Can't run windows repair aio, pc reboots

[japetus]

Hi all, a friend gave me his old winxp laptop to look at it as it seems unable to connect through wifi.
I tried to run windows repair using a usb stick and portable edition first, installing it and running it after, and I get the same reaction.
 Application opens and when I try to run it so that it can check the system, I get for a split second a blank screen with an error message which I am unable to log down, and system reboots.
Any ideas?

[Boggin]

Is the XP version 32 or 64 bit ?

Shane never tested the program on the 64 bit version as it was so unpopular.

Let's see if we can get the laptop working.

As it's a laptop I assume it has wireless capability ?

Have you connected the laptop to your router's SSID and is there a yellow alert or red cross on the wireless icon in the system tray ?

I'm not familiar with XP but go into Device Manager/View/Show hidden devices and look for any yellow alerts, red crosses or black downward pointing arrows.

If the Network adapters look okay and none of the above, boot the machine into Safe Mode with Networking - sometimes an antivirus program can be the cause of connectivity problems and in that mode, all 3rd party programs are isolated.

It can also be because of an infection, but one step at a time.

[japetus]

It is an old sub-laptop (asus eee pc 900) running 32bit winXP with sp2.
Can connect to internet only through wired lan connection, wireless adapter seems to be functional, recognizes available networks, but is unable to connect displaying the message "Acquiring network address" permanently... Otherwise seems perfectly functional.
The computer looks as having been hit by virus at some point, now checked and is clean, I have removed many unecessary programms and tried to renew ip via ipconfig /release and /renew but to no avail..
I'd appreciate any help regarding it, but it also puzzles me why the aio program won't run. As I can't seem to be able to have a good look at the error message -it goes off too fast- is there a log created somewhere I could locate?

edit: no signs of infection (red cross, yellow sign) and doesn't work either on safe mode with networking..

[Boggin]

With XP 32 bit, it's essential that you install SP3 - that can sometimes resolve a lot of errors.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/microsoft_windows_xp_service_pack_3.html

Open a Command Prompt and enter these cmds

netsh winsock reset catalog

netsh int ip reset resetlog.txt

ipconfig /release

ipconfig /flushdns

ipconfig /renew

ipconfig /registerdns

shutdown /r /t 00

and then see if it will connect after the reboot.

[japetus]

tried, but nothing happened...

[Samson]

If your wireless network is WPA2 then you will need SP3. XP SP2 does not support WPA2 security.

[Boggin]

Did you install SP3 ?

Go Start - type services.msc and press enter then check that these services are showing as either Started and Auto or Manual

COM+ Event System
Computer Browser
DHCP Client
DNS Client
Network Connections
Network Location Awareness
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Server
TCP/IP Netbios helper
Wired Autoconfig is set to manual.
Wireless Zero Configuration (XP wireless configurations only)
Workstation

If a service is not running, click on it to highlight then click on Start (top left).

If it fails to start then right click on the service to open its Properties and check the Dependencies and that each of them are running.

[japetus]

Unfortunately, I cannot install SP3 as there is not much space available at the disk.
Had a look at services, all running except Wired Autoconfig which is not listed and Computer Browser which I try to start and it stops by itself.

[Boggin]

All I've found for the Wired Auto Config missing in XP is that you get that service with SP3 - but that didn't sound right to me, although there were other suggestions to copy the key from an install disk or another XP machine.

As for the Computer Browser service, as a workaround, right click on it and select Properties and under the Recovery tab for the Subsequent failures, change that to Restart the service and for the two Restart boxes below that, set those to 0 - OK

The setting for the First and Second failures should also be set to Restart the service.

Close services and restart the computer to see if you get wireless connectivity.

To see if you can free up some space on the HDD, go Start - type disk cleanup then click on it or press enter when it comes up.

It will run once and then tell you how much space can be freed up, click on System files - OK and it will run again and may give a higher figure.

Open a Command Prompt and enter powercfg -h off followed by exit to close the cmd window.

This will turn off Hibernate but should free up a few GBs.

You'll be able to see by how much when you check C: before and after.

If that substantially improves the free space, then try the SP3 download again.

What is the history of the machine as to when wireless stopped connecting for your friend ?

I suppose it was unlikely after downloading anything with space being tight other than what may have caused the infection, but Windows needs at least 11% free space to work properly.

It's said that should be 15% but I've had a Win 7 laptop working with just 11% free - so I'm going with that.

[japetus]

Sorry it took me so much time to reply, wasn't able to check the laptop any sooner...
I tried freeing as much space as I could uninstalling seldom (and not so seldom) used programs but with no result. Laptop has two ssd drives and the c:/ one where the windows installation is, is only 3.5gb as opposed to 7.5gb on d:/  I hoped that these two drives are different partitions of the same one and ran partition magic hoping to merge them but they are indeed separate ones...
I can't install sp3 as it seems.
Trying to manually configure computer browser under services to restart, didn't help either...

Seems that formatting it and perhaps setting as primary disk the larger one, and reinstalling everything, is the way to go...

[Boggin]

How much space is taken up by restore points and what is the total size of C: ?

Some of the earlier SSDs never seemed large enough to me.

[japetus]

So, it seems -as suggested by both of you- that the problem lies entirely on the necessity to upgrade to sp3 due to wps wifi encryption... Its not a malware issue. The laptop connected succesfully on a wireless open network.
I searched all the large files on c: and moved whichever seemed harmless enough to the system to d:
Ran a defrag and after that I am left with 812mb free on the 3.7gb disk.
Tried to run windows update again to install sp3 but couldn't. Downloaded files take about 200mb space but the 600mb rest are not enough for the installation to be completed...

[Boggin]

There is a workaround but it means reducing the security level in the router.

While you would have to check the settings on your friend's router, can you change yours to the lower WPA and set it to just use TKIP.

Older computers weren't happy with AES and using TKIP has been found to resolve connectivity problems when everything else was as it should be.

The older WPA is a weak security level, but checking it out on yours should ID if that is the cause with your friend's.

The reason you were able to connect to the open network is because it isn't password protected.

If your friend has a XP install CD and a product key, could you install the OS onto the larger hard disk ?

Did you turn off Hibernate as I'd suggested to see if that frees up sufficient space ?