[SOLVED] XP Home driver failed + KB weirdness

[Romaniac]

Hi all - hope everyone is well. I got a weird one here...and tough one, for me.
It's been a while since I worked on an XP. They are very rare these days.

DELL Desktop with XP Home. Not sure which SP it was up to; I would assume SP3.

Customer was updating her drivers using DriverMax - she said it was getting slow... Thing is, she said it actually did help quite a bit and all was going well.

Then an update for the "Intel SM Bus" came up - sounds like it was an update for the chipset. I'm going by what she was able to tell me.
She downloaded it and started installing. The PC froze during the install (maybe wrong version/mis-ID...?)
Nothing would work; so she did a hard-shutdown.

Now it won't boot. Most I got to see of any loading is a quick flash of XP logo, and the bar moved a bit and then restarted itself. This was after 'last known good config' was selected.
Safe mode will list some drivers, but doesn't get past volsnap.sys. Tried regular and with com.prompt.


Here's a twist: when selection options in F8 menu or EVEN in BIOS the keyboard commands act like my keyboard is malfunctioning.
It goes up by 2 and down by 2. If I try and select an option to see the sub-menu/options, it just gets closed right away - as if
a stuck key is de-selecting/closing it again.
I tested it on my laptop - all good. USB KB, HP.

I can't select what I need to get it to boot from the CD because of this!

What in the world...?

If I slave the drive, could I undo the damage...I'm not sure what I would be looking for. All I can say is that it was likely a chipset driver that was being installed.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[nlinecomputers]

If it is doing this in BIOS then you have a hardware malfunction. Something probably blew out during the installs when the system was being taxed the most for resources. In other words mere coincidence.


Start running hardware diagnostics, hard drive, memory, video, and power supply. Change keyboards. Use USB instead of PS2 or vis a vis. etc.

 

[Romaniac]

Tried different USB ports. It weirdly has no PS2 ports.

Maybe I'll have to just try another KB. But if there is a HW malfunction, the only thing that would make sense, that would cause this, is the mobo - if it's happening in BIOS too.

Other thoughts?

 

[nlinecomputers]

Memory and Power Supply are also likely culprits. If the PSU is giving a borderline amount of power then some transistors might not gate properly or consistently and cause issues. Same with weird memory. Last but not least the Mobo may indeed have crapped out. Check the board for physical signs of damage, burns, swollen, or popped caps,etc.

 

[seedubya]

2 things to consider about the USB keyboard issue
1. Are you using a KVM switch? If so go direct
2. Using her original keyboard may soflve the problem either. Have seen this before with dells.

About the driver - if it was by any chance a hotfix, this might help http://windowsxp.mvps.org/spuninst.htm

 

[Altster]

And while you are at it, take a real close look at all of the capacitors on the main board. There may well be just one that is a little puffed up (domed) and this could be the culprit.

 

[cypress]

And while you are at it, take a real close look at all of the capacitors on the main board. There may well be just one that is a little puffed up (domed) and this could be the culprit.

+1 Physical inspection of the motherboard could really help to rule some things out.

 

[Romaniac]

Thanks for the interest, all.

OK - I found a different KB, and now the 'skip' issue has been fixed. Frustrating that this would happen...weird tech, I guess.

So, I inspected the MOBO, because, why not - and there is a capacitor that is a little bulged.
However, something tells me that it's not the cause. Will run a bootCD and test HW as a system, and see if it holds.


Right now though, I am back to XP driver issue. Any solutions with drive slaved?

Off to find XP Home w/ SP3.

 

[nlinecomputers]

The reboot is probably a BSOD. Disable the forced reboot so you can view it.

 

[B Trevathan]

Is it listing volsnap.sys in safe mode or is it restarting before volsnap.sys is loaded?

Have you checked for malware? Malware and updates don't seem to play well with each other.

You may want to try this program: Farbar Recovery Scan Tool

Yeah turn off restart on error.

 

[brandonkick]

Bulding or leaking caps are a problem, and should be replaced. A machine that old should just have all of the bigger caps replaced. The smaller filter caps usually don't go bad.

Secondly, at a BIOS level the drivers have nothing to do with it. You can disconnect the hard drive and your keyboard should still function just the same (and correctly).

Something seems to have borked during the install. I'd clone the drive, and then wipe it followed by a reload of win XP.

 

[Romaniac]

Solved!

Update:

Got it solved.

Got it to boot in safe mode (thankfully) with recovery console. Enabled me to to chkdsk and that did the trick, though it would work sometimes, and sometimes it would get stuck still.

Tried to use system restore in safe mode - no go. Got error ~ "system restore cannot protect your system. restart, try again, etc".

Tried some other things. Did chkdsk a few times; found stuff every time.
Eventually, and suddenly, system restore did work in safe mode - YAY! 0 restore points available. Arghhh!

So I start looking around in safe mode...started piecing things together. Saw a folder called "My Drivers". Didn't recognize much, but it made me think about DriverMax (never really used it). But after some investigating, turns out this thing kept 1 backup of its drivers. So I did a 'restore' of ALL drivers through DriverMax. Boom - normal boot works!

Something to note: Though there was a capacitor that was a little bulged, that's not always a cause. Plus, we knew this happened during a failed driver install, and the symptoms fit.



Thanks to all who replied.