All of desktop gone except wallpaper

Okey-doke Here are Stuff reports before and after last reboot. (The one you asked about was an "after"). Hmm. Not abstract enough in this instance. I'll "enjoy" this process if it is "successful." Bravo for the baby! Pups are more simply entertained = milk. OK, manana, then. Thanks!

Ok.. Didn't make it to bed yet..

If explorer still did not start (your desktop is explorer) then our troubleshooting is going to have to stop at this point.

I need you to issue the following 4 commands:

sc config eventsystem start= demand
sc config netman start= demand
sc config shellhwdetection start= auto
sc config stisvc start= auto

Reboot.

LDTate has been kind enough to review your malware thread earlier, and we both agree that there is a potential infection on your system. I'm going to have to pause on any more troubleshooting on this thread until we can verify one way or another if your machine is infected.

Please be patient and I will monitor your threads… When the machine has been cleared of any potential malware by one of the malware members and if it still doesn't start explorer properly, you can post back here so we can continue this thread.

Thanks.

Hah! Me neither. OK, I have done that, and will retire to the malware forum for the nonce. (Hope I did not scotch things a bit by revisiting that thread to post the URL of this thread, and making it look like some team member may already have it in hand). Thanks very much for tuning in. Thanks everyone. Later….

Well, I'm back.
And, as they used to say on Jeeper's Creepers, none the wiser.

We went through some adventures trying to run various diagnostics and fixes; at every turn there seemed to be a new glitch.

The details are @ http://forums.whatthetech.com/New_HJT_log_t103325.html


I'm getting much in favor of the add-a-new-HD with a clean Windows install, and slave this problem one to that. Presumably I could then access the files and, one hopes, the programs on my HD; or I could move them over to the new HD and then reformat the messed-up one. This is in accordance with the observed problems being confined to an inability to see the contents of the drive by the usual methods.

Awaiting your opinion(s), any further ideas, or help doing that changeover.

Thanks,
Denno

Hi denno, welcome back

I would recommend you remove the current drive an add a new one as master. This will protect the data on your current drive from any kind of accidental deletion or corruption. Once XP is installed, shutdown and add the old drive as a slave drive.

You will then be able to access all data on the old drive, but you will not be able to run most programs installed there. Problem is many programs add required entries to the registry, but the registry they added it to is on the old drive, not the new one.

You may be able to run some of them but many will not run.

Once you have all your data copied over, you could try a Repair Install to the old drive by removing the new drive, connecting the old drive up as master again and following the directions at the link I just gave you. A Repair Install leaves your data and most installed programs alone. It's worth thinking about. The key to doing this is having everything you need on the new drive, then removing it to protect it while doing the Repair install. I'm being overly cautious but with all the problems you've had I don't want to make it worse by having you lose your important data.

You may want to wait a bit to see what appleoddity has to say.

All makes sense to me. (Especially the smiley!) Lemme see if I have a spare HD around here or must get one, in the meanwhile.

Hi Denno.. I wish your malware thread would've been a little bit more fruitful. It does seem you have quite a mess. I'm still not convinced that your problem is a result of installing Carbonite, nor am I convinced that this is really that significant of an issue. I feel that we are missing something here that is causing a cascading failure here.

However, at this point, because you are willing, I guess it is time to back up your data and reinstall Windows.

I agree with Ztruker on his recommendations, and his cautiousness.

I would suggest that you also verify that there is no hard drive trouble, and that there are no RAM troubles. In order to test your memory, you can download the Windows Memory Diagnostic and burn the resulting .ISO image to a CD-Rom on a working computer. (Do you have another computer to work on?) You will have to use a third party burning program that is capable of burning CD-Rom images from .ISO files. DeepBurner FREE is one of those programs. You could do all of this most likely on your computer, its just difficult to work around your issues. But, I think you have a pretty good idea of how to get things done in your present state.

In order to test the hard drive for physical damage, please use task manager to open up a command prompt window (Run the new task 'cmd'). At the command prompt, type chkdsk /r and press ENTER. When prompted to schedule a scan for the next reboot, answer Yes. Reboot the computer and be patient while chkdsk checks your file system and hard drive for trouble. Pay attention for message concerning "replacing bad clusters." These are a sign of hard drive failure.

In my opinion it is best to run these two diagnostic tests before wasting any more time trying to reinstall your operating system.

Have you performed a reinstall before? There are some things to consider before attempting to do what you are doing. Licensing issues may arise. First of all, are you going to use an original OEM/Retail Windows XP disc, or are you going to use a manufacturer provided recovery disc? Or, do you only have a recovery partition on your current hard drive? Do you have the original product key used to install WIndows XP on your computer? Does the disc that you have match the same version of key that you have? Are you confident to be able to re-load necessary hardware drivers and updates once the reinstall is complete? If you use another hard drive, you may be required to reactivate your windows XP with Microsoft over the phone.

Because I feel that your problems are all a result of some root cause, a repair install, as suggested by ztruker may solve all your problems. However, if you can back up your necessary important data such as documents, pictures, music, etc., in my opinion, a fresh install is always the way to go. You will be starting over from scratch, but you will ensure you are not going to deal with any residual problems.

I would've loved to try and diagnose this problem more, but sometimes it is better off in the end to just reformat and reinstall. Who knows, there could be more problems ahead that we don't even know about yet. I do highly recommend that you verify that there aren't hardware issues such as I suggested above BEFORE attempting any reinstalls. Maybe you did already, I don't remember. This thread is getting long.

Please post back here with your questions and results and update us on your progress.

Hello again Appleoddity

Actually, if you are interested and willing to pursue the mystery problem, so am I. As long as you are feeling optimistic, it seems less daunting to me than reconstructing my computer's brain.

Let me say to y'all, I would like to get safely backed up. Carbonite now tells me I have nothing backed up with them, though they originally said the backup was underway (and they recommend reinstalling). So I don't think that is an available method. I'll look at what I've got here. I have a copy of Acronis (on this HD), and the disk therefor. Made a backup a year ago. Also a simple connector whereby I can read one HD from another. I'll look that over and see what I think I can do.

Now, then….
I ran checkdisk last night. Didn't watch it, though. Does it leave a report anywhere, or stay onscreen if it has found a problem? This computer, BTW, is under a year old, and I wouldn't ordinarily expect hardware problems with the HD. But we never know….
I'll see if I can contrive to run it again today and watch as it comes to the end of its run.

Will next see if I can follow those directions for Windows Memory Diagnostic. Will report later on.

There are random things from the HJT thread that might or might not be pursued. LDTate [thanks again for patience!] was trying to help me get IE open to run ComboFix. You can go look there (link in post #64, this thread) and see the succession of glitches. However, ComboFix's site claims it is now compatible with FF. So I don't understand fully if a) IE might still be openable or the CF scan is legit thru FF anyway.
Just another thing that might still be chased down.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: Just-in-case dept…..if I need to buy a HD, any recommendations? Think what's in this machine is maybe only a 160, so don't need giant capacity. Supposing I went for a 250 on ebay, looks like around $30. Any big no-nos or yes-yesses? (S'pose I'll check for a thread on subject somewhere in the forums).

Anyway, I will do as above, and interested to hear what you guys have further to suggest.

Denno

I believe chkdsk makes an entry in the Application log of event viewer. (click start -> run -> type eventvwr and press ENTER.)

However, although I've been told this, I don't think I've ever found any useful information there which is why I hate chkdsk for this type of test. But, its the only thing you have readily available to you. If you run chkdsk again, it will have already locked out any bad sectors and you will not see those messages again unless there are new bad sectors.

You are probably right, there is probably no hard drive trouble. But, its worth checking anyways. You could run chkdsk again and keep an eye on it, if no bad clusters are reported then I would say the drive is OK. I wouldn't buy a used hard drive from Ebay when brand new 250GB to 320GB are only like $69 for a high quality drive with free shipping.

Anyways, try to run the memory diagnostic also.

I would like for you to get your data backed up. I'm not real sure what you were telling me with the tools that you have in your last post. Don't trust anything about that carbonite backup. We killed the backup service in a previous post. It was probably never working right anyways. You need to use a more sure method at this time because you can't trust the software is working right on your computer. If you can hook the drive to another computer and transfer the data off that would be best. Remember, its not worth trying to back up programs, you won't be able to use them on a newly installed system without the original installation files or disc. Just backup important data like pictures, and documents. These usually don't take up that much space and transferring them to a large flash drive might even be sufficient. You know best.

I'm not real optimistic anymore with troubleshooting your problem. If I was faced with this challenge, by this point, I would be trying a repair install of Windows, or a complete reformat. Again, you need to know what you are doing and count the costs before starting the project. You have to have the windows XP installation media, product key, and at least the network/ethernet drivers.

Those were new HDs I was looking at on eBay. Well, I will start with this list of tasks: run chkdsk again or look for a log run memory diagnostic get data backed up by hook or whatever [I'll also see which programs have stored info like bookmarks, the connection entries in my upload program, etc.; see if I can figure out how to save them, and ask for help if I can't] see what install materials I have for my programs I have the CDs that came with my computer, including XP SP1, with codes on the envelope [Also have XP SP2 that came with my wife's machine — but I can download the SPs; you suggested there might be permission issues if I don't use what came with this machine] Two other thinking-ahead issues, if any of y'all happen to know about them……. 1) There was a fuss about SP2 awhile back…."Don't install this, it screws everything up…." izzat resolved…………….Is that what SP3 is about? 2) Is the problem between FF and ZA fixed? I was quite happy with the free firewall version of ZA. Actually, s'pose I will look at both their sites for that info. Think I have an install CD for my DSL router, and the phone company can get me connected again in general I'll report progress.

Have you attempted to repair the shell yet ? Sorry couldn't resist a long investigation like this. In the attached zip file is a command file which will re-register all your shell components. I have read the thread and you do not appear to have tried that. On your other computer extract fixshell.com copy to the bad boy, double click (it may take up to 10 minutes to run) then reboot. I have rem'd out the bits you don't require for XP

📎FixShell.zip

Hi Clarify for me? Is that two separate operations, one with the zip file you attached, and one with something I'm copying off the other (working ok) computer? {And copy fixshell.com into where?) And think I'd better backup before I mess with the arcane Shell?

The zip file will contain fixshell.com file - as you are having troubles with the main system it would be easier to unzip on another computer and then just transfer the .com file to your broken computer and then run it from either USB or drag and drop to your desktop and run from there. What the programme does is re-register all dll's required to run the core shell of your computer. To have a look at what it contains just right click and select edit, that will open it in a notepad

Think I got it. I have to do a workaround not involving my desktop, because I cannot see anything on my desktop (see name of thread! ). Can I e-mail it from the other computer? Again, is this messing with anything so basic that it would really be safer to get backed up first? (This whole breakdown started minutes after I set up my first backup with Carbonite…)

Essexboy, that is an impressive batch file Sure hope it works.