Explorer hangs accessing drive after reboot 2

[colinsw]

Hi

My machine is a 1GHz PIII, 512Mb and more disk than it knows what to do with. It runs Win2k SP4 and has all critical patches applied. The m/board, RAM and disks have had diagnostics run upon them, both individually and together, outside the machine and found to be OK.

I have the problem that immediately after startup or a reboot and after waiting until all disk activity has stopped, if I then open Explorer and access the C, D or E drive, Explorer hangs and a Restart (through Task Manager) is required to get the machine going again.

The machine is virus, worm and trojan free. This problem has been happening for some many months and did not coincide with the installation of any particular software package or patch.

Has anyone seen this happen before and/or have any ideas where to start looking for the cause, please?

 

[tpembe]

Hi, I am trying to ascertain whether I am experiencing the same problem. I can drill down on files in explorer however when I right click on a directory folder to view properties for example explorer hangs and cpu is at 100% I use task manager to end the explorer application thread. I also have similar problems when going to menu path file in windows explorer.

regards

 

[Sephresx]

This may sound kind of dumb, but why hasn't anybody suggested colinsw go out and buy the same model mobo she currently has, and test it on that. If the problem goes away, all is well and it was a controller issue. If it doesn't go away, ghost your hard drive and test the clone. It seems to me like you guys have virtually exhausted all software related fixes, the next logical step is to suspect hardware, and not just trust the already performed hardware tests colinsw has done. i know colinsw has already tested every possible aspect of the hardware from the outside, but i think there is still the possiblity of hardware being the root cause. Just trying to help out, since i'm new to the forum.

 

[NasibKalsi]

I am very new to the Forum, but this disturbed me a lot that the problem persists. Try disconnecting CD ROM and DVD ROM throughtout all the future tests. Also uninstall DVD drivers' and any associated installed software.
1. Install only one piece of memory.
2. Many a time video card causes reboot.
3. Test with another CPU.

No CD/DVD Connected in any tests.
I am certain it is the hardware.

Nasib Kalsi

 

[colinsw]

Again, thanky ou all for continuing to come up with interesting suggestions to ways to deal with this issue. I very much appreciate the time taken.

tpembe: Your result certainly seems to be similar to mine, but I wouldn't want to gaurantee that it was caused by the same thing.

Sephresx: Interesting that you choose 'she' as being my gender. Unfortunately the assumption is wrong!

Anyway, the board is some three years old. I doubt very much whether another of the same could be purchased. However, note that earlier I had tried the drive system in another machine with the same m/board and the problem persisted. I have since tried putting the ghost image onto a new HDD amd fitted that in both these machines. Same problem. That to me conclusiveley disproves any theory associated with hardware, BUT I would dearly like someonoe to prove me wrong!

Likewise, memory, video, drive system have all been proven out. Therefore starting the machine with CD/DVD disconnected has already been tried and unforutnately failed (see messages around 02/01).

 

[tpembe]

Hi,

I am not sure if this will help but I had a similar problem about 6 months ago and later found out that there was a Norton firewall and antivirus clash on the boot sequence of Win2K. I contacted symantec whom helped me to correct this problem i.e. gave me aworkaround. I understand that you do not have norton or symantec products, however can i point out that I was originally alerted to this potential clash on a simlar forum where a user whom did not have symantec products was experiencing the same difficulties. The problem was fund to be associated with a clash in the boot sequence caused be the antivirus product whos name excapes me at present. Anyway 6 months later I moved on merrily until yesterday where I started having similar problems again. Only this time what was brought to my attention was that I had downloaded recent virus updates and repairs to norton products from symantec. I contacted them immediately who in return responded promptly aware of clashes with their latest software release. Apparently they are looking into the matter further and have provided me with a workaround to continue using windows explorer.

I am not suggesting you have the same problem but it may be worth checking out with your antivrus or firewall provider.
regards

 

[NasibKalsi]

Did you try fresh installation on a new drive using the rest of the hardware ? I had one situation where XP Pro will install and function correctly, but XP home after installation reboot. After few test found that it was the Boxed P-IV 2.4GHz brand new CPU.

The other way to find the problem is Assembler tracer, a software which can display instructions on the screen as they are executed.

 

[colinsw]

tpembe:

You may be onto something here. I have throughout the course of the day disabled all the startup programs, both RUN keys in the registry, the User and Common Startup groups. The result was that the problem disappeared.

I've started to selectively restored programs, one by one, but have yet to find the culpret(s). So far I've the registry HKCU/Run and HKLM/Run keys restored. The process is quite slow, as I have set a requirement for between 4 and 6 reboot cycles to test after each program has been re-enabled. Given the W2k takes about 4 minutes to completely boot it is going to be a long slow process, but at least we seem to be getting somewhere. It may take me a few more days to finish.

I'll keep this forum informed of progress and when I find out when (I'm being optimistic) I find out whats causing the issue I'll detail the programs concerned and what I find as a resolution.

Thanks again for help.

 

[mnmn]

hi

i have a problem with outlook express and iexplorer
not all the time it display error on msimn or ieplorer.exe
5 or 7 time by day and close the program

 

[ylustrata]

Someone somewhere suggested that your problems may caused by a large HOSTS file.

 

[colinsw]

ylustrata:

Just checked, my HOSTS file has nothing but the Windows default entries in it.

 

[colinsw]

I just wanted to give an update as to progress with this issue.

I've now reached about the 95% mark, in restoring my startup program. As I mentioned before the registry RUN keys are all back in and I have experienced any lockups in the last two days. I've been working through the Startup Program Group, currently there are only two more programs to go.

These are the helper service for the NVidia graphic card drivers and the United Devices distributed processing client. Does anyone have any information on problems associated with either of these?

 

[colinsw]

It appears that one half of the problem is indeed the distributed processing client from United Devices, as without this program enabled there has been no instance of the problem for the last four days.

I spent some time yesterday studying the support section of thier website, in the hope that they may have come across it before, but no luck. I guess I'll have to forego helping with the cancer research project and go and try SETI instead.

Hey guys and girls, thank you all for your time and patience. The suggestions and speed of response are very much appreciated and have ultimately led to finding the cause.

THanks.