PC Problems » PC Software

NTLDR is Missing

PC Dude — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:35:40 +0000

Nouman gets the message “NTLDR is missing” on starting up the computer. NTLDR is the boot loader for Windows NT systems including your XP so if it’s missing or corrupt you computer can’t start properly. First, check all hard drive cables. You could try updating your PC’s BIOS or resetting to default values. Otherwise you’ll need to boot from the XP installation disk and select R to repair the installation. When you reach the Recovery Console type the following commands to replace your corrupt versions:

copy d:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy d:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

Where “d” is the drive letter assigned to your DVD/CD drive. When complete, take out the XP CD and restart.

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PC Shutting Down After Update

PC Dude — Thu, 27 May 2010 21:46:24 +0000

Roy installed an automatic update on Windows XP and now after every startup the PC shuts down again automatically. The obvious cause seems to be the update so I’d reccommend restoring your computer to an earlier time or starting up in safe mode (tap F8 on restart) and see if it stays on there. You might need to restore from safe mode if it does or perhaps try to uninstall the latest updates.

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Laptop Won’t Start

PC Dude — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:22:44 +0000

Matt’s laptop fan starts when he presses the power button but nothing else happens. Is there any way if you can tell if the battery is properly charged? Some of them have indicators on them. Perhaps your battery isn’t charging enough or there’s issues with your power supply. If you listenclose can you her any sounds other that the fan? If you can’t hear the whirring/spinning hard drive then this may have failed. The lights on the laptop can be a clue too. Check your manual or the makers website to see what each light indicates or doesn’t in your case.

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Laptop Won’t Boot

PC Dude — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 23:11:13 +0000

Neha’s pc boots to a blue screen and then restarts automatically and continually. I doubt if you’ve damaged your hard drive physically. Messing around with boot options is not wise really! See if you can boot to Safe Mode (tap F8 on startup) and reverse what you changed. If not then try disconnecting any unnecessary hardware and try booting again. You may need to reinstall windows or do a repair install with your original disc at least.

Look at this post also:

www.pcproblems.ie/pc-booting-to-grub-command-line

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Mouse with a mind of it’s own!?

PC Dude — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:57:35 +0000

Waheed’s mouse is moving by itself and when he tries to regain control he can’t! I’d say either the mouse’s ball is dirty or the optics if its a laser mouse are blocked/dirty. Make sure if you’re using a laser/optical mouse that you’re not using it on a highly reflective surface. If it’s a wireless mouse maybe your batteries are draining? Try update the mouse drivers too. See if you can get a lend of another mouse to test and make sure it’s not the pc. New mice are fairly inexpensive too though if it comes to that.

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Game Play Slowing

PC Dude — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:39:55 +0000

Hardip has noticed that when playing games on his PC the gameplay slows down regularly or freezes. It seems obvious that your pc is underpowered for the types of games your playing Hardip. Double check the system requirements on the game box and then see exactly what you have on your system and if it’s within limits. You may find you need more RAM. You could also try disabling any other software or your net connection while your’e playing. Disable anti virus software especially and see if that makes a difference. Other possible issues include having a monitor that can’t refresh the game play fast enough.

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DVD/CD drive not Recognised

PC Dude — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:31:46 +0000

Ian’s DVD/CD drive on Vista is not recognised anymore and he’s tried doinga virus check. I don’t think you trying to read 15 year old discs would be the cause unless the discs were seriously damaged and interfered mechanically with the drive in some way. It sounds like a registry problem and you may need to go in and edit certain values in the registry which is something I will refrain from advising on as things can go badly wrong when you edit the registry!

Try this article however:

http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/cd-dvd-drives/code-19-vista-home-basic-167169-2.html

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Lost XP User Password

PC Dude — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:18:40 +0000

Joanne has lost her main admin XP password and can’t get back into the computer! If there are any other admin accounts on the computer then you could login to one of them and change yours in Control Panel – User Accounts. If not then you may have to use your Password Reset disc supplied with the computer. Click the link you see when you wrongly enter your username on startup. If you don’t have this disc then try restarting the pc in safe mode by tapping F8 on startup. If you can get to the desktop here then change the admin user account password as above, if not then you may need to re-install windows. This shouldn’t be a big deal and you shouldn’t lose much if you forgot your password soon after creating it as you wont have had time to create much data!

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Guitar Line Repeating!?

PC Dude — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:53:42 +0000

Dave is hearing a guitar riff constantly repeating when he turns on his PC and doesn’t know where it’s coming from or how to shut it off! It almost sounds too weird to not be a virus so do a scan first off. I’d then recommend going into the system sound settings and either turning off sounds or having a look to see if this sound is assigned to a system event like startup. Maybe a previous owner set it up? To get into system sounds on XP go to Control Panel – Sounds and Audio Devices – System Sounds.

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Windows 2000 Freezing

PC Dude — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:16:31 +0000

Greg’s PC is freezing for 3/4 minutes at a time. I’m guessing that because you’re using an old operating system that your PC is also old!? Maybe it’s just on it’s last legs.. Apart from that the usual rules apply for slow/freezing computers. Check the following:

Do a virus/spyware scan with a decent updated program.
Do a registry cleanup with appropriate software.
Start your PC in Safe mode to see if it still freezes, if not that would suggest software problems so…..
Get rid of unused programs and do a disk cleanup.
Do a disk error check in the properties tab of your main hard drive.
Check you’re not running out of hard drive space.
Check your Cooling fans are still working (CPU may be overheating).
Try a RAM or CPU upgrade.

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Windows Vista Sound Problem

PC Dude — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:58:53 +0000

Arif installed Vista on his previously XP based system and now the rear (PCI) sound card doesn’t work but the front (integrated) one does. The obvious problem is that your rear sound card needs new Vista drivers. Vista drivers may be available by default for your onboard sound card but not all additional PCI sound cards will be supported by default. You will need to find out the manufacturer of your rear sound card and download the latest Vista drivers from their support section if they even have any.

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XP Crashing

PC Dude — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:54:17 +0000

Jamie’s XP system is crashing after a RAM installation. I would say the obvious thing to do is remove the extra RAM you installed and see if the situation rectifies itself. If not, try to remember if you changed or installed anything else and undo that too. A system Restore is another option. The RAM you bought may be faulty or incompatible with your system or you may have a RAM mismatch. Also check the RAM is installed properly.

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Windows Installation Hanging

PC Dude — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:24:44 +0000

Varun can’t seem to install Windows XP. I would say maybe the hard drive is faulty so see if you can install on another one. Could be a faulty hard drive IDE cable too. Also, if you have more than one partition , try merging and installing onto a single partition C: drive. If you are installing over an existing operating system or upgrading, your Anti Virus software might cause problems.

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Windows 7 64 Bit and C Compiler

PC Dude — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:43:19 +0000

Joshua wants to know if Windows 7 64 Bit supports any versions of C Compiler. Looks like it does!

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en-GB&q=windows+7+64+bit+and+c+compiler&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enIE296IE297&ie=UTF-8

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Defragmenting Problems

PC Dude — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:38:25 +0000

Hugh’s PC with a 480GB hard drive was talking upwards of 36 hours to defragment. Defragmenting is never a quick process and I would normally leave it running overnight on my 500GB drive here and it would be done int he morning so I’d say there’s a problem there. You might just try to do some error checking on the drive before defragging again. Go to My Computer – C Drive (Right-click) – Properties – Tools – Check Now. Tick both boxes and Start. I’d say any partial defragmentation should be saved alright but it might help to get a proper dedicated software for this specific purpose. You should only need to defragment once or twice a year unless you are a heavy pc user.

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Double Clicking a Song = Screaming Girl!

PC Dude — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:53:47 +0000

Raman hears a screaming girl when trying to play songs on windows XP. Presuming you are not trying to listen to Yoko Ono Raman, I’d say try updating your sound card drivers via the manufacturers website. If all songs are like this it’s probably the sound card or its drivers. If only a few songs then it’s probably corrupt song files.

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Laptop WiFi Problems

PC Dude — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:55:36 +0000

My brother in law Tony got Eircom broadband in recently but it wouldn’t let him go online on the laptop wirelessly. Eircom support couldn’t help but after a bit of messing around I found that there were 2 different software programs trying to configure his wireless access and clashing with each other, the default windows one and the on board Dell one. What I done was went into the settings of the Dell program and unticked, “Let this program manage my wireless connection” (or something to that effect). Then I made sure the Windows Wireless software service was started properly and set to start automatically. You can do this in Start – Administrative Tools – Services.

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Windows Installer Problems

PC Dude — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:57:30 +0000

John can’t get automatic updates and other programs to install on Vista. A quick solution might be to get the latest version of the windows installer component/program from the Microsoft website if available. Failing that a repair installation of vista might be necessary.

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Microsoft Word Crashing

PC Dude — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:43:16 +0000

Alan’s version of Microsoft Word crashes after about 2 minutes of use each time. The following error displays: “Runtime Error Programme C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office10/Winword.exe Abnormal Program Termination”. The problem might be related to a Word add-in. This article may provide a solution – http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q322201 Also, a re-install of Word or an up to date virus scan might help.

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PC Booting to Grub Command Line

PC Dude — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:39:07 +0000

Jason re-installed windows and now every time he restarts it goes straight to a Grub Command line. This is indicative of problems with the boot loader or master boot record. A possible solution might be to boot the pc from the Vista disc and go to repair console and type in fixmbr and fixboot.

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Unload Debugger From Memory

PC Dude — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:16:33 +0000

Radha is getting the following error message on startup:

“A debugger has been found running on your system. Please unload it from memory and restart your program”

A possible workaround for this might be to click Start – Run – Type “msconfig”. Click the Boot.ini Tab – Advanced, then untick the “Debug” box.

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Can’t Run Regedit or Downaload Anything

PC Dude — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:40:15 +0000

John’s computer (Vista) restarts whenever he tries to download anything or run Regedit.

The first thing that springs to mind is a corrupt registry so either try to do a system restore or use specialist software like Registry Mechanic to sort out your registry.

This might also be viruses/spyware. I’ve seen certain viruses keep themselves alive by blocking certain applications or processes that may kill them. Try running your anti-virus and spware software (update first) to get rid of any possible threats. If they won’t run, try running them in safe mode by pressing F8 repeatedly on startup. Try running MsConfig too to see what strange programs and processes might be starting up with your pc.

Look also at the Device Manager to see if their are any problems with attached devices or their drivers.

Test downloading in another browser to see if your download problem is browser related.

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Deleted XP Admin Account by Mistake

PC Dude — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:04:49 +0000

John deleted his ‘admin’ account from an XP based pc and can’t reboot now.

For a start, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to delete the main administrator account in XP!? But if you’re talking about an account called admin that was created then try rebooting the pc in safe mode by tapping F8 during startup. Click on ‘Administrator’ and if it asks for a password just leave it blank an continue to desktop. Then go into Users and re-add the admin account.

If this doesn’t work you may need to re-install XP.

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Loading Script Virusremoval.vbs Failed

PC Dude — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:23:20 +0000

Arnab gets the error message “Loading script c:\windows\system32\virusremoval.vbs failed. (Access is denied).” every time the PC starts following an AVG virus scan of his USB drive.

This looks like an AVG specific error message so maybe try re-installing the AVG program.

You could also try stopping this message/service from starting by clicking on Start – Run – type “MSCONFIG” and press ENTER. Click the Startup tab and untick the entry beside C:\WINDOWS\system32\VirusRemoval.vbs then apply and ok. You may have to restart your pc after this.

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USB Drive Freezing the PC

PC Dude — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:11:16 +0000

Stewart updated his BIOS and found that afterwards every time he inserted a USB drive, the PC froze. Here’s some suggestions.

It seems pretty obvious that your BIOS update is the cause of the problem so presuming you downloaded the correct update for your PC, you should probably try to roll back to the previous BIOS version.

Make sure that particular USB drive is not faulty by trying it in another PC if you can.

You could also try to get an updated SCSI/Raid driver from the HP site.

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Can’t Type an @ Symbol

PC Dude — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:40:07 +0000

Stan’s wife can’t get the “@” key to work when she’s typing out an email address.Providing that particular key is not physically broken or stuck then the most common reason for not getting an @ symbol when you hit that key and possibly getting a ” instead is because of your keyboard input or language settings.

In Vista, go to Start – Control Panel – Regional and Language Options and choose Keyboards and Languages then Change Keyboards. In Installed Services, click Add and choose the input language and keyboard layout for your location. Save your keyboard settings as a default.

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XP Stalls on Startup

PC Dude — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:21:45 +0000

Aileen tries to start up Windows but gets stuck at an options screen displaying “Start windows in Safe Mode, Normal Mode or DOS Mode”.Windows startup problems can often result in having to do a repair or full re-installation of the operating system to sort out. But before that try to start the computer in safe mode by selecting that option in the menu. When it starts up do a quick virus and spyware scan just to rule out or deal with the possibility your problem might be caused by this.

Otherwise, if you have the original CD/DVD, insert that and restart the computer. When the repair option appears, press R. Type in chkdsk next and press enter then restart.

If these options don’t work you’ll need to re-install windows.

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Slow PC Performance

PC Dude — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:19:17 +0000

Nic can’t burn DVD’s, Defrag or run System Restore and the PC is running very slowly.What I’d normally say is upgrade your PC but your dual core cpu and 2GB RAM is not bad and everything should be flying with these specs. I know its an obvious one but have you checked that you have sufficient space on your main C: drive because if this is low there wont be enough room to save the temporary files needed for the likes of DVD burning, Restores, etc..?

Try do a disk cleanup and delete all but your most recent restore point to free up some space if you’re low. Get rid of some unused files and programs also. You could also try an error check on the main hard drive.

A system re-install might be a last resort option.

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Extract Audio From Flash

PC Dude — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:10:23 +0000

Rajashekar, was wondering how to extract audio from a Flash file and play it in his sound system.How you might do this is outlined in the video below. You will need 2 free pieces of software, VLC Media Player and Audacity.

If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it's missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe.

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NOD32 Antivirus Freezing my PC?

PC Dude — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:43:40 +0000

Mhlabelo has a Dell 620 which constantly freezes shortly after startup, seemingly when the antivirus program NOD32 tries to startup.

The obvious first solution is to boot into safe mode by holding down F8 on startup. If the pc starts properly and continues to run then it may well be some program that starts with the pc on main startup. You could try temporarily uninstalling NOD32 while in safe mode or use “Start – Run – Msconfig” to locate the startup process for NOD32 and disable it to stop it starting with the computer.

While on the safe mode options screen you could also choose to restore the pc to when everything last worked.

In general, when computers freeze you need to look at what you done just before the problems started and try reversing it. You should also check your system has enough resources such as hard drive space and RAM and do regular virus and spyware checks. Also check the system fans are still running and the CPU is not overheating.

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