.

[Imogene]

Situation update: Mom has given me the parents' old tower, and I just updated it to my liking. One of Mom's coworkers husbands works at a Circuit City tech desk, and might be willing to give my old tower a once over for free...