Serious WinXP Startup Problem!

[pvsurfer]

Over the past few days, I've been experiencing a startup problem in WinXP Home Ed.... the system locks-up after loading the desktop (and while loading the progs into the taskbar). At this point, I just have the hour-glass and no input capability whatsoever.

The only changes to my system around the time of the problem was that I downloaded several Critical WinXP updates that were posted 3/6 and 3/7 plus downloading .NET Framework v1.1 (which I need for PQ Drive Image).

One more thing... I see a suspicious item in the Services List called 'GEARSecurity' (set to automatic). I don't recall ever seeing that before... anyone know what it's for and if it could be related to my problem?

Desperate for answers... pv

[sam]

Ok i have gearsec.exe runnin in my prosesses so i dont think that is your problem... it may be your powersupply is startin to go . try just the basics. unplug everything except your hdd vid card one stick of ram and see if it will boot if so shut down and plug in one more thing.and see if it will boot then repeat this untill eather everything is pluged in or it stops booting if it stops booting then your powersupply is at maxload.. if this prosess dose not help with just the basics then you may have not enough ram or a ram problem try turnin of the programs in your start menu and re booting

[HeadBand]

to see if it is that boot into safemode, run msconfig and disable that...if it boots then you know what it is

[pvsurfer]

Sam: While I appreciate your help, I doubt it's hardware related as my system is only 6 months old, I have a 450W Whisper PSU that's not being stressed, and 1GB of dual-channel memory. Also, chkdsk doesn't report any probs on my HDD.

Furthermore, a deep virus scan and a trojan scan does not reveal any infections! I'm inclined to believe that some file(s) got corrupted, but finding it is another matter.

[pvsurfer]

Headband - been there, done that... disabled just about everything, but no cigar!

[pvsurfer]

Well the problem hasn't gone away on its own (drats!), but I just found out that the program that installed GEARSecurity is DI 7 (probably to burn images onto CD).

Need some more ideas!!!

[Harold7]

If you can boot into Safe mode, uninstall the critical updates you suspect and the .Net Framework and see if that at least gets you back to where you were before the problem.

I guess you don't use Restore points, did you you use an earlier version of Drive Image?

If so, if you had image files saved and have a DI CD, boot from that and restore the saved image file.

I tried using DI 7 with the .Net Framework and had nothing but trouble... system booted slow and creation of image files took 20-30 minutes and then wouldn't properly restore... of course I use 2 SATA drives in Raid 0 and have no IDE drives, so maybe that was why it wouldn't work right.

I had to go back to using DI 2002 for backups.