Toshiba Satellite A55-s108 XP Home, SP2
Explorer crashes on startup, and again with media file management.
Won't recognize XP CD.
It started with Photoshop6.0; it would crash in the 'save-as' dialogue box with a certain file. Then, a few hours later, it happened in Firefox3.0.9. I uninstalled Photoshop. I read about sfc/scannow, the system file checker and it couldn't find the CD (of course). So I tried to find the DLLcache folder as rumored online using Windows search. While typing into the search box, explorer froze and I had to hard-reboot. After rebooting, explorer always crashes on startup.
I installed RealPlayer just before Photoshop began going screwy. I've always hated them, and I like thinking that it's just RealPlayers shoddy, selfish, proprietary-style setup process that corrupted a media related system file.
I've also got Adobe Flash CS3 installed. Some people complain about problems that have been resolved by upgrading certain Adobe products, but I say humbug. I've been using Photoshop 6 with various Flash versions since 2004 and never had any issues.
I tried using an XP CD to repair/reinstall, but the machine won't recognize either of my disks and boots normally. I tried running in SafeMode, but the same thing happens.
While rebooting to find a solution (checking BIOS boot order, safemode, and CD changes), I found that if I ignore the 'Send Error Report' dialogue box and move it to the side without choosing 'send'/'don't send', explorer will continue to run fine, as long as I don't select an image/movie file (At the moment, 'Windows explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.' I've got it tucked away to the right of the screen). This was handy, so I could move some files over to my external hard-drive.
I think my only option is to focus on hardware:
A) Find a verified functioning XP CD,
B) replace the questionable CD drive,
C) install a new HD.
Can the CD issue be malware? Can malware stop a PC from reading an XP CD on boot? Or is it obviously an inconvenient hardware malfunction? Quite a coincidence...
Any ideas on limp-mode repair procedures before I go swapping a CD drive?
Explorer crashes on startup, and again with media file management.
Won't recognize XP CD.
It started with Photoshop6.0; it would crash in the 'save-as' dialogue box with a certain file. Then, a few hours later, it happened in Firefox3.0.9. I uninstalled Photoshop. I read about sfc/scannow, the system file checker and it couldn't find the CD (of course). So I tried to find the DLLcache folder as rumored online using Windows search. While typing into the search box, explorer froze and I had to hard-reboot. After rebooting, explorer always crashes on startup.
I installed RealPlayer just before Photoshop began going screwy. I've always hated them, and I like thinking that it's just RealPlayers shoddy, selfish, proprietary-style setup process that corrupted a media related system file.
I've also got Adobe Flash CS3 installed. Some people complain about problems that have been resolved by upgrading certain Adobe products, but I say humbug. I've been using Photoshop 6 with various Flash versions since 2004 and never had any issues.
I tried using an XP CD to repair/reinstall, but the machine won't recognize either of my disks and boots normally. I tried running in SafeMode, but the same thing happens.
While rebooting to find a solution (checking BIOS boot order, safemode, and CD changes), I found that if I ignore the 'Send Error Report' dialogue box and move it to the side without choosing 'send'/'don't send', explorer will continue to run fine, as long as I don't select an image/movie file (At the moment, 'Windows explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.' I've got it tucked away to the right of the screen). This was handy, so I could move some files over to my external hard-drive.
I think my only option is to focus on hardware:
A) Find a verified functioning XP CD,
B) replace the questionable CD drive,
C) install a new HD.
Can the CD issue be malware? Can malware stop a PC from reading an XP CD on boot? Or is it obviously an inconvenient hardware malfunction? Quite a coincidence...
Any ideas on limp-mode repair procedures before I go swapping a CD drive?