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Really strange, a guy brought his pc to our shop one day and he told us that he was having trouble booting to Windows, so with a little tinkering and a little honesty from the guy, I found out that the Win XP he had installed was "fake" This is WinXP SP1 by the way, and I told him what the problem was and it turned out that he got the OS from a buddy of his from a local university. He told me that he did "Auto-updates" through MS then one day his computer went crashing, but before that he has been getting a pop-up from MS to purchase the Genuine one, the dreaded "WGA.exe" easily removable but annoying if you don't know anything how to get rid of it. Out of curiosity I told em to bring the fake Windows and see what we can do, but I told him to purchase an "OEM" at least so he won't have a problem again. As I found out that when you reformat it goes through but when it starts copying the files it will tell you that the system configuration is a fake Windows, all of a sudden there's something in the RAM that MS sends out in their patch, it just totally corrupts the RAM, ran memtest86 but it kept getting errors like a "bootsector-virus" amazing how MS finally figured this one out, they send it out on an update pretending to be a legit patch then those who own a "fake" Windows get the shaft while it does not do any damage on the legal copies. So I told em it will cost him more to use a fake OS than buy the real thing, since he need to step-up more money to purchase the RAM and OS!!I sent it out to Kingston and told em about it, and they said they've been getting a few of those RAMs with the same problem. 8O Is this worth the hassle? ;x(
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I find this a bit far-fetched. There's no way software can damage RAM physically, even Microsoft software. Also, memtest86 doesn't test for bootsector viruses AFAIK, and if it does, that probably means the memtest86 disk is infected with a virus. Try creating a memtest86 disk on a known clean machine, then power off the afffected machine, power it back on and insert the disk (make sure the BIOS is set to boot from floppy FIRST).
Considering the shady nature of his install, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a virus or three on the system. Try wiping the drive (fdisk) and starting from scratch, it should install fine then.
And if the RAM really is bad, it's not because of his pirated copy of XP. RAM goes bad sometimes, from power surges, static, etc. -
I'd go with Kevin on this if I were you. He is a super geek, and super geeks just know more sh$t. ;x( Yeah, if they've figured out how to blast ram from software, I'd sure like to know how. I tend to be like Kevin, and think that's a Back to the Future non-occurance.Doug
"I'm out there Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it!" - KramerComment
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Any hardware issues this guy has aren't related to the new MS WGA softare...
For fun I keep one PC (out of 5 in the house) with the infamous 'MS corporate' version of XP (This machine has a boot loader so multiple OS's can be installed and played with, the latest version of Ubuntu is currently living there)
The newest WGA program does nothing to the hardware. All it does is install a nag-ware boot screen telling the user their version of the OS isn't genuine and putting a 'click-here' button that goes to the MS site. Literally within hours of MS 'updating' the new WGA program with the nag-ware screen there were 'fixes' available to remove it.
I was one of the 'official' beta testers for XP way back when. So I keep one 'non-genuine' version to follow what and how MS is trying to force 'non-genuine' users to pay up. The battle is very interesting. Their latest is really fun. There's a new version of MSconfig.eve that adds an extra tab providing access to more functions. If one tries to install it on a 'non-genuine' machine the installer looks for a specific version of xpsp3res.dll, if it's not there the new version of msconfig won't install. If one changes the version of xpsp3res.dll the program installs but the new tab isn't there.
BTW any 'non-genuine' XP installation can be upgraded to a 'genuine' version using the repair function after booting from a low buck OEM XP disk.
IB subwoofer FAQ page
"Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out." ...... Henri Cartier-BressonComment
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Did Fdisk, and it does not point to the drive even a DBAN would flunk, memtest86 failed to load at boot for 2 sticks, this being done 1 sticks at a time and both would not go through a pass, i mean I would understand if it was 1 stick that failed but for 2 then it's different(3 floppies of memtest), boot file missing from "bootcfg",I could send you out a copy and flirt with it for awhile with "Auto-Updates" through MS on, and see where it takes you, i mean i've never used an illegal copy of Windows but I thought I'd just share the thought.Originally posted by Kevin PComment
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Can you post the actual messages shown by fdisk, dban, memtest, etc? Also, what is the boot order in the BIOS? If there is a boot virus on the hard drive, and the BIOS boots from the HD first, the virus takes control even before the floppy boots.
What kind of PC is it?
It could be a bad motherboard too, or a problem in the BIOS setup. Try resetting it to defaults. Or if he took a power surge, maybe it cooked both RAM modules, or something else in the box. The power supply could be bad too.
If all else fails, hook the drive up as a slave in another PC and fdisk or run delpart on it there.Comment
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He had a system melt-down that happened to coincide with the WGA program.
As I posted earlier, on my test mule I'm running one of those 'illegal' installs, and the latest WGA.exe install did nothing to any of the hardware.
IB subwoofer FAQ page
"Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out." ...... Henri Cartier-BressonComment
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Originally posted by ThomasW
I'm curious about this one. How can this be done? If you have one of those "Corporate XP Pro" versions, and MS knows through updates that it's not genuine (because the update won't take place), how can you upgrade to genuine? What is a low buck OEM boot disc? I'll admit that I've been using the "corporate XP Pro" on all my PC's (5 total, including music server) for several years and have never encountered any problem whatsoever (except that I can't upgrade to SP3 or SP3, but this has never been an issue). I'm curious to see if it's something new from MS and if so I may need to buy the "real thing" or just go Linux.
JimmyMy website: www.jimmyneutron.orgComment
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Scroll down to where it says "XP Repair install"
If you don't see the 'repair' option that means your HD copy is newer (more up to date) than the disc your using. There are fixes for that situation lower on the page I linked to above.
There are places that have it cheaper. NewEgg never rips anyone off so I use them.What is a low buck OEM boot disc?
IB subwoofer FAQ page
"Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out." ...... Henri Cartier-BressonComment
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