"Files are corrupt". THEY'RE NOT!!!!!

Tim

Time for another new experience. I'm reloading a Dell Dimension 4700 with XP Home. Nothing unusual, I've got my standard set of antivirus and other programs on my flash drive. Directx, Windows Media Player, Winzip, AVG Free, Adaware, Sygate firewall, DivX, etc.

This miserable POS computer insists that files in most of these programs are corrupt. I got Sygate and Winzip and DivX to install, but that's it. Normally I can pound these programs in 1,2,3 and move on. But noooooooooo, this 4700 wants to be a bitch.

After multiple attempts at installing the files in different locations, and downloading from the web to different locations, the other programs refuse to install, I always get messages right away saying the files are corrupt or some part is missing.

I've loaded other computers with these programs off my flash drive before, and even did another one AFTER this 4700 and came back to the 4700 this evening. Guess what? All the other computers ran fine.

I wonder what's causing this corrupt file BS. A hard drive going to pieces is all I can think of.

Tim

More aggravation. Can't even download updates from Microsoft.com to get the thing updated. Tried to get XP SP3 several times. It'll SAY it's downloading, but then it doesn't and it'll say the files could not be installed.

I also let it sit all afternoon with the CMOS battery out and reset the time afterwards, to see if that would help, and so far it hasn't.

Thrax

Bad HDD or bad memory. Test both.

primesuspect

Could be bad RAM.

Tim

This PC uses DDR2 ram. Fortunately, another PC I had had DDR2 ram, so I tried 2 different sticks in this 4700, one at a time.

FAIL.

Same BS, different ram sticks.

Looks like a hard drive swap. I didn't have any SATA drives laying around, and somehow it wouldn't work at all when I tried putting an old 15 GB IDE hard drive on the IDE channel along with the CD-ROM. Even a few BIOS changes didn't allow that to work.

mas0n

Tim wrote:

This PC uses DDR2 ram. Fortunately, another PC I had had DDR2 ram, so I tried 2 different sticks in this 4700, one at a time.

FAIL.

Same BS, different ram sticks.

Fail how? If all you're doing is replacing the sticks and encountering the same corrupt files error this doesn't prove much. If it is failing Memtest with known good sticks then you've got a bigger problem.

Have you tried reading data from any other USB storage devices? The USB Host Controller could be on the fritz, but I'm more inclined to think it's bad HDD or RAM as Thrax suggested. Either way, until you test those there will be little forward movement on this problem.

Tim

I tried putting Adaware and AVG Free on this PC from my flash drive, and I tried installing them by downloading them from the web also. Same problem each time.

And Adaware and AVG Free installed perfectly to another PC from my flash drive AFTER this problem happened.

I'll try again with a different hard drive and ram stick.

Thrax

Stop ignoring my posts. You have bad hardware.

Tim

I'm not ignoring anything.

I ended up replacing the hard drive with a new 500 GB unit, and put in a new stick of 1GB RAM also. The PC loaded up XP, all the updates and antivirus programs, etc, just like it should. Nice and fast.

It works fine now.:bigggrin:

Afterwards, I added in the original 256 MB stick of RAM it had, for a total of 1.25 GB now, It still works good.

Looks like the problem was the hard drive.