I'm in deep @#$##@#, need help desperately!

[claudegiz]

Hey all, I've built my first system, specs later. I got Media Center installed, booting fine, Yea! Next I finished installing my hardware.

Specs:
OS- Windows MCE2005
Hard drives - 36.7 Raptor
WD Caviar 250 gb
WD Caviar 160gb
WD Caviar 400 gb
(all working fine, partitioned the way I want, and spanned on two drives.

Optical - Rosewill PATA 16tx dual DVD +/- RW - works fine
Plextor SATA 712 - not working because I have connected to a SATA controller, which isn't working.

Sound - Creative Audigy 2 ZS - no sound, but recognized and Drivers loaded
Mobo - Epox 9NAP + Ultra
Memory - 2 gbs Corsar Xtreme
CPU - AMD X2 3800
TV Tuner - Hauppagre Win-TV 150MCE - working and drivers loaded

Mitsumi 7n1 card reader with Floppy - working.

So, since I have a lot of devices, I've been working on each problem after I fixed the last. Well. I have a disk from Maximumpc with various utilities, spyware, adware, etc. I have Zone alarm loaded as my firewall and Spy bot for scanning.

Here is where I think I have the problem. From the disk I loaded Bit Defender, Webroot Sweeper and Nvidia's firewall, which I didn't activate, because I wasn't sure if it would conflict with Zone Alarm. Yea I know I'm an idiot. So, before I rebooted after loading all this, I went on line to see how it would work. The system slowed down so much I could get on line, so I decided to uninstall Bit defender. Then I rebooted. POST was fine, then I got the message that Bit was missing, then started to boot and I got a BSOD. The code was 0x000000FC. No clue what this is. The message states that trying to execute unexecutable memory, check install or uninstall . So I rebooted in Safe Mode. Found the rest of Bit Defender and deleted it. Rebooted, got the BSOD, same message, again. Rebooted in Safe Mode, I uninstalled all the spyware, etc that I previousl installed. I also noticed that the BSOD came after the programs in Start-up were activated. So one of those is causing the BSOD. However, I don't know how to disable the start-up menu in XP. I went to the Start-up Bar and thought I had cleared it but clearly not.

I tried to uninstall Nvidia firewall and the uninstall said that there was a problem with the Windows installer and couldn't uninstall in Safe Mode. I am almost positive that because I didn't finish the install on this software, this is the problem. Now I found the file which contains the Windows Installer. I was going to delete it, but I wasn't sure if this would create more problems.

Right now, if you all can't help me, I'm going to re-install Media Center and start from scratch. Since the raptor is my system drive, I have no documents, etc., I'll just have to reinstall all the drivers, etc.

Any help will be welcome

Thanks

Claudeth

[glc]

I think it would be best to start over - and do things in stages this time. Start with a bare minimum of components - only a video card (NOT the tuner), one optical, and one hard drive (and floppy if necessary for loading SATA drivers on install) - NO USB devices or card readers (in other words, you can connect the floppy cable from the Mitsumi but NOT the USB cable - yet). Get Windows installed then turn on the Windows firewall BEFORE connecting to the Internet. Get drivers installed, get Windows updated, then start adding components one at a time. Do not start installing software till all hardware is taken care of, and make a system restore point before installing anything that you even think may give you problems.

If you are going to be using a sound card, turn OFF the onboard sound in the bios BEFORE installing Windows.

You are better off downloading the updated versions of stuff instead of using that MaximumPC disk, you may be trying to use older versions that may not be fully compatible with MCE with updates. I would not even THINK of using the Nvidia firewall - and if you are behind a router you don't even need Zone Alarm - keep it simple and use the Windows firewall along with a quality antivirus and antispyware package.

[claudegiz]

Originally Posted by glc I think it would be best to start over - and do things in stages this time. Start with a bare minimum of components - only a video card (NOT the tuner), one optical, and one hard drive (and floppy if necessary for loading SATA drivers on install) - NO USB devices or card readers (in other words, you can connect the floppy cable from the Mitsumi but NOT the USB cable - yet). Get Windows installed then turn on the Windows firewall BEFORE connecting to the Internet. Get drivers installed, get Windows updated, then start adding components one at a time. Do not start installing software till all hardware is taken care of, and make a system restore point before installing anything that you even think may give you problems. If you are going to be using a sound card, turn OFF the onboard sound in the bios BEFORE installing Windows. You are better off downloading the updated versions of stuff instead of using that MaximumPC disk, you may be trying to use older versions that may not be fully compatible with MCE with updates. I would not even THINK of using the Nvidia firewall - and if you are behind a router you don't even need Zone Alarm - keep it simple and use the Windows firewall along with a quality antivirus and antispyware package.

Thanks glc, I'm definitely going to do this. At the end of the day, I'm glad that I'm having these problems. Each time I correct one it adds to my knowledge. Definitely appreciate the skill it takes to build one of these from scratch. However, am loving the experience.



Claudeth