Hello

I have a big problem here. Good to know that I remember most of the chronology of the problem, so I hope you can help
Yesterday, I just arrived back to my univ (and hostel), then I turned on my PC. I downloaded 3 files (which I'm sure clean of virus since I sent them from my PC in my homecountry), then after awhile I downoaded another 8 or so files from a trusted site (it was classicgaming.com). After listening to music and playing games for some hours, I shut it down. Oh, by the way, at this point, my mouse's right button couldn't work well.

Today, the first time I started my XP, I couldn't load, and when I reset it it said that it couldn't have finished loading, and I was given a choice to either use a safe mode or normal mode, and I chose the latter. This time, I opened winamp 2.81 and play games as well, but when I opened the net, suddenly it happened: The system hung with a strange color disorder (there were some red vertical lines and the screen became somewhat blurry color-wise). And oddly, the right clicks worked.
The next times I restarted my PC (yes, times, not just once), the error kept on occuring, sometimes my mouse still responded but everytime I opened the IE, everything stopped. In each restart I have let the system check the disk, but even though it detected and corrected some problems, the problem kept occuring. I then tried to prevent the system from loading so that I could chose the safe mode, but it always stopped scanning when the file windows32\(blahblahblah)\Mup.sys appeared.

I suspect two things: either my system suddenly went corrupt without any triggerers (not virus I expect, unless MSN MEssenger has the ability to capture virus without warning...), or there's something wrong with the video section.
Please help, this is serious!

I looked around a bit for you and this is what I found...
-Start the Recovery console or..
-Start the computer with the boot disks or Windows CDROM
-After the Welcome to Setup dialog box appears, press R to repair, and then press C to start Recovery console.
-Choose install Windows and log on as Administrator.
-At the command prompt type "disable Mup.sys"

MUP stands for "Multiple UNC Provider" which assists Windows in locating resources when more than one redirector is on a machine such as "Microsoft Client for Microsoft Networks" and the "Novell Client for Novell Netware". When a connection to a server is requested it does not know if the request is to a Novell server or an NT server. It will start looking for the server with the primary protocol on the primary requestor and then continue looking for the server on each protocol bound to each redirector until the server is found."


Restart the computer and all should be well.

Apparently a lot of people have been having this problem...and a lot of them fix it in very different ways (ie. changing processors, swapping ram, removing PCI cards, changing hard drives). I figure this is the best solution as you probably won't need the service anyways.

Thanks for the info, but I'm very surprised about your saying that this problem is common.... or maybe I forgot that XP is just another crappy work of Microsoft.
Back to the problem, I haven't had any boot disk, so I'll have to find one. By the way, this following problem is apart from the primary disaster:
My pal once copied all files in WinXP installation CD to his HD, and when he offered me to burn the files to a CD so that I can use it, I agreed. But the CD couldn't autorun at first, and my system said that the CD didn't have a boot record. Is this to be expected?

Thanks again

Did you copy the CD image, or just the files? If you just copied the image you wouldn't have copied the actualy boot information off of the original CD. If you can't find a CD to boot from, try the floppy setup disks that you can download

For XP Home
here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=E8FE6868-6E4F-471C-B455-BD5AFEE126D8)

For XP Pro
here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=55820EDB-5039-4955-BCB7-4FED408EA73F)

Have you tried reseting the system files to the nearest checkpoint?

testify, thanks, I'll try that
okinrus, not yet

Hi again (in worse mood)

Thanks to those who wrote in suggestions. Just now the problem worsens, here's it:
When I started it, even at the beginning display (where you can press DEL to change system setup), the display is damaged; there are 'colorful' spots all around the screen which makes writings blurred (think of the problem which happens to a NES system if you misinserted a cartridge). And more, the XP can no longer load.... oh, also, it cannot read boot record anymore.....
I suspected that the problem comes from the vid card, but when I asked some people for their opinions, some of them also mentioned the motherboard....
Anyway, I'm bringing the PC to a serviceman soon... I can't stand this anymore......

Well, the obvious first as no one has mentioned it, run error checking on your hard drive. In explorer (or in "My Computer") right click on your drive icon and choose properties and then choose "Tools" and then error checking with the auto fix option chosen. If you haven't done this for quite a while, it may take hours. Depending on how often you use the computer you should run this occassionally.

My second suggestion before tearing into the hardware would be to explore driver incompatibilities. I've seen video driver problems come on only gradually then get serious quick. Try a roll back if that option is available. Upgrading or researching such from the video card manufacturer's site (or from your original computer manufacturer) and then following their advice to load a different version fixed this problem for me a couple of times.

You may have to boot up from diskette to do the above if possible otherwise, make sure all cards are seated properly, cables secure, memory modules secure etc (protect from static electricity by grounding yourself first).

Good luck!

Thanks, though my PC is in the serviceman already....... I can't even load anything using it, so most of your sugestion go unused, sorry if that irritates you...

:( that's too bad. Sounds like XP got royally f****d up. Next step would have been to zero-format the HD, and re-install. THat's most likely what the techs are going to do. Hope you have a backup of the files...

I still think it's a hardware problem personally. If your POST screen is screwed up then surely it can't be software related, unless for some reason your BIOS has gotten corrupted as well. If I were you, and wasso cheap that I wouldn't go to the tech to get it fixed I would try a different video card...but I guess it's too late for that. Sorry I couldn't help more. :(

BIOS? wait a second...... my PC at home also once got that BIOS problem, but the symptom's not as fatal as broken display.......
and river-wind......... *cry* I haven't backed up most of my system....oh my...... I hope he won't mess up with my HD.....
Damn, why didn't I bring a 98 CD? I have one (2 in fact) at home...... XP is getting more and more irritating to me..... for sure, I ain't going for the next windows.... I bet it'll be Microsoft worst masterpiece....

Wow, that same exact problem happened to me! except the flashy screen with different colors. It started off slowly and only gave some windows errors and mouse problems. It also stopped when i tried playing games or watching a certain video. Then it progressively got worse and finally when i tried to boot windows it just gave a blank screen, or if i tried safe mode, it haulted on mup.sis. I HATED that damn mup.sis lol.

But I couldn't even install windows xp off the cd. I couldn't run the repair or even get to the repair option. It always hung when it said "setup is starting windows xp". I also tried it for windows 2000 too, and gave the same error. Except the craziest thing, i had an old hard drive with 98 on it, and it worked! I thought it was my video card, then my ram or my soundcard, then when all of those were replaced with something else i thought it was my motherboard or cpu. Though i doubted it was either of those when 98 worked.

So then i thought it was some irq error in xp and 2000, or something wrong with my hard drive. Though in 98 i ran chkdsk on all my drives and even tried to defragment, but it found nothing. So i was totally lost. By random chance i found a hidden windows install feature on the web, that when you pressed F5 while during "setup is configuring you hardware" it let you choose your a different configuration. Which let me repair windows! I have no idea why, but apparently it wasn't seeing my hardware configuration.

But then.... when windows finally was done installing, i checked for HD errors, and got a few. Then I tried to get a virus scanner, and partition magic loaded and everything. But then it froze again, and this time i used the same trick in the install, but it wouldn't find anything in the repair option.

So finally, i formatted my c: did a clean install, and everything works perfectly now. Except, a few days later my first partition on my other hard drive got corrupted somehow.... I used a recovery program to get some of the stuff off, but i had to format that partition too. Other than that I haven't had a problem since. Windows is still fine, and i got the latest virus updates and found nothing.

It really sounds like a different kind of CIH virus to me that no one has found yet, because of both my first partitions going under. It was the craziest problem i've ever had though, my computer was down for a few weeks.

Sorry i rambled on and on about my problem, if anyone else has this problem, i would suggest formating c: and installing new. Lucky for me though, i only had windows on my c: I lost my installed programs, but i had all the setup files and cd's. I would recommend everyone to do that. Though i did lose my favorites folder :( But oh well, it wasn't that bad.

Whoa.......... odd........ I'm not sure I'm right on this, but it seems that what you wrote suggested that XP is greatly prone to fatal errors like this...... but I wonder why my friends never had this serious problem, even though we bought PCs in around the same month.....

this EXACT thing happened to my dads computer, i have no idea what it is or how to fix, to this day the computer sits dead.. The mouse started acting funny, then the thing started freezing, then the display got messed, including the BIOS display, now it just starts up and then shuts down automatically, which makes me think there is a heat problem, or a power supply problem or something.. :\ gg computers. gg

my roomate has an XP machine which randomly froze a few months back, and then wouldn't restart. "Cannot find C:\" or something like that. Basically, the machine simply lost the main Hard Drive. He popped in the recovery CD, and was asked if he wanted to "fix w/o initialising the HD" or "initialise the HD". Choosing either option brought him to a screen asking him which Partition he wanted to initialize. :rolleyes:
He ended up having to wipe the drive, and has been OK since.

Hi again all

I have just brought back my PC from the serviceman, and he and I had confirmed that indeed the motherboard n the VGA Card were faulty, so I bought new ones. After get back home, I installed my hardwares completely, and the everything worked fine until it's the time to start the XP: there's a blue screen telling me that XP was terminated because of an error possibly from HD which might be corrupted, virus-attacked etc etc. When in the serviceman, we have confirmed that the HD worked fine, and we could get into the login screen, plus, I even tested as far as looking at my folders.
Okay, on the way from the serviceman to my room, it was raining, and I have tried my best to cover the PC from rain. The floppy driver and CD drivers were still fine until now, but why the HD? Can someone help me?
Also, I just borrowed my pal's Win98 boot disk, and entered the DOS mode to run scandisk to check my system. The first time, I was told that the free space available in my drive was misreported, and fixed. However, when I chose to start the system normally, the blue screen appeared again. This repeated itself everytime I restart (free space report error, blue screen, so on). Help!

Hi again all :)

I've just got my PC running again. I used an XP cd to repair the system, and it works now! Glad. I'm in the front of it now typing this. For all of you who have responded to this thread, thanks.
Time to get nerdy again :P