Kain Bloodstone

Been awhile since I've been to these boards. But I'm back. I bought a HP Laptop a little over a year ago, it came equipped with Windows Vista Home Premium. I actually like Vista, I even have the upgrade to Ultimate which I'll be installing today. But lately I've been having a strange problem. Everytime I schedule a Scandisk (Checkdisk), and reboot the computer, the test runs to about 3-5 percent then halts... I have turn it off via hard boot and then skip the scandisk to get back to windows (skipping the scandisk doesn't always work either, sometimes it won't recognize my 'press any key' option and continues to run the scandisk and freeze, despite my wanting to cancel. Before all this, Vista was automatically recommending a scan disk on bootup because of a 'Volume Consistency Error', but same thing, it would freeze. I got it to stop checking for Volume Consistency by pressing F8 on bootup and doing a repair on it...the repair DID find and fix some critical bootup errors, which stopped the consistency check... I'm only getting stuck when I schedule my own scandisk now. Anyway, just wondered if anyone knew what this was all about. In my case the situation is hopefully moot, because as I type this, I'm preparing the laptop for system recovery then update to Ultimate. Gonna start over with it. Thx

Have you tried replacing the hard drive and doing a clean install on the new hard drive? If its only letting you do a quick format, its probably something wrong with the hard drive itself...

I used to own 7th Guest. Isn't it a DOS game? I'm just shooting in the dark, I no longer possess this game so I can't be of 'much' help, but if it is a dos game, have you tried using DosBox to run it? If its not a dos game, have you tried setting the Compatibility to Windows 98/95? <right click on shortcut icon, click properties, then click the compatibility tab, in that window select windows 98 or 95 from the drop down list, click apply, then ok> If your icon does not have a compatibility tab in the properties menu, you can force one to create by deleting the desktop icon, and then making a new one by right clicking and selecting New > shortcut, then pointing to the .exe for the game. When the new icon is created it WILL have a compatibility tab. Again, maybe this is helpful, maybe not. sorry I couldn't help more.

Originally Posted By: danleff Kain; Are all eight ports activated? Is legacy USB support set to auto? What do the other settings say? Yes, yep, and yes. I actually come here with some good news, for me at least. After talking to Alienware Tech Support for the last few days, I have managed to resolve my problem. At this point I'm extremely embarrased to say that the problem on my system at least was caused by a dirty USB Header. Also, my USB Header was not connected all the way on my front usb ports. The AW tech support guy basically told me 2 things to help fix the problem, 1) update BIOS (which looking back now, I didn't really have to do), and 2) Check USB Headers and see if they are in working shape. After checking on my headers, I noticed that one of them wasn't securely fastened, so I cleaned em up, fastened them, and crossed my fingers hoping that my USB Ports would work again. The time it took for my system to boot up, launch windows, and start my initial programs (a 30-45 second process) seemed like an eternity. I couldn't wait to plug a usb device in, I finally did, and JOY! I pluged in a differnt MP3 player then the one I mentioned in this thread, and low and behold, I almost cried when Windows recognized the usb device, installed its drivers, and updated them. Holy cow, my problem is solved. After 7 loooooong months I can use my USB Ports again. So for those of you who still have the problem, check your USB Headers! Maybe it will work for you. For those not as tech savy, the USB Headers are the connection slots on your Motherboard that connects the wire from the motherboard to the front end usb ports. Unplug the wire on both sides, blow some canned air into the connectors, clean the pins, fasten the wire back in tightly. Experience joy, hopefully. Lets just hope that this isn't a temp fix, I sincerely hope I won't have these problems anymore.

Wow, looks like we have some new people in the post. Alright, well as promised a while back, I bring forth a new update. I am still ailed with the same problem, and I finally got around to talking to Alienware Support (i have an alienware area-51 gaming pc). I ran the whole problem by them, and even directed them to THIS thread. The AW Support guy told me to flash my bios to the most current revision that my motherboard can use (ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard), I was using REV 1017 by alienware, and I upgraded to 1024.001 Beta from the ASUS site. This did not fix my problem. I was further instructed to check the USB Connector heads on the motherboard, and if that does not fix it, I should replace my motherboard. Seems like all tech support leads to the same place, replacement of faulty motherboard. That sux. I have also tried disabling the usb 2.0 drivers in the bios menu, but that did not fix my problem either. I am pretty much at my wits end on this one. Pleeing to M$ doesn't seem to help, and up to date, nobody has found a definate fix. I'm still looking though. Thanks to everyone who has been adding to this thread, and I hope that help and support keeps coming until we find a cure. EDIT - I have never been able to find the registry entry that has the "Unknown USB Devices" in it, I have looked in every Vid_XXX folder I can find, but never find the unknown usb device entry...So that fix has not been able to work for me either =/

To make life a lot easier on compatibility issues, you can visit www.crucial.com (a computer hardware site), it has a scanner on it that will scan your system and tell you what you have, and then list out products (including RAM) that you can safely put into your PC or Laptop. You can also purchase these items in the same step. Awesome site, and I use it a lot...would recommend it to anyone.

Originally Posted By: Borg22 another solution ive thought of bu not tried yet, again this wouldn fix your current problem but maybe allow you to use USBs, is if you computer has Printer ports or firewire or PS/2 ports...maybe find a converter/adapter so you can plug you devices into these ports instead? Yeah, one of my USB Devices is a Logitech Mouse that runs through USB. I happen to have a USB/PS2 Converter (came with the mouse, yippee), all I did was plug the mouse into the converter, then plug that into the PS/2 port for the mouse, and the mouse works that way. But using the USB port directly into the computer does not work. I kinda figured that upgrading to Vista wouldn't fix the problem. But thanks for the confirmation. I don't see how adding a new PCI card with usb ports would work, means how it would still be running off the Motherboard which seems to be the cause of the problem. People have reported that replacing the Motherboard is a sure fire fix. I have another question though, has anyone tried switching from Windows to Linux OS? Perhaps the usb problem is a M$ Windows Software bug??? The way I see it, is if you switch to Linux and your USB ports work again, we can start knocking on M$'s door.

I would also appreciate some feed back. Because I am still having problems too =/ So I guess that the Vista upgrade didn't work?

Greystar, thats AWESOME!! That worked on a Vista PC though, right? I can't believe I didn't think of that myself. I'm currently in the process of moving, but once I get my PC unpacked again, I'm sure gonna give that a try. Hopefully it works on XP PC's too... *crosses fingers*

James, funny you should mention that. The exact same thing already happened to me, and low and behold, the fix you printed was the one I already used to fix it. I'm glad to know it wasn't just me

Ah. Well then, your stuck on the same boat I am Join the club... If for some reason you find a resolution, let us know. Ive tried many many things to no avail. You can find a complete reference of things others and myself have tried on these 9 pages... Good luck.

My problem is on a Windows XP Machine. I still can't solve this one. If your vista update didn't work, try contacting HP, they will probably end up replacing your motherboard. So far that is the only solution for this problem that I have been able to find.

Does anybody remember virtual memory? I know that DOS used to use virtual memory to allocate space for opening and executing applications. You used to be able to tell DOS how much virtual memory you want to allocate for running applications via boot disks. Anyway, could this be the problem?

Cormac, eAcceleration's Stop Sign plants spyware on your computer also. It finds all kind of weird threats that other spyware just doesn't find. Another one of those programs that doesn't like to be uninstalled, don't get sucked in.

Isn't C&C3 the one that JUST came out? I would think it would be compatible with Windows XP. Unless your talking about Tiberion Sun??