Hold the flag key down and tap Pause key, go to the system restore tab nad turn system restore OFF, hit OK, it may take a while to finish. Now go back and trun it back on. See if this helps.

 

If this fails to give results try these

 

System Restore repair

Have your XP CD to hand and Click Start, Run, In the Run box, type "SFC /scannow" without quotes, this will take a while to complete, be patient.

If that doesn’t fix it

 

 

Re Install SR  Click Start, Run, In the Run box, type "C:\windows\inf" without the
quotes and press enter.
2. Look for   SR.INF   and RightClick on it, then LeftClick it, select "Install"

Follow the prompts, Reboot and System Restore should be ready to use.

 

I know you already said you didn't run any antivirus yet.... but you do have antivirus installed, don't you ?

If you had a spyware & trojan infestation as bad as it appears, it might be a very good idea to run a few scans for viri..... probably even in Windows safe mode too.

 

Good luck; take care..

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but youwill never EVER rid your system of the effects those items other than with a clean install.

Sorry - should have added - have run Kaspersky V6 anti-virus. System Restore still not working.

Thank you for your help. Regret that System Restore has failed to work. Have received error message -"could not start the System Restore Service on local computer. Error 1075 the dependency service does not exist or has been marked for deletion"

 

 

Notes

• Alternately, you can reinstall System Restore using the following command line:

rundll32.exe advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %Windir%\Inf\sr.inf

• Slipstreaming process can be automated using the Freeware AutoStreamer utility. You can download the software from here: AutoStreamer. To do this manually, look for other Slipstreaming guides here.

Was there anything about a "clean install" you did not understand?

Two ways to go about this.  First determine if your machine has the built-in Restore Partition mentioned in numerous posts.  An easy way to determien this is to look at your partitions on your drive.

 

Go to Control Panel>Admin Tools>Computer Management.  In the interface that appears look toward the bootn for Disk management and hit that.  You will see all of the partitions on your drive(s).

 

Reports back what you find and we can determine how best to proceed.  We are looking for a partitions of around 4 gigs.

I understand what a clean install means.

 

 What I do not understand is how to effect it and to ensure that my son's computer is restored in the same way that Dell set it up on arrival.

 

Therefore - I was looking for an alternative route to undertaking this task. I am sure that to an expert this is an easy task - but to others who are less involved with computers it looks daunting.

 

 

Please see details requested – the computer is a Dell Dimension 8300 – supplied in March 2004.

 

 Partition          Basic            FAT             Healthy (EISA Configuration) 47mb

(C:)            Partition          Basic            NTFS            Healthy System               74.45GB

(D:)            Partition          Basic            NTFS            Healthy                           74.45GB

No built-in Restore partition was included on the 8300 series so we have to this the easy way, and best in my opinion.  Make sure you have a good copy of the data you need to keep which would be easy becasue you have two partitions so copy the data from C to D and verify its integrity by actually opening a few files.

 

Now, download and install BelArc Advisor.  this will give you an inventory og everything installed on your machine along with associated product keys.  Print that out and place it in a Safe Place.

 

Grab your XP disc and reboot the machine.  At startup hit F12 to choose a one time chnage to the boot order and select the CD/DVD Drive.  Select and key to Boot From the CD.  Youwill go thur a series of screens that the links below will identify.  When it comes to the option as to where to install XP, youwill wan to delete the exisitng X partiton, verify your choice, and then recreate it.  I thinkt he exact key sequence is D-L-C.

You know have a freshly formatted C Drive on which to install XP.  Now study the links below and post back.  Just make sure you do not alter the D partition, because your data is there.

 

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_clean.asp
http://www.djdenham.com/Install%20Procedures.htm#Install

Driver Installation:
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&cs=19&docid=1A0C0937D62A8739E0401E0A55174744&journalid=4F1F82483DC811DBAE564F9328EE04A4&l=en&s=gen

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&dn=1090643

To find and download the drivers for your system, scroll down the page on click on
"Drivers and Downloads". Then enter your Service Tag or model number of your computer.
Select your operating system and then download the drivers that you need.

Thank you very much for your excellent assistance. The guidance was clear and the links most informative. We are still re-building after the clean installation but it is looking promising.

 

We have one problem in System Properties – Hardware –Device Manager- Other Devices ---we have a yellow query with a black exclamation mark against PCI Simple Communications Controller. We cannot find the drivers on our driver CD and are unsure about which driver to download from the Dell site. We think this may be a reference to the internal modem or PCI slots – can you kindly steer us in the correct direction?

 

Thank you

David and Robert

Since it references a PCI device, I would think it is a modem.