Madmanmcp

Yes, a "clean" install. If you do a reinstall over top of your current configuration you may not correct the problem.

Well I have no other ideas for you. If no one else does then reinstall is your last choice.

I blame all the companies who sell alcohol for the deaths caused by drunk drivers. I blame all the companies who sell guns for the deaths of kids killed in the crossfire. I blame all the companies who sell tobaco for the deaths caused by cancer. I blame all the companies who sell cars for the deaths caused by car accidents. Yep, its never an individuals fault for making the wrong choice... Why of course its MS's fault those darn kids write those nasty viruses, MS made them do it!

12:20PM Didn't know I had to tell it I wanted the correct time thanks Bruce

10:24AM EST

http://www.theeldergeek.com/recovery_console.htm scroll down to the middle of the page and read the section on Recovery Console Password.

To install the Recovery Console as a startup option With Windows running, insert the Setup CD into your CD-ROM drive. CLick Start and select Run. Type the following where D: is the CD-ROM drive letter: D:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons Follow the instructions on the screen. Notes To run the Recovery Console, restart your computer and select the Recovery Console option from the list of available operating systems. You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure. To see the commands available on the Recovery Console, type help at the at the console prompt. If your computer will not start, you can run the Recovery Console from the Setup CD. See Related Topics for information on running the Recovery Console when your computer will not start.

Ok, you found the culprit and came up with a solution and now you also have some nagging questions, isn't computing fun? First thing I would do is check the Dell website and see if there are driver updates available for your Laptop. Maybe they have heard of this problem and posted a driver to fix it. Next how old is the laptop, is it still under warranty? If it is you could concider getting it fixed for free...but this would involve mailling it in and being without it for a period of time.

That and a program to predict the winner in the horse races is all I'd need. Hardware failure is a part of the business, a good backup system is about the best you can do to "prevent disasters in future" as far as hard drives are concerned. Windows comes with SCANDISK. Nortons has Disk Doctor (but I've both fixed and distroyed drives with it) Gibson Research has Spinrite and there are many more

Well then I am sorry to say that narrowed things down to one possibility

Thomas, yes you can reinstall over the old. You have two possible reasons to look at which is what that message is telling you. You may have a bad hard drive OR the partition is full. When installing Windows the first check done is to see how much space is available, it needs room to copy its temporary files to the hard drive. If you are low on space you will get this message and the install will stop until you free up enough space to continue.

Ok, so alls you did was copy the boot.ini from the wife's PC...lets see if we can rebuild your boot.ini to fix things. See if the instructions here help. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=291980

Do you possibly have multiple accounts to log in under? If you logged into a new account the icons and email will be missing because this new account has not been setup with any of this information yet. Cliak on Start and then LOG OFF and then see if there are multiple accounts to log on with, select the original account and see if everything comes back.

mike, see if the "Show Desktop Icons" options is turned off. Right-click the desktop. Point to Arrange Icons By. Click Show Desktop Icons

A router is a device used to "route" information around a network, it acts as the traffic cop, computer A is here and computer B is way over there. They use natting to assign IP's to all the computers when they connect. It also has a connection for the cable/dsl modem and it will allow all the connected computers to share the Internet. Since the cable/dsl modem is connected to the router it is easily shared between all computers connected to the router. With Dialup its a little different, the Internet is not on the router so the router can't distribute the Internet around to the other computers. The internet is located on one of the computers and needs help going across the network and thru the router to the other computers. So you need special software to allow sharing to the other computers on the Network. You either need Proxy software or ICS services. ICS comes with Windows ME or Windows XP and is free and is simpler to use and setup. ICS = Internet Connection Sharing.

Hi Purplespider, to get your wireless network actually working correctly all around you will need a wireless router w/ethernet ports. This will let the laptops, wireless, communicate with the desktop, wired to the ethernet ports. You may also need to install ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) services to share the dialup internet across all computers. It is possible to share dialup but I hear its painfully slow. Another site to help understand and help setup your network is here: http://www.practicallynetworked.com/networking/

See if this will give you any help...once you find out where your server is www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzref.tzc you put the server time zone in the "Reference time zone box" , US/EASTERN for example. Then find your timezone and put a checkmark in the box. And the click the submit at the bottom of the page. You will get a result and use the whole number without all the zeros, +7 for instance when it says +00:07:00:00 (I think).

mike, no, the installation information you are talking about goes into the registry. The boot.ini is created when XP is first installed and it just contains information on what OS to boot and where it is located. If you have a backup of the boot.ini I would try that first, it may be the quick fix you need.

Hi mike, didn't we just go thru a boot.ini problem for you? Sounds like a continuation of the previous problem. The boot.ini is the starting point for loading an operating system, it directs the computer to the OS and the partition or drive where its located. If this is corrupt you need to start with that error first. You need to replace or fix the boot.ini before worrying about what spybot finds.

Let us know if a different wireless card corrects the issue.

Well this narrows it down. Do you have another wireless card to test with to see if its the card. Did you move the laptop to different locations to see if its the location of the laptop versus the card itself. If using a hardwire works...problem is solved

Just noticed you mentioned laptop and the signal strength was high, you may have a network card problem. Bring the laptop next to the router to see if the issue remains, if it clears you have a location problem. Do you have another card you can try in its place?

Things to check...what other programs or processes are running. The system could be busy with other things, do a ctrl-alt-del and see whats running. A virus scanner could be slowing you down. try terminating things to see if it frees the browser up. How much disk space do you have left free? If you are running real low the system will bog down trying to shuffle around your swap space to make room for new data. Do a couple traceroutes on the sites you have problems with, maybe its an ISP issue. What else is going on in the house on the network. On a network bandwidth is shared, and when other computers are downloading 50MB files it will slow down everyone else on the network.

Jikrantz, I said "sounds like", doesn't necessarily mean thats the virus they have. And just because they have Nortons doesn't mean they don't have BlackIce installed also. I know folks who will double and triple their software packages believing "more IS better". In most cases it isn't .

BlackIce is a software Firewall. The Virus writters found a hole in it where they could gain access through port 4000.