I am looking for help with XP problems. My PC ran fine until a few weeks ago when it started to crash, freeze and restart itself at any time. I am also having trouble installing software such as drivers and antivirus which give messages such as corrupt files. I have formatted my HDD and reinstalled XP, made no difference. Have just replaced HDD, no difference. Have tried new CD drive, still get corrupt file messages when trying to install software.
Can anybody help?

The same problems even on a new hard disk? How bizarre. After you formatted, did you install Windows XP from a legitimate original Microsoft CD?

After the Windows XP install, did you install an XP service pack or any Windows updates?

Have you installed any non-Microsoft software after that? If so, it might be one of those programs that caused the file corruption so we'd need some details to give us some more clues.

Could you also give us an example of one of the programs that you are having trouble installing now and exactly what the error message says? If it refers to one file or just a few files, we might be able to sort that out quite easily.

Did you recently install either any new hardware device or software program just before you have encountered this mind-boggling issue ?

Can your PC at least successfully pass the POST sequence?

Tell me your overall PC spec just for reference

Thanks
Tech

Thanks for the replys. I built the system myself about 18 months ago, it has an ECS K756A motherboard with onboard sound and an AMD Athlon XP 1800. 512 mb ram. not quite sure what the graphics card is but its a GeForce 64mb.
An LG CDRW and a Western Digital 20GB HDD ( which I have now replaced with a 40GB )
I installed XP PRO from a copied disk and it ran fine, did not crash, freeze, reset or anything like it does now. Then something happened a few weeks ago, I thought it was a virus but my virus scan could not detect anything, I was using McAfee VirusScan 7.0. I decided to format the HDD and thats when the real problems started. Managed to get XP back on after several attempts, kept getting corupt file messages while installing XP. Got most of the drivers OK but cannot install McAfee as keep getting message ' The virus definition files are corrupt please reinstall the product ' which I have tried several times, the CD is fine no scratches at all. Have tried anther CD drive and now a new HDD but is still the same. Have also had corrupt file messages when installing printer software and camera software.
The system does start up OK and I can obviously get online sometimes, Outlook Express often wont open and I have to restart the system.
Hope this helps

Corrupt files during the Windows XP install? Well that's a pretty fundamental problem. Any error relating to corrupted files in any other programs (e.g. your anti-virus software) will almost certainly somehow relate back to those same original problems.

I would recommend booting from the Windows XP CD so that it goes through the Setup routine and you can then choose the Repair option - that should, in theory, replace any corrupted files or files that didn't install properly the first time.

Let us know how you get on

hmm, I want to know exactly what the corrupt messages are, like everytime when you try to open certain different applications, or install software does it produce the exact same corrupt message wording or is it different each time?

More problems, tried to use repair on XP cd with no luck, tried to restart pc and windows had crashed, got stuck in some kind of loop, it would do the memory test etc. then switch off and restart. Formatted the 40gb harddrive but cannot get XP to install, messages are

on the first attempt Setup cannot copy the file: ng22d93.icm
second attempt Setup cannot copy the file: usbcamd.sys
third attempt Setup cannot copy the file: mf.sys
fourth attempt Setup cannot copy the file: ntkrnlpa.exe

I am sure this would happen no matter how many times I try to install XP
I am now back on the 20bg HDD which still has a working XP on it, I am going to try my other cd drive to install XP with.

I have just installed XP on my new 40gb successfully by using an old pc I have. I think this means that I have a hardware fault ( motherboard, cpu, memory or power supply ) with this pc.

sometimes, this kind of trajedy happens (manufacturere defect...quite possibly), if its still within the warranty send it back to manufactuere for repair or replacement.

Have just re-read this thread from the beginning again. At first, I thought that it might be a defective motherboard but I couldn't think of any evidence to back that up. Now I reckon it's dodgy memory.

Is the memory in your old PC compatible with the motherboard in your new PC? If you could swap out the memory (even if it's a small amount that makes it run slowly), that would allow you to prove whether you have faulty memory before you have it replaced under warranty or go out and buy some new RAM.