Hardware problem or MicroSoft curse?

Question

O.k. folks...another newbie with a 'desparate situation'... I have a Dell Dimension 8400 desktop that 'used to be' running Windows XP Media Center Edition.  About a week ago, I got the blue screen of death with this error message at start-up: C0000221 Bad Image Checksum Image gdi32.dll is possibly corrupt.  The leader checksum does not match the computed checksum. I've run across many similar stories over the past week, but none match really what I've been experiencing.  First, when I start up, I get the black screen with Microsoft XP logo before the blue screen error message, so I assume it's attempting to boot up and it hits the bad .dll and crashes.  So I'm thinking, replace the .dll & all will be well...except I can't get to the hard drive to do that... My OS DVD that came from Dell with the computer will not boot the machine.  I have a store-bought copy of Windows XP Home Edition that will at least allow me to boot, but when I try to run the repair utility, I end up at a C:/ prompt.  The C:/ drive then behaves like an empty floppy drive.  I can see the CD, DVD, & floppy drives, and their contents will show up if I type 'dir' for that drive with something in them, but C:/ is just C:/ - that's it. I think the hard drive is still spinning...but I can only get far enough in to hit that blue screen... Anybody got any suggestions for someone who knows almost enough to be dangerous???

osprey4 · Answer

Hi, Brax:

Did you try hitting F8 and then picking Safe Mode or Last Known Good Configuration?

If a store-bought XP disc can boot, the Dell XP disc should also boot. I assume you have your master optical device set as the first boot device. If so, one trick is to disable other boot devices and just keep hitting F1 until it boots.

What you want to run is a repair installation, then get your important files off the system, then perform a complete clean reinstallation.

Brax64 · Answer

Thanks, Osprey...   I have tried to 'boot in safe mode or last known good config' when the store-bought XP CD booted, still ended up at the C:\ prompt...(didn't try it by hitting F8...)   I can try disabling the other boot devices...does it matter that the OS disc is a DVD and there is no 'DVD' boot device listed???

osprey4 · Answer

As long as your drive can read DVDs, it doesn't matter that the BIOS shows a CD or ATAPI drive.

Storage, Drives & Media

Hardware problem or MicroSoft curse?

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