shanenin

it definately could be a graphic card problem. The easiest wasy to test the hardware would be to run linux from a cd. If linux runs well without the distortions, then you can safely assume windows might be corrupted; a reinstall of windows may fix it. If when running linux you have the same problem, you definately have a hardware issue. My first thought would be the graphic card/chipset.

when you do try it, you may have to call in to activate, not a big deal.

I wonder how often a system is not able to write the dump file to the harddrive. You would think that the computer would be in to rough of shape to still be able to write to the harddrive after occuring some major error that causes the OS to dump in the first place.

are you just serving files on a home network, do you need an ftp server to do that? At home I use my linux box to serve files to windows using samba(windows file sharing protocol).

thanks for your suggestions. I think I am going to give it back to the customer. The next time it blue screens I will have them copy the stop code. As to the dump file, they did not have one. I am guessing if the problem was with th ide controller, writing a dump file to the harddrive would be impossible.

according to the device manager, they are fine I am not sure, but doubt it. I did look at the bios updates available, none mentioned fixing any ide problems no, but that would be something easy and inexpensive to try. he has new looking round cables. Everything is working now, so it is hard to check individual pieces of hardware. Since both ide0 and ide1(seperate cables) quit working(temporarly) at the same time, I doubt individual cables would be to blame. I hate telling people the motherborad is to blame, if I am wrong, I just made a costly error to my customers(and my name). Since bot

ya but..... on the motherboard I found this printed VNF4/VNF4 ULTRA (no zenith printed) The drivers I installed, including the ide drivers, installed without error, i am pretty sure they were the correct ones. The ones I used made reference zenith also. I did not find any drivers listed for just "VNF4/VNF4 ULTRA" so I used the ones labled "VNF4/VNF4 ULTRA zenith se" here is the link http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw/eng/Downloa...5&PISNo=318 Since the bios failed to see the ide drives, before the harddrive or dvdrive were booted, wouldn't that pretty much have to be a hardware problem seprer

I have been working on this computer. It was origainally brought to me in pretty bad shape, including a wga warning about an illegal copy of XP, and also bluescreening. To start things off I reinstalled with the correct key, now it has a fresh install with no wga warnings. It has been a about a week and it bluescreened. It also failed to reboot, it errored when searching for ide devices. I rebooted into the bios, it said no ide devices were found, either ide0(harddrive) or ide1(dvddrive). I brought the computer home and tried to boot it again, now it is working just fine. My gut says the nort

just curious, did you have any trouble activating your product?

that is interesting. Just for fun I took a look at my oem xp home disc. it has a number like this: Pid=76477OEM according to the link it should look like this, I wonder why they are different Pid=82503OEM

I got a book form the library about training for the MSCE . I don't know if I will ever try and take the test, but am doing it more for a learning experience. I got a 180 day trial of server 2003. I am wondering what kind of projects could be done in a home network, something fun and useful. Suggestions would be appreciated :-)

for fun, I would run memtest on the bad memory, just to see wha it says.

but it is a windows tip :-). It is a method used to find drivers for windows OSs.

how are you able to tell which adapter is doing what task?

I am going webbased for everything. Even thought I have all of my home data redundant on multiple harddrives, i still don't trust it. Heck, I may have a house fire. As of now I have virtually everything webbased: quickbooks, personal email, business email, calendar. I am even thinking about getting a service that allows me to upload and save files on their server. Their are some free services that will do this, but I think I might pay $10/month to get a better one. I do realize being webbased can hurt me, what if my internet gos down. Overall I think its beneifts outweigh its negatives.

do you have a lomega 7 in one card reader? if so you may need to update the drivers http://iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/i...p?p_faqid=16446 I am sure lots of different pieces of hardware could give that error, but when I googled it, that card reader gave me the most hits.

I did an ipconfig on my xp service pack2 machine with quite a surprise. I had these extra network adapters installed. For a second, I thought I was infected or hacked some way. This seems to be what they are: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutio...v6/ipv6faq.mspx

that was my thought also

I finally am getting used to googles calandar. It seems really intuative. Once you get used to it, it is much better the yahoos.

it is ok to log in as root to do needed stuff. It is just not a good idea to do everything with root privleges. As to your instructions, just do step 2 as root. You still log into your system as a regular user, but use the 'su' command to change to root.

Just for fun I booted my XP machine with knoppix. If you choose under services "start samba server", it does everything automatically. It will ask you to set a password for user "knoppix". It uses workgroup by default. From any other windows computer on your network you can log onto your knoppix samba server using the username "knoppix" and the passwork that you set. You can then copy all of your data off the machine. I think I am going to start to use this method for copying data off of my clients windows comuters I currently service. It works really nice.

I have never tried it, but I wonder if linux is able to read files that have been set to private? edit added later// is making private an encrytion option only for xp pro. If that is the case, I am sure linux can't read it edit added later// I found the option in xp home. I will now boot that computer with linux, I will let you know if they are able to be copied(while set as private). edit added later// linux has no problem with the permissions set to private. So if you have important data you need, you can easily use any live linux disk to get your data.

if you have lots of important data you do not want ot lose, i would purchase a second harddrive. On this second harddrive install you os fresh. Then you can use your current harddrive as backup.