pc continually crashing.

[bazz]

OK, I am fed up so this may come out badly :(

I had some issues when booting up, and specifically, the ntldr (IIRC) file was missing. I was told locally that the HDD was busted and so I got a new one. Installed XP home and did all the updates. now it shuts down repeatedly and often - I am surprised I have got this far with my post - and tells me I have a 0x0000005 error. searching about tells me to repair my windows from the installation disk but I can't because - with all the blinikin updates from MS the version on my disk is now older than that on the pc.

ON a tight deadline for work and I don't have time to learn ubuntu but, if this is a fiddly M$ issue, I will dump it and take the time for ubuntu. Nobody in my locality has any experience of linux so I am 'on my own', but for you guys of course.

Anyone got any suggestions on alternative solutions or potential causes?
I have two hammers ready but I am not sure which is the correct one to use for this situation.


bazz

[primefalcon]

TBH I have no clue what's going on here, Just just wanted to drop a little information about Ubuntu, since you mentioned that.

from the ubuntu website once you download and burn the cd, you can run it from a cd without touching the installation you have, so you can try it to see how it works or whatnot or even do what you need, without messing with your windows install

[oracleguy]

Download and run Memtest86+ on it: http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

The bootable ISO is easy, just burn a CD. Booting from a usb flash drive is do-able but can take some work. If you are under a deadline, go with the CD but don't burn it from the computer that is faulty.

Bad memory can manifest in an infinite variety of ways from random crashes to programs complaining that files are corrupt. I've seen computers with bad ram corrupt the OS and other files on the HD. So check for that first.

[brad211987]

Oracleguy is right, memtest is your best bet here. I wanted to jump in about Ubuntu also though...

Before making that switch, be sure to try to think about all the little tasks and applications you use for work. I dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu and find that I can't quite get rid of Windows because of 2 or 3 small but essential tasks that I simply can't do easily on Ubuntu yet.

[primefalcon]

Actually knowing 2 separate OS'es is not the worst thing, in tech employment, it's common top need Linux knowledge, in a lot of other area's its common to need windows knowledge....

[bazz]

OK, I got my certified friend to fix it after I installed a new 500 gig drive. He installed windows on one partition and ubuntu on another; dual boot.

All my own files are stored on a separate drive, soon to be a NAS connected through the router so all my pc's can access it.

It seems I had not installed windows correctly on a previous occasion when it gave bother. So windows wasn't able to see the drive. I hadn't F6'ed when loading windows.

bazz