Korean Job Discussion Forums

[dbee]

Hi,

I am wondering if there is anyone out there who knows his/her way around windows2K (possibly demophobe !) and can help me with an ongoing problem I've been having since yesterday. I'm on a win2k system which is actually my gf's and so is in Korean which doesn't help much and it's on a netgear router lan (which is also in Korean ).

It started yesterday when I was running a graphics package. I opened up a huge canvas and the system crashed. When I tried to reboot I got an Unknown Hard Error blue screen (no filename). My first thought was that it was some kind of memory failure, but it booted up into safe mode no problem and I ran one of those windows memory diagnostics things and it seemed to be fine. All I got on the system was a core memory dump, which was too big to load. The error logs seemed to be completely empty as well (either that or they weren't loading)

After that I figured it must be a driver error, (I hadn't installed anything new in the last couple of days!). I went into safe mode and I still couldn't find anything in the error logs, and all the external drives were working fine. But at this stage I was getting a SMART warning on boot up, telling me hard drive failure was imminent.

I put in the system disk and ran a upgrade/repair on the computer. The replacement OS managed to save the data, but unfortunately some of the programs (and the internet connection settings) are now gone / not working. The computer boots up fine now, and I ran a chkdsk which seems to have solved the SMART warning. It also tells me to run a chkdsk on the F drive (which is empty) and which it then prevents me from doing because it's in use (it's not !).

Apart from that though I think the main problem is that I keep getting one recurring error (which first occured back in the system repair process) - the error being that the system keeps asking for the 'hp deskjet 3500' file.

I downloaded the driver for the hp deskjet (which I've unpluged), but unfortunately the system only wants the .msi file and refuses to accept the .exe driver file. It asks for the hp deskjet cd-rom (which she doesn't have) and tries to locate the file in sector one of the boot disk from what I can make out, but you can browse to an alternate source. I've also tried uninstalling the whole hp deskjet programs but it still only comes up with the same error.

The logs now show me something like this

application log:
warning: msi installer ... (korean here) ... Printer Assistant * 10

system log:
error: service control manager ... routing and remote access ...

this couldn't have come at a worse time really, and I've also been locked out of tek-tips for some reason

Do you think that I need to reinstall the windows installer ??? Is this possible ??

Anyway if anyone can help, I'd be really grateful as I've already spent all of today (and most of last night) trying to figure this bit out.

[Demophobe]

very wrong and removed....

[dbee]

Thanks demophobe,

I think I might have solved it (or at least brushed it under the carpet for another day ).

Basically what I think happened is this (... I kinda feel like that bird from murder she wrote ). I was working on fireworks at the time, and I went to open a 10000 * 10000 pixel canvas, and the computer crashed.

I'm very far away from being a windows developer so I'm not about to start analysing the memory dump, well not yet anyway ... I'm guessing that there was some kinda paging fault and the hard drive wrote over one of the drivers ... the hp deskjet thing. Then when the computer tried to load the driver it just crashed. It didn't help of course, that there is only 9MB left on the partition. I also had zero luck with googling the error codes.

I tracked down the above file and it was already on the c: drive but the system didn't seem to recognise it. I'm guessing too that the hard drive error also triggerd the SMART warning in the BIOS. I think I just quarantined that part of the hd, and then I erased hp deskjet file. It all works fine now, but occasionaly asks for the .msi file. I randomly uninstalled/deleted the hp components on the harddrive (yes I know) and it seems to be fine.

I am typing from the computer now, so the routing and remote access errors mustn't have been serious. I'm just happy I got it up and running again (and perhaps got to learn a little more about the system). I run a test system as well for exactly this kinda stuff but I couldn't reproduce the error unfortunately ... ah well ...

cheers for the windows diagnostic tool suggestions btw, I am off to investigate them now ... for the next time this happens ...

[dbee]

Thanks demophobe,

I think I might have solved it (or at least brushed it under the carpet for another day ).

Basically what I think happened is this (... I kinda feel like that bird from murder she wrote ). I was working on fireworks at the time, and I went to open a 10000 * 10000 pixel canvas, and the computer crashed.

I'm very far away from being a windows developer so I'm not about to start analysing the memory dump, well not yet anyway ... I'm guessing that there was some kinda paging fault and the hard drive wrote over one of the drivers ... the hp deskjet thing. Then when the computer tried to load the driver it just crashed. It didn't help of course, that there is only 9MB left on the partition. I also had zero luck with googling the error codes.

I tracked down the above file and it was already on the c: drive but the system didn't seem to recognise it. I'm guessing too that the hard drive error also triggerd the SMART warning in the BIOS. I think I just quarantined that part of the hd, and then I erased hp deskjet file. It all works fine now, but occasionaly asks for the .msi file. I randomly uninstalled/deleted the hp components on the harddrive (yes I know) and it seems to be fine.

I am typing from the computer now, so the routing and remote access errors mustn't have been serious. I'm just happy I got it up and running again (and perhaps got to learn a little more about the system). I run a test system as well for exactly this kinda stuff but I couldn't reproduce the error unfortunately ... ah well ...

cheers for the windows diagnostic tool suggestions btw, I am off to investigate them now ... for the next time this happens ...

[redbird]

Yeah, dbee, what you describe sounds about right. When I read that Application Log error about the Printer Assistant, I said to myself "Dbee should disconnect the printer". But, that tiny amount of space on this partition is almost certainly a cause of your problems. When you used up most of your RAM with that graphics file, the computer may have tried to write to the hard drive and couldn't because of space issues.

[dbee]

Thanks redbird,

I think you might be right there, I am going to slim the partition down a bit and swap the paging file to another drive ... I'll see if that helps.

I didn't realize about the lack of space on the hard drive until my second post (sorry demophobe !). That probably played a big part in the problem.

I still get the regular msi installer prompts though

I'll see if it improves at all ....