Okay, here's the problem. My stepdad has a 3 year old HP Pavillion with Windows ME. Now before you say "buy a new computer" hear me out. The other night he left his computer on all night and when he went in to log on that morning the computer was frozen. No Ctrl-alt-del, tried turning the monitor on and off, tried jiggling the mouse, nothing... So he restarted his computer. But when he restarted all sorts of problems started occuring that had never occured before.
Here are the symptoms that I have diagnosed so far:
1) Error message: The IPHLAPI.DLL file cannot start. Check the file to determine the problem.
2) Error message: Rundll32 has caused an erro in KERNEL32.DLL. Rundll32 will now close.
3) Error message: Error loadin nview.dll. A dynamic link library (DLL) initialization routine failed.
4) Mouse not working
5) Runing excrutiaingly slow
6) Graphics look like they do in safe mode but computer is in normal mode.

Here's what i've done so far to fix some of the problems. I went into safe mode and uninstalled the mouse. Then i reinstalled it and it's working fine now. Then to fix the computers speed i did a scandisk, a disk cleanup, and a disk defrag. The computer is running noticably smoother now. Then to fix the graphics i went to the control panel-display-settings and i noticed that it was set on 16 colors. So i set it to high color and it prompted me to restart so i did. When i restarted nothing was changed- the colors were still messed up- and now every time i try to go back to control panel-display-setings, the computer locks up.
So far i haven't engaged the DLL problems directly but since there were so many of them we decided that Windows ME had finally just given out. So we went out and purhased Windows XP home edition.
Now my quesion is: should I format the C: drive then install Windows XP, or should i install Windows XP withought formatting the C: Drive.
I know there are many computer gurus here at ironworks and your help in this dillema will be greatly appreciated.
(By the way, the computer is not under warranty any more so any calls to tech support run about $30 an hour! youch!)

What are the specs for the machine? Processor type/speed? RAM? I ask because WinXP is a resource HOG! I would definatly reformat (try to recover any data you want/need while in safe mode) and re-install. But if you don't have 128 Mb of RAM (personally I would say 256) don't bother with XP. Just put ME back on it and get all the patches for it.

Specs:
HP Pavillion 7845
833MHz
Pentium III Processor
Windows ME
255 MB RAM
40 GB Hard Drive

<font color=skyblue>Something similar happened to me when my power supply got fried by a surge that the surge suppressor did not stop. I thought it was Windows acting up, and I reformatted. Imagine my surprise when I found out the truth almost a week later!</font>

Software shouldn't just screw itself up like this. Not even winME. Most probably, there is a hardware problem, possibly the hard drive. Keep an eye on it.

As for installing winXP, the upgrade procedure is not perfect. Safest course of action is to back up neccesary files and then format.

This might have helped with your problem no.1. However, if you really have decided to go down the XP route, probably the best method is to do a clean install rather than upgrade from ME.

As my current PC came with XP preinstalled, I've never had to do this, but I think there is a method of installing XP which takes care of the whole formatting thing automatically. However, I believe if you decide to upgrade, XP has the ability to keep your files, settings and programmes intact.

Have a search around the Microsoft site for more.

Hope this helps [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

nview is a video driver I believe. Try reinstaslling the video driver (according to the method described in the documentation for the video card) If that doesn't work, try a different video card...if you have one.

[ 12-23-2003, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

One thing to add... assuming that you're installing an upgrade copy of XP, you'll need to have some way to show it that you have a previously valid ME license. That means the original CD or the software currently on the machine.

It'd be a real bummer if you blew away ME and realized you didn't have a copy of it to make your XP license valid...

Alternate plan is to install a second hard drive and install XP on that one, and then swap it as the main drive. That would kill two birds with one stone -- the upgrade to XP and eliminating the hard drive as a point of failure.

Sounds like it is an videocard issue have you tried another grapich card?

i agree about checking into a new video card or at least try reinstalling new drivers. Then if the computer still gives you probs, then consider reinstalling WinME with your OS recovery disc. Yeah out off installing XP until you get thing sorted out with WinME. Best IMO to have a healthy computer before going the FULLL VERSION route of XP. Best wishes to you Piestrider. Hope you get things working again. [img]smile.gif[/img]