Win2k - some files corrupted and drivers missing, need help!!!

[zmax 0]

Ugh Ive spent hours trying to figure this out but I need help!

 

I have Win2k running on the following:

Asus A7N8XE-DX Motherboard

Athalon XP 2800+ 512K / 333mHz FSB Processor

Dual Channel 256mb PC3200 DDR 400 ram = 512mb total

Seagate 120Gb / 7200rpm SATA HDD

MSI 128mb GeForce FX5600XT AGP 8X video card

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card

Samsung DVD/CDRW

Windows 2000 Professional

 

I have (had)MS Office Pro 2003 installed. I only used

Word and occassionally Excel so far. I also use Outlook Express which I know is not part of that. Anyway today I decided to use Outlook. I created an account in it and downloaded from a pop box with 800 emails. It was working fine. Later I tried running

Outlook and it said there was an error and came up with the box to

send an error report to Microsoft. So I said yes and it said it

was still having problems and did I want to start in safe mode.

So I clicked Yes and then it started looping from "there was an

error did I want to send a report" etc etc. I went thru the loop

a few times and it wouldnt stop so I used task manager to stop it.

Then I tried Word and Excel which got the same errors.

Excel said as a result of the problem report I should install

an update for Office. So I ran and installed the update but it wasnt anything major.

I was told to reboot and when it was shutting down a message appeared

saying the C drive was corrupted.

When it rebooted it said there was a problem with the C drive and

started running chkdsk.

It found some corrupted files and did something with them (deleted?)

and then checked the indexes etc.

 

Then it booted normally. When I tried to run Norton Systemworks

to run some diagnostics it said it couldnt find "msimg32.dll".

 

I looked in the System area and found that the following devices

are now disabled:

 

Plug and Play Software Device Enumerator:

This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)

 

Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card:

This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)

 

(and the MIDI device which wasnt in use anyway)

 

The CD-ROM drive is also getting the same error.

 

I had created an ERD but I cannot figure out how to use it.

Dumb huh? I have a 1300 page book on Win2k and it tells you

how to make an ERD but not how to use it!!! Or at least I havent

been able to find that section yet.

 

I wonder if Outlook was responsible for this or if something else was?

My email that was downloaded is scanned at the server level

for viruses and I have Norton AV installed as well. So I dont

think any viruses were activated using Outlook.

 

Last night I had also installed Serious Sam 2 but it worked fine. Those are the only major changes that occured in the last 24 hours before this happened.

 

So thus far I have uninstalled Office and SS2. I want to know if

anyone has any experience or advice as to what is wrong and

how I should proceed. I don't want to mess it up more by

reinstalling or recovering something that should not be done.

 

Thanks a lot for any help!

 

David

 

 

[Davros 0]

It sounds like your hard drive is getting flaky. Hopefully it is just limited to a few clusters and won't spread anymore.

 

Run chkdsk /R to mark bad clusters and recover as many files as possible. After this is done, reinstall drivers for all of your hardware. For PNP drivers that Windows has the drivers for, like your CDROM, just uninstall the device from the hardware list and reboot. Then reinstall Office and Norton. Then reinstall any other programs that are giving you problems. If you are having problems with Windows itself, do a repair install first. Boot to the CD, and press Enter to install, not R to repair. It will detect the current Windows install and ask if you want to repair it.

[zmax 0]

Thanks for the info! Im working on it.

The CD drive did not reinstall itself after uninstalling and rebooting. Ill run the Win2k install and see if it can repair itself.

 

David

 

[zmax 0]

Well here's a weird thing that happened.

 

I did as you said and ran the install but had to use the CD to boot since the cd isnt working. I let it run the regular install as you said to find th current install and repair it.

It did not find it. For some reason it found my two secondary IDE hard drives but not the primary boot SATA drive. So it didnt see the current install or ask to repair it.

 

I reran the install and chose repair and gave it my ERD. I did fast repair and it went along but then asked me for the SATARaid controller installation diskette which I didnt have. I skipped that part and it finished. So far nothing is fixed, the same problems are there.

 

The thing is the drivers for the components are there but windows is saying it cant load them. I tried reinstalling them where it can find them in the WINNT directory tree and it does that but it doesnt help.

 

If you have no ideas Im going to have to call the place where it was built and ask them. I dont want to take it in and have them fix it though because then I wont learn anything that I should and want to know and how to fix this. I could do a reinstall but as I said it doesnt see the SATA drive which is odd.

 

Thanks.

 

David