Freezes @ welcome.

[girlfriday]

hi,

so i have an acer desktop, windows xp, 512 mb, 160 gb, and generally run norton once a week.

lately my computer freezes on start up, right at the welcome screen before the desktop even loads. the fan sounded like a dying seal, so i opened it up and everything was disgustingly dusty. after a good cleaning, it no longer sounds like it's dying, but it is still freezing at the welcome screen. i am totally at a loss.

any ideas? i am fairly clueless when dealing with computers, so any input would be totally appreciated!

oh, and when it goes thru the disk check it  says
"\program files\common files\symantec shared\SNDF.log first allocation unit is not valid. the entry will be truncated."



/thanks so much!

[Broni]

Are you sure about spelling of this: SNDF.log?
Can you boot into Safe Mode?

[girlfriday]

hm, i am fairly certain that the spelling was correct, i can definitely check again though.

when loading safe mode this comes up

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\fonts\vgaoem.fon
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\apppatch\drvmain.sdb
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\acpi.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\milb.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\pci.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\isapnp.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\ohci1394.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\1394bus.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\pciide.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\pcidex.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\mountmgr.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\ftdisk.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\partmgr.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\volsnap.sys
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows\system32\drivers\atapi.sys

... and then it eventually loads in safe mode.

[Broni]

You may have a problem with your hard drive...
While in Safe Mode, go Start>Run, and type in:
chkdsk /f
Click OK.

[girlfriday]

hm, it says

chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (y/n)

should i say yes and restart?

[girlfriday]

thanks so much for the help, btw.

[Broni]

should i say yes and restart?

Go ahead.

[girlfriday]

disk check on restart said that there were no problems, but it still froze at the welcome screen.

[Broni]

Have you been using any cleaning programs, lately?

Do you have separate video card, or on-board?

Also, restart in Safe Mode with Networking, download, and install SpeedFan: http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php, and post computer temps, along with processor info.

[girlfriday]

hi there,

sorry for the delay. i'm having problems connecting to the internet. i recently switched internet providers, and my computer was down when the tech came so he couldn't install the internet. it seems to be a problem with the router, a whole other issue that i should be able to fix with more time.


the video card is on board

processor is AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+
2.21 Ghz

i don't think i'd been using any cleaning programs. in all honesty, the computer stopped working about a month ago, i hadn't done anything to fix it out of laziness.

as soon as i get the temps i'll post them. thanks so much!

[Broni]

That's fine. Take your time...