biggaloo

BSchindler -- thanks for the suggestion -- I will take the FC3 way out if things don't pan out the martouf way :-) (although I must admit some trepadation) Alright, martouf, I'm on board -- I tried your suggestions, booting and trying to get into safe mode using F8... no dice There is another message that comes up briefly before the error message I detailed before (as follows): "autochk program not found - skipping AUTOCHECK" bottom-line, the answer is "nope", I can't boot XP in safe mode. Where to now? (assume I will browse through all links you provided)

The Session Manager Initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0xc000003a (0x00000000 0x00000000). The system has been shut down." that's the whole error message... and all I see on the infamous blue screen... though I refuse to acknowledge it has anything to do with death :-) Here we go... I'm a newbie to Linux and this is one of those times when I feel like I should just regress and submit to the powers of M$, but I'm stubborn and actually care about civil liberties, invasion of privacy, etc, so I'm in this one to win it. I have searched through th existing threads on this one as well as having done some poking around on the net for a solution and hereby throw myself upon the mercy of greater minds and experience (and have been pointed to linuxcompatible by a few seasoned vets): Here's how the boys at M$ describe my problem -- that is, this is almost EXACTLY it: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;317189 There are 2 things that don't fit 1) they seem to imply it's only an NT thing -- my system is XP Pro (specs follow) 2) their message is for 0xc0000017 status - mine is 0xc000003a -BRAND new (if it had ears, it would still be wet behind them - I'm talkin' this-week new, factory-direct) -IBM Thinkpad T42, Pentium M 1.7 GHZ, 60GB, 7200 RPM HDD, 1GB PC2700 DDR SDRAM, Intel Pro Wireless 2200 integrated wireless B/G It's been partitioned successfully using Partition Magic and all was well with XP... then I installed Ubuntu (www.ubuntulinux.com - latest stable of Warty Warthog): my Linux distro of choice. The concept all along was to buy this machine with the express intent of running Windows parallel with Linux. No I'm starting to feel like it might be cheaper to pay programmers to write scripts for every non compatible peripheral that sparked this fine mess... Now, I have a machine that loads to the GRUB boot loader beautifully, gives me 5 options (1 Ubuntu and one Windows safe, 1 Ubuntu and one Windows normal, and memory test, although the windows options both appear to be the same since neither says "safe", I imagine one is supposed to be safe... either way, neither works. ) The Ubuntu system works perfectly (of course, it WOULD be Windows with issues... ug.) Regarding a post I read in the threads of similar topic, if the solution is to take the CDs tht came with it and do a "fixboot" or a "non-destructive reinstall", please provide some detail as I have no idea what the implications are / what I should expect during the process... Here's another twist: If there are other Distros that make life easier, I'm willing to consider anything. I've used fluxbox (not my cup of tea), Mandrake (liked it) and a couple others... Since I'm just making the switch, Ubuntu is wonderful because the GUI is familiar, etc... still, I'm open. Thank you in advance for your time!