How can I get windows working again

Ainsley1

I had just seen your link about F11 thanks.

Machine is a Packard Bell. I see another model number now as Imedia 3055 p/n P842015501, if that is of any use?

I'll need to go off line now the virus check has finished to try the suggestions. Will come back on line later or tomorrow. Thanks guys for now.

-TangleFoot-

Ainsley1 wrote: »

Model is ALT - Col2

Ainsley1 wrote: »

Machine is a Packard Bell. I see another model number now as Imedia 3055 p/n P842015501, if that is of any use?

Sounds a lot like this one...

TakeThis

-TangleFoot- wrote: »

Sounds a lot like this one...

Close. That had a Columbia V Motherboard. This has a Columbia IV.


Best to back up the Drivers and to run a clean install.

-TangleFoot-

TakeThis wrote: »

back up the Drivers

With this?

TakeThis

-TangleFoot- wrote: »

With this?

Haven't tried it, but perhaps yes.

Otherwise, the same Drivers as for the other machine may work.

Definitely more RAM is needed if only running on 256 MB RAM.

Just noted that the OP mentioned XP Home all along.

Ainsley1

Hi Chaps, just back after trying the suggestions etc.

Does look to be a similar machine doesn't it? Can't say the other thread gave me much confidence in Packard Bells products either but I guess it's horses for courses. I must say I was very impressed with your perseverance and expertise demonstrated in that other thread!

Results. Every safemode selection gives the same 'reboot after a while' problem or the PC just hangs after displaying file AGPCPQ.sys !!

So I moved on to Closed's suggestion for Packard Bell's F11 selection for factory partition. Repair which did no good and then to recovery (non destructive so far) and that should have been OK. It went fine for quite some time and then started to prepare the hard drive. After a while and progress it seemed it came up with an error "Error during extraction process: Permission denied.

It will repeatedly (but now quicker as I assume several files are now extracted) run up to the same point. For confidence I have run Seatools disk diagnostics and again all is still fine in that respect. (Closed did ask about chkdsk and I ran it from my own machine with the hard drive piggy backed all OK. I understand (if my memory seves me correctly) that it was run some weeks ago and it did find an error. Maybe that has caused the permission denied problem?

Thanks Takethis! Home alone all along! LOL

Would consider more ram essential (and a bigger drive too) but friend is a pensioner so will not want any outlay till it's fixed or he needs a new machine!! Finances are why I am helping him out!

Copy of drivers seems a good idea but I see it runs under windows - and there's the rub!

I have not yet tried a destructive recovery.

I am a lightweight so need to go off to bed now but if you can think of any next steps that would be appreciated.

TakeThis

Interesting thread here.

Disc in your inbox.

Ainsley1

Thanks Takethis.

Interesting thread. I Can't help but feel there may be a number of issues with the PC of all those posters all giving the same symptoms but requiring different solutions!

I Have had a look at the Microsoft link article ID 310396 which gives yet another possible cause. It's all very frustrating.

I will report back later after I have had my daily dose of sunshine (hard labour in the garden to most of us!!).

-TangleFoot-

Ainsley1 wrote: »

Can't say the other thread gave me much confidence in Packard Bells products either but I guess it's horses for courses.

As an aside, things may have improved somewhat since this machine's birth as PB was swallowed whole by Acer a few years back.

Kernel_Sanders

Ainsley1 wrote: »

Would consider more ram essential

Yes, you really need 512MB as a minimum nowadays, but I'm not sure this is the sole problem. When XP became too big for my 256MB, the Medion would not start at all, but instead emitted a series of BIOS 'beeps'. As it has only two slots, I bought a stick of 1GB RAM so that it could be further upgraded at some future point. Annoyingly, this would not run alongside the existing 256MB so, I am still only using 1GB. (Anyone commenting on this point should be aware that it might result in me being accused of hijacking the thread )