Google Chrome, AIM, Winamp... all crash after launch.

A

amk320

n00b
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Apr 27, 2010
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Hey all,

Not sure if this is the appropriate forum, since I'm not sure if I'm having a software or hardware problem. About two weeks ago, after a restart, AIM would no longer launch. If I attempted to start the program, it would begin to start, then immediately close without a message.

I reinstalled it, and the problem went away. Then Winamp began to crash every time I'd launch it, with a "The program is not responding..." message box. This also happened after a restart.

I had a power surge tonight. After the restart, Google Chrome, which has worked without issue for 1.5 straight years on this same machine, crashes when I launch it. I've reinstalled it, and it still crashes when I launch it. The new version of AIM I installed does the same thing.

And maybe related, maybe not.. explorer crashes whenever I attempt to use the search feature to search files and folders.


EDIT - I had a problem with .NET framework and uninstalled it. I'm trying to find the appropriate version to download again. Could this be the problem? If so, does anyone know which version of it I would want, or where to download it?


I'm running Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium. I've run a virus scan with Symantec and nothing came up.
 
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try ccleaner to scrub your pc of temp files. might want to run the reg scanner built into it as well. then use windows update to detect if you need .net again. if not google .net framework redistributable.
 
I'd start with running MemTest to check your ram, and then find a utility to test your hard drive (probably a chkdsk, or some other tool that you prefer). Rule out damage before you try to fight software problems.
 
I've run CCleaner, chkdsk, and sfc /scannow several times each. The latter is the only one that finds any problems. It says there are corrupt files, and that more information is available in the CBS.log file. However, notepad and word are both now programs that crash when I attempt to open them, or do not open at all. As such, I cannot view the .log file.

I'm not sure where to proceed from here. I'm hoping I don't need to reinstall Windows, as I have far too much data to back up.

All this hardware is the same age. It's been running for 1.5 years without a single hiccup. I'm not sure what could have caused this problem. It became substantially worse after my roommate blew a fuse in the house and shut down the computer improperly.


EDIT -

There are many other posts floating around the internet with users having similar problems. I've found these by googling "most programs crash." The problems described in many of these match what I'm experiencing, but no one seems to have a clear solution. The fact that some of these posts date back years is not encouraging.


EDIT -

I've also attempted all this "clean boot" nonsense. However, with selective startup, all these programs crash.
 
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amk320 said:
EDIT - I had a problem with .NET framework and uninstalled it. I'm trying to find the appropriate version to download again. Could this be the problem?
Click to expand...

None of those apps really use or require .NET (afaik) so I don't think it's .NET.

In any event if you want to do a reinstall of .NET the current version is 4. http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17851
You can try it, but I don't think it's going to solve your problem.

Can you upload the log file somewhere? If you do that and provide a link I'm sure someone can check it for you. Any free file host will work....I'm a fan of filedropper myself. ;)
 
http://www.filedropper.com/cbs


There's a link to my CBS.log file that sfc /scannow produced.

And yeah, I've already reinstalled the .NET framework. The problems persist. I can't make any sense out of what's going on. I've been spoiled with how reliable this machine has been for well over a year, and have about 160gb of data that isn't backed up.

I'm going to backup everything and do a format, I think. Hopefully that takes care of whatever's going on.
 
I skimmed through the log file (quite a big one :)) and I found a bunch of entries that said "cannot repair member file", going from the top of the log all the way through the bottom....lots of different files. Saw a few ATi files (driver obviously) and a bunch of other assorted ones. I guess it might be worth booting into safe mode with networking, DL Driver Sweeper, uninstall your ATi drivers, run Driver Sweeper, and reinstall fresh ATi drivers....it'd be worth a shot at least before doing a complete flush and clean install. I'd definitely run Malwarebytes in safe mode as well just to cover all the bases (if you haven't done that already). If you want to go 100%, might as well follow the malware cleanup thread sticky and make sure it's not a malware infection...http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1426658

Always do your scans in safe mode because if the malware is running, a lot of times the cleaner apps will not find it and/or be able to remove it. Booting in safe mode and cleaning is the best way.
Could be lots of things......definitely worth at least a MBAM scan. I believe Symantec is generally well reviewed but no malware app is 100%....they all miss things from time to time.

I would DEFINITELY though back up everything first and foremost....especially if you've got 160GB+ that isn't backed up.
 
Rather than doing a backup, I was simply going to unplug my two 1TB raid 0 drives where all my data is stored, and do a clean format of my 60g system drive, half of which is Windows 7 anyway.

The ATI drivers in the log concern me, because I've never used an ATI card on this machine. I know sometimes stuff like that hangs around the registry, but this machine has never even been in the same room with an ATI card.
 
I think you have a failing hard drive and you should be careful removing drivers as it could leave you stuck in an unusable state. Could be a bad Santa cable, too...
 
Would it likely be the system drive that's failing? I don't see any problems with the storage drives. I certainly hope it's not a failing system drive. It's just over 1.5 years old, so beyond warranty. My first SSD, too. So much for reliability.

EDIT - If I simply unplug the storage drives in RAID 0 while I reinstall Windows 7 on the system drive, will plugging them back in automatically put them back into RAID 0? If not, will I be able to put them back into RAID 0 without losing all the data stored on the drives?
 
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I would say expect it to be the system drive with your description of the problem. I don';t think you have any proof yet, so don't panic. It just seems that you have a lot of files in odd places that are getting corrupt, and that is often a bad disk drive, control, or cable.

In regards to Raid 0 : if you break your RAID, you probably aren't going to be happy. Did you stripe all of your drives into one big jbod array?

It's not a good idea to keep data on a raid 0. Raid 0 is usually used when data integrity isn't an issue, but you need the drives to run a little faster than single drive speeds. Data storage should have redundancy if it's not backed up daily.
 
Yeah, they're RAID 0 JBOD. I guess I'm going to have to get all the data off them, then set them back up. Either in RAID 0 again or not. I had them set up like that for the extra speed.

Can't stand slow transfer rates across hard drives.
 
Okay...

I went out and purchased a 2TB external harddrive to backup my 160g storage drives so I can format and reinstall Windows 7. I can NOT get Windows to recognize the external hard drive. It keeps giving me a "USB Device Not Recongized" error.

Googling a fix for this issue said I should right click my computer > manage. I can't do this. I get an error that the file could not be opened.

How can I back up my data in order to format?

As I asked previously, will unplugging the storage drives while formatting, then plugging them back in preserve the data?
 
As I asked previously, will unplugging the storage drives while formatting, then plugging them back in preserve the data?
Click to expand...

I'd get a second opinion form the gurus that hang out in the OS section, but -- here's what I'd do. I'd get a hold of a linux live CD and use that to back up your data. Once you have that, then you won't have to worry about your raid.

If you unplug the raid, depending on the controller, a couple of things might happen. Some controllers would require you to plug them back into the same ports and others may require you to just plug them back in. It all depends on the controller you are using.

With that said, I don't have a good understanding of your configuration so it may not be the correct advice. I really recommend posting your situation in the OS forums. Describe your setup (go into depth on the RAID configuration as well as all other drives) and someone will give you the advice you're looking for.
 
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