XP Services loading error - blank screen

A friend gave me his computer to look at he was complaining of a few problems like the microphone wouldnt work with skype, he also had an error when loading outlook express (not sure what it was).

When I started the machine up it starts loading XP (XP home SP3) and then comes up with the following message:

Services.exe - Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point ?terminate@@XAXXZ could not be located in the dynamic link library msvcrt.dll

clicking OK leaves you with a mouse pointer and a black screen. can't ctrl-alt-del for taskman or windows key+R for run command, can't do nothing. safe mode is the same, last known good configuration same again, Interestingly the screen saver still kicks in if you leave it on the blank screen for a while

Things i've tried already:

-replaced the msvcrt.dll using windows xp cd - recovery.
-took the hard drive out and did a virus scan on another computer, nothing bad found.
-did a chkdsk /r using windows xp cd - recovery, reported back that some errors were found and fixed
-memory check from bootup cd - memtest86, no problems found

The only thing I can think of that I haven't tried yet is a hard drive test, other than that I'm stumped. Tried googling it but got nothing that matched only ?terminate@@YAXXZ error but didn't seem related. The closest I found was microsoft knowledge base 324762 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324762 but as I said I've already tried that solution with no success.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Jeremy.

Will the compute come up if you boot to Safe Mode and login as Administrator?

If yes, then do a System Restore to a date before this problem started happening. Note that if that doesn't fix it you can then do another System Restore back to where you are now.

Alternatively, how does it behave if you boot to Safe Mode? If better then something is starting at boot that is causing the problem.

Use msconfig to determine what is causing the problem.

These are good tutorials on using msconfig in XP or Vista:
How to use msconfig in Windows XP
How to use msconfig in Windows Vista

First, boot to Safe Mode.

Click on Start then Run, type msconfig and press Enter.
Click on the Startup tab then the Disable All button.
Do a regular boot, see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable several items at a time till you find the culprit.

If no, boot to Safe Mode again, start msconfig and click on the Services tab.
Check the Hide All Microsoft Services box then click the Disable All button.
Again, do a regular boot, see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable services till you find the culprit.

Once you've found the culprit, uninstall it or find out how to eliminate it from your system. Simply disabling it in msconfig is a temporary fix at best. Enable everything else you disabled.

I can't get to the windows desktop at all in regular mode or safe mode, once you click OK to the error message all you have is a mouse pointer on a black screen. As I stated earlier ctrl-alt-del does nothing neither does windows key+R for run command. no start menu, icons or desktop wallpaper. no nothing just a black screen.

If Ztrukers suggestions doesn't work out, I would seriously begin to consider
doing a repair install, not a full reinstall, but a repair. Considering the things
already tried.

"Only" downside to this is, that you will loose any updates. Which have to be
downloadet and installed again. This also includes Wmp versions, IE 7 / 8,
SP's not present from the original install. So if installed with a CD containing
SP2, SP3 would have to be re-installed, etc.

All other data will be in place, documents included.

This is not a fail-safe option. Things can go wrong, which most likely would
mean the end-result is a full reinstall. Which is why, some people would rather
do the full reinstall from the start. I would also choose the full install, personally,
but if there is important data on the drive, repair is an option to try. Even with a
failed repair, it is still possible to get data of it relatively easy, by hooking it up in
another computer as slave drive.

The easy guide: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/h…ips/doug92.mspx

Extensive guide: http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm


regards

Yeah I did want to avoid this as more often than not it fails, but may be my only option in this case. I will let you know how it goes, thanks for the suggestions guys

Np, and good luck with it, if you choose to do so.

One other suggestion to try before doing the Repair Install, Run chkdsk from the recovery console. See here for directions:

http://forums.whatthetech.com/How_run_chkd…ole_t95574.html

One other thought. Put the drive in another computer again and scan for all instances of msvcrt.dll. On my computer I have it in 13 different locations, 4 different create dates and 4 different sizes. Finding the one that is corrupted (if it is msvcrt.dll that is corrupted) could be difficult.

Name the different instances of it .old one at a time. That way, you can always revers it by removing .old

Seems how you're pretty much at the point of doing a repair or full re-install and the ideas offered are starting to get further and further out there, I figured I might throw my own in there.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

Using this article you can pull up a previous registry to a time before this problem occured and hopefully get a "system restore" completed after doing so.

The way this works is that "system restore" has made backup snapshots of your registry for pretty much every day the computer was in use. The above Microsoft article tells you how to recover the original vanilla registry to get the system to boot, at which point you perform a system recovery to fully revert back to a previous date when the problem didn't occur. During STEP 2, use a registry snapshot from a date prior to when the problem occured but not too far back.

Because the system is in the state that it is, and because you don't want to perform a repair install (which would probably work) you could try this procedure. This should revert you back to an original registry and any software that was installed which may be causing this problem will no longer be "active." This will at least tell you if it is a corrupt file, or if it is just a corrupt piece of software or registry settings. If the system boots after restoring the vanilla registry then you can attempt to perform the system restore to before you think the problem occured. At the very worst, you can just restore the backed up registry that is created in the first steps of the above article.

But personally speaking, I would not even waste my time doing any of this. I would've already performed a repair install after verifying that the chkdsk /r, memory test, and virus scan were clean as you stated you already performed. This also tells me that you have a bit of technical expertise to know to do such a thing and I feel you have done well at verifying no other significant issues are present. Therefore, a repair install of windows is probably the best way to go here unless you have time and like to play.

ok ran the repair install… all looked ok until it restarted for the last time during install. Now it just freezes on the Windows XP loading screen. Looking at my orignal post i realized I hadn't fully tested the hard drive so I then ran data lifeguard diagnostics (western digital hdd diag) disc to check that the hard drive is ok, and both the quick test and the full test reported no errors. so can cross that off the list. On a positive note, I can now get in using safe mode… so thats progress right? I've had a quick look just now, removed a couple of unused programs, haven't looked too deep at services that are starting up etc. I'll look at that after work

Being able to boot into safe mode signifies possible driver issues…. You can try to create a bootlog in order to see which drive is hanging the system up during a normal mode boot. In order to do this, use F8 before windows boots to get the startup menu. Choose Enable Boot Logging and then choose your Windows operating system to boot. After the system hangs up, power down, boot back into safe mode and then open up the C:\windows\ntbtlog.txt file. Somewhere in that file, towards the bottom, will be a log of your normal mode boot you just tried to make. It can be identified by a time stamp. It may help to pinpoint which driver its hanging up on because it lists all the drivers that are being loaded during boot time.

see the attachment with the boot logging enabled, any ideas?

He, it actually looks like a "classic" mup.sys error. except you don't get a error message.

The last driver to be loaded is mup.sys, hence the name mup.sys error, because it is normally the last
thing people see before the PC goes haywire. But mup.sys is not at fault, it is what is coming right after it.

Unplug anything USB for starters. If you have a corded keyboard in the house, use that for the time
being. If you do not have a corded keyboard, do not use "load default settings" as it will "remove" the legacy drivers for
USB. Then you should only try optimal settings.

Boot the machine and go into BIOS.

Now find where it says "load default settings", choose that. Exit and save

See if it will boot all the way.

If it is a no go, you have one last try with choosing "load optimal settings".

if still a no-go, load the "default" BIOS setting yet again. When it reboots, you need to go to the recovery console and run CHKDSK.

Use CHKDSK C: /R


A thing to consider, is that the PSU might be faulting. Not delivering enough voltage to the various parts. If that is the case, only a new PSU will fix this problem.

Ztruker and Appleoddity, I am sure, will also have some input to this. So you could wait a bit with the above, and see what they have to say. (They have greater experience than me, and might see something I don't )

But good job so far.


Regards

yup changed to PS/2 connections when i started diagnosing this, have hit usb problems before. set bios defaults, no change set bios optimized settings, no change set bios defaults and perfromed chkdsk /r, still no change. I checked if there were any system restore points now that I can get into safe mode but I guess the repair install has blown these away as there are none. i tried starting up the system without cd-rom or 3.5" Fdd and changed the power rail going to the HDD but still had the same result. one thing i did notice this time was that the system seems a bit inconsistent when detecting a bootable cd… so maybe CD-rom could be faulty or even the PSU is faulty, I'll have a look around for another PSU to test on it.