My computer is doing something I have never seen before. I was dragging a skin into my program file to the lfs folder and then explorer.exe stopped working so I restarted my computer and I got a black screen. After I go that screen I restarted again just to find that I have a problem to diagnose, so I hit diagnose problem and it gives me a blue screen saying my hardware may be damaged or I have a virus. So I hop on my iPod and look around the web to see what's going on with my pc and I find out it's an update error from a year or two ago soni rule that out. I look around for a while to find a fix and I tried everything I could do in the f8 menu including safe mode but I got the same result every time being a black screen with just a cursor. I believe that this could be the result of a hardware failure such as the motherboard. I also don't believe this is a virus because my computer has been working fine all day and has just started with the errors. Your help would be greatly appriciated. Thank you, 1337sause

WIN+R > Type: explorer > .. See what happens.

Also, if it "just started with the errors". That makes me think more that its about the viruses, corrupting ur files, deleting files and much more.

WIN-R wont work when explorer isnt running since almost all shortcuts are handled by explorer except the SAS/ctrl-alt-del.. Well not on Xp anyways..

You need to ctrl-alt-del and run task manager. From there you can get a run box and then type explorer and enter...

Tho you might not even get that far if you cant even login...

Did you try a system restore from the F8 menu?...

Had the same thing once. Use the task manager to open up your anti-virus programs, scan, they find a full shitload of trojans and stuff, it'll say that you have to restart to delete 'em, restart, desktop is normal again.

which windows are we speaking of?

Quote from [rcg]boosted :

which windows are we speaking of?

It's about XP.

Quote from hazaky :

WIN+R > Type: explorer > .. See what happens.

Quote from Foilpact :

You need to ctrl-alt-del and run task manager. From there you can get a run box and then type explorer and enter...

Quote from matijapkc :

Had the same thing once. Use the task manager to open up your anti-virus programs (...)

He obviously can't even get into Windows so none of that will be of any use to him.

From my fairly limited knowledge on this kind of stuff I don't think it's a motherboard issue. I'd be more inclined to think it's a hard drive problem of some sort. I don't suppose you have a spare HD with a OS installed on it lying around? If so, you could try plugging that in and see if the computer boots.

Or you could try unplugging your harddrive and plugging it into another computer to see if there's anything wrong with it?

Got Vista?

Had the same problem with explorer.exe crashing all the time. Moved onto XP, it fixed it.

Quote from nikopdr :

Got Vista?

Had the same problem with explorer.exe crashing all the time. Moved onto XP, it fixed it.

Well, looks like that XP still is the ultimate OS.

Quote from matijapkc :

Well, looks like that XP still is the ultimate OS.

Doubt that. I didn't stay on XP for long, because of Windows 7. I would consider this better than XP and Vista.

Yes, but 7 requires better PC... Some 4 times better or so...

Quote from matijapkc :

Yes, but 7 requires better PC... Some 4 times better or so...

Not really lol.

Quote from matijapkc :

Yes, but 7 requires better PC... Some 4 times better or so...

depends...what engine you've got under the hood?

Quote from matijapkc :

Well, looks like that XP still is the ultimate OS.

How can it be the ultimate OS when it crashes if you kill the explorer.exe process and the others?

Look at this...
XP:
CPU: 233MHz (300 recommended)
RAM: 64MB (128 recommended)
1,5GB HDD space
Screen with res of at least 800X600.

7:
CPU: 1GHz
RAM: 1GB (32bit) 2GB (64bit)
16GB HDD space
DirectX 9 with WDDM 1,0 (not sure what is that... )

EDIT: I've got this under my hood. http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=1350142#post1350142
E2: It doesn't crash when you kill explorer, it starts it again and XP doesn't let you to kill processes which are crucial for the OS to run.

Yeah, be very smart and believe what the requirements say. I personally dont check requirements anymore at all because what they are is pure poop.

i can of it either being virus/malware, or the hard drive is dying.

at work i came across a machine whose hard drive was dying...

it could boot normally, but logging in would cause a BSOD. safe mode would work, and i was able to open computer management / event viewer... after i got that open, i saw literally thousands of disk errors. trying to shut down caused a BSOD. needless to say, the drive was indeed toast. they couldn't save any data off it either, they had to restore the OS and apps from image.

anyways, if you can get the STOP code (0x7b) or the actual STOP reason (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE), we might be able to help a little more.

Sorry I forgot to mention this is vista. And to everyone telling me to run task manager I can't even get into safe mode I just get a blank screen with a cursor so all of that is useless. I have another computer at my house with xp so should I plug that into my computer and see if that works? Oh I also read that a recent program install could have messed with the registry to cause this problem

Quote from bunder9999 :

i can of it either being virus/malware, or the hard drive is dying.

at work i came across a machine whose hard drive was dying...

it could boot normally, but logging in would cause a BSOD. safe mode would work, and i was able to open computer management / event viewer... after i got that open, i saw literally thousands of disk errors. trying to shut down caused a BSOD. needless to say, the drive was indeed toast. they couldn't save any data off it either, they had to restore the OS and apps from image.

anyways, if you can get the STOP code (0x7b) or the actual STOP reason (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE), we might be able to help a little more.

yes the stop code was 0x000007B (0xFFFFFF ect

ive had the black screen of death too...but on win 7.
might be the same issue.
theres a fix on the web for it, but of course ud need to get into the HDD, u can use a linux live cd or so.

Quote from 1337sause :

yes the stop code was 0x000007B

that doesn't sound good. i'd buy another drive and see if you can clone the bad one before it starts squeaking.

For what it's worth, I'd had a similar issue at work, last week. Computer would post, windows load bar would complete, but then a black screen with only a movable cursor in it would appear. Turns out the problem only occured if 4GB memory was installed instead of 2GB. Solved it by updating BIOS (it was kind of an old wokrstation :schwitz.

Probably not your specific problem, but still worth a try, assuming your motherboard's BIOS is easy to update.

First thing I'd do is test the HDD in another computer, just to rule out the motherboards and other hardware as the cause of the problem. If the hard drive doesn't work in another computer, then you've got yourself at best a reinstallation to do, and at worst a dead hard drive.

Boot the Vista dvd and try the repair option.

Quote from boosterfire :

For what it's worth, I'd had a similar issue at work, last week. Computer would post, windows load bar would complete, but then a black screen with only a movable cursor in it would appear. Turns out the problem only occured if 4GB memory was installed instead of 2GB. Solved it by updating BIOS (it was kind of an old wokrstation :schwitz.

Probably not your specific problem, but still worth a try, assuming your motherboard's BIOS is easy to update.

First thing I'd do is test the HDD in another computer, just to rule out the motherboards and other hardware as the cause of the problem. If the hard drive doesn't work in another computer, then you've got yourself at best a reinstallation to do, and at worst a dead hard drive.

Thanks for the feedback. I don't hink what I have is a virus because my computer had been working fine all day then started to act up. I think my best option would be to try the hard drive on another computer and if that's the problem than get a new one if not send it to a computer repair shop to save hastle cause I'm not to good with the insides of computers

Did you try system restore from the F8 boot menu?