Something weird is going on..

So after I reformatted my PC last Thursday, my (almost) perfectly running PC seems to suffer from flaws or whatever you want to call it. For instance: I can not update ANY game anymore, and the game that needs to be updated most is Crysis, in order to get those extra FPS. When I apply a patch, I get the famous 1334 error, saying it can't find or copy 'a' file, due to a network error, a disk read error or a problem.. I have tried EVERY single thing I could do to try and fix this problem, I even let a friend (tech guy) control my PC over the internet (!) and let him edit my system keys and what not, nothing works.

And this only started happening after my reformat last Thursday. And, not unimportant, I have reformatted about 10 to 15 times so far.. All because I downloaded an update for NERO6 which had a malware or virus in it, according to NOD32. I then (before my reformat, Thursday) scanned my hard drive and in the middle of the scan, my PC crashed: blue screen with all kind of codes.

So I took no risk and reformatted. I wish I haven't done that, because now my PC isn't as it used to be.
For example: the patching.. It just doesn't work anymore. Another example: some sites that have flash 'links', don't open when I click on it.

I am concidering bringing my PC back to the shop to get it fully repaired, but I'm afraid they will say things like 'your motherboard was damaged, so we replaced it..' just to get extra cash out of my pocket. I'm not a pro at PC's so they can actually tell me everything, who am I to question the 'real pro's'..

I know, you may be wondering why the hell I am posting this, but I would like to ask if anyone knows something I could do to try and fix these problems. A guy a know said that it COULD be because I am using XP Home, and should upgrade to XP Pro, but I don't want to spent €140 just to find out that I still won't be able to patch and have problems with some sites, even though I have the latest Flash update and Micromedia/vision..

Anyone got any ideas?

So after I reformatted my PC last Thursday, my (almost) perfectly running PC seems to suffer from flaws or whatever you want to call it. For instance: I can not update ANY game anymore, and the game that needs to be updated most is Crysis, in order to get those extra FPS. When I apply a patch, I get the famous 1334 error, saying it can't find or copy 'a' file, due to a network error, a disk read error or a problem.. I have tried EVERY single thing I could do to try and fix this problem, I even let a friend (tech guy) control my PC over the internet (!) and let him edit my system keys and what not, nothing works.

And this only started happening after my reformat last Thursday. And, not unimportant, I have reformatted about 10 to 15 times so far.. All because I downloaded an update for NERO6 which had a malware or virus in it, according to NOD32. I then (before my reformat, Thursday) scanned my hard drive and in the middle of the scan, my PC crashed: blue screen with all kind of codes.

So I took no risk and reformatted. I wish I haven't done that, because now my PC isn't as it used to be.
For example: the patching.. It just doesn't work anymore. Another example: some sites that have flash 'links', don't open when I click on it.

I am concidering bringing my PC back to the shop to get it fully repaired, but I'm afraid they will say things like 'your motherboard was damaged, so we replaced it..' just to get extra cash out of my pocket. I'm not a pro at PC's so they can actually tell me everything, who am I to question the 'real pro's'..

I know, you may be wondering why the hell I am posting this, but I would like to ask if anyone knows something I could do to try and fix these problems. A guy a know said that it COULD be because I am using XP Home, and should upgrade to XP Pro, but I don't want to spent €140 just to find out that I still won't be able to patch and have problems with some sites, even though I have the latest Flash update and Micromedia/vision..

Anyone got any ideas?

xtaz85

Well, the flash thing could happen if you don't got the flash plugin or player installed. One thing I know for sure is that you don't need XP Pro. If you got too much money then get it for the few extra features, that you will most likely never use.

Did you do a quick format or a regular format? How did you reinstall the PC? What software did you install?

I reformatted the quick way for at least 5 times, and reformatted the normal (slow) way at least 5 times.
I've done it by inserting my XP CD, then rebooting my computer, opening the BIOS and set boot device to CD-ROM.

Sometimes, well at least 3 times, the setup (installation of XP) even failed!
Then I got a message that setup couldn't load a specific file, or another time I just had a blue screen with some white codes on it (not the screen when the PC crashes). It said something about an error as well, and I saw the word 'hard' somewhere so I thought my hard drive is damaged.

The strange thing is, I reformatted my PC like 1 months ago with NO problems what so ever, but then when I had that malware or virus (thanks to Nero..) and reformatted, it seems that my PC is permanently damaged or something?

Sad really, I spent about $1750 on this PC. Got it in January, and it seems to be damaged after only 4 months.. I don't think I will bother try to reformat again.

have you tried updating anything besides crysis? because it could be a driver issue.purple_MAN1832

Yeah, I tried to install and patch the game(s) before AND after all my windows updates.
Even tried to install them with no drivers, no chipsets, nothing..

I always get that error message. Oh well, I will probably phone the shop tomorrow, but I have no faith in them fixing this, the only thing that could fix it is new hardware I guess, which sucks big time.

I think it could be 3 things. Priority in this order.

1. Your HD is malfunctioning. It's close to a complete crash.

2. Your optical drive is malfunctioning, which results in a corrupted installation.

3. The installation CD is bad, which results in a corrupted installation.

Ofcourse there might be a small chance that the motherboard is acting up or you got bad memory or basically something else is wrong. But those 3 points I've mentioned are the most common problems that I've had with corrupted Windows installations and BSODs during Windows installations.

EDIT: This is why it totally rocks to be able to build and mantain your own PC. I suspect that your PC components are of bad quality, which is why something like this has happend. I know that many companies will sell you cheap hardware because it's cheap for them but expensive for you. If you insist on buying a PC at a store, make sure it's a Dell. So if there's a problem, you can contact Dell or the shop can do it for you. Atleast this way you know that the stuff they've sold you is decent. It's not excellent but atleast it doesn't plain suck.

There is actually no time for me to read something out of those codes, because the blue screen with codes is there for like 1 second and then my PC reboots. So unfortunately I can't write something down from those codes.

Now about the 3 options, I also think option 1 is the problem; my hard drive.
Although I am not sure (I'm not a tech guy), I think the HD has either had too many reformats, or is permanently damaged by 'something'.

The PC-shop opens in 25 minutes, so I will phone them then and try to explain my problem.
If they can assure me it's because I have a damaged HD, I will buy one in ANOTHER shop.
But if they ask me to bring in my PC because they can't tell out of a phone call, I guess I will have to bring it back to the shop and wait a couple of days to get it back..

My XP CD seems to be OK, apart from some very light fingerprints on the border of the CD. No dust or scratches noticed. The possibility of my patches to fail due to my game DVDs is wrong, I think. Because I can install the games perfectly from the DVD, but when I try to patch it, I get the (1334) error saying that a (or some, if I click 'ignore') file(s) are corrupt. So from what I think, if those files are really corrupt, then the installation from the DVD should fail as well.

Oh and about the crashes, I had 2 of them when XP was installing the updates from Microsoft.
I think I was at update 32 of 92 when my system crashed (the famous blue screen with codes).
So there must be something wrong, either with my HD or with my XP.

20 more minutes to make the phone call.

PS: wanted to thank you guys so far for all you help you've given me.
You have given me some great information so far which I will be using in my phone call to the shop.

I'll update this topic when I know more..

Did u mess anything with the CPU speed ?

Well, I got me a new HD (400GB) in an attempt to 'fix' the problem, and guess what.. it failed.. The first time I tried to patch Crysis (new HD), it went to 99% and then gave me the error again, 2nd time and later the error message is at the beginning of patching, just like it was on my previous HD. So.. that means I have no clue anymore, and will probably bring it to the shop tomorrow to get it repaired.xtaz85

Well, that totally sux. But as I said before, you can always use another HD. When you finally get this figured out, just pop the new drive into your computer and now you have a bunch more space.

That is a very strange problem. Only one time did I see a problem even remotely similar. We used to have a computer with XP. It got messed up for some reason, so we formatted it. Then whenever we'd install something, if it used installshield, it would not work. We couldn't install anything with installshield installers.

Eventually we found some patch or something that fixed the issue, but it sounds like your issue is much worse. You said some of the windows installations failed as well. i would say at this point the computer store is your best bet. I know it sux... but this problem sounds very random. Without someone being there and checking it out, it'd probably be way too hard to diagnose remotely.

So after I reformatted my PC last Thursday, my (almost) perfectly running PC seems to suffer from flaws or whatever you want to call it. For instance: I can not update ANY game anymore, and the game that needs to be updated most is Crysis, in order to get those extra FPS. When I apply a patch, I get the famous 1334 error, saying it can't find or copy 'a' file, due to a network error, a disk read error or a problem.. I have tried EVERY single thing I could do to try and fix this problem, I even let a friend (tech guy) control my PC over the internet (!) and let him edit my system keys and what not, nothing works.

I ran into this problem too. I forgot what I did to fix it though. I either A.) reinstalled Crysis all nice and fresh, or B.) moved the patch file to the Crysis directory.

And this only started happening after my reformat last Thursday. And, not unimportant, I have reformatted about 10 to 15 times so far.. All because I downloaded an update for NERO6 which had a malware or virus in it, according to NOD32. I then (before my reformat, Thursday) scanned my hard drive and in the middle of the scan, my PC crashed: blue screen with all kind of codes.

So I took no risk and reformatted. I wish I haven't done that, because now my PC isn't as it used to be.
For example: the patching.. It just doesn't work anymore. Another example: some sites that have flash 'links', don't open when I click on it.

Usually when you format your PC you lose all drivers, including Flash plugins and others (Realtime, Divx, etc). When the site pops up it should say "requries such and such, go here to download".

I am concidering bringing my PC back to the shop to get it fully repaired, but I'm afraid they will say things like 'your motherboard was damaged, so we replaced it..' just to get extra cash out of my pocket. I'm not a pro at PC's so they can actually tell me everything, who am I to question the 'real pro's'..

I dont see how it could be your hardware...all you did was reformat.

I know, you may be wondering why the hell I am posting this, but I would like to ask if anyone knows something I could do to try and fix these problems. A guy a know said that it COULD be because I am using XP Home, and should upgrade to XP Pro, but I don't want to spent €140 just to find out that I still won't be able to patch and have problems with some sites, even though I have the latest Flash update and Micromedia/vision..

Nope, I dont think so. XP Pro comes with some extras but the fundamentals are present in all versions of XP.

Anyone got any ideas?

xtaz85

As for idea, I recommend one last reformat.

Then, update XP to the most recent version before anything else

Then download hardware drivers (all you need really is your video card driver, maybe a soundcard driver if you have one)

Stop downloading pirated stuff if you are (*coughNerocough*) God knows what you are putting on your PC.

Then install Crysis and patch.

Well, I got me a new HD (400GB) in an attempt to 'fix' the problem, and guess what.. it failed.. The first time I tried to patch Crysis (new HD), it went to 99% and then gave me the error again, 2nd time and later the error message is at the beginning of patching, just like it was on my previous HD. So.. that means I have no clue anymore, and will probably bring it to the shop tomorrow to get it repaired.xtaz85

Its not your computer, its Crysis. Like I said I had this problem too...if the rest of your PC works fine, then dont take it to the shop.

Someone once told me that boot sector viruses could survive formats, but not repartitioning. That makes sense. Also, I just found a post from some guy that agrees with that.

here is the forum that talks about it:
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6121_102-0.html?forumID=45&threadID=281767&messageID=2699403

here is the actual post...

Rescently I faced a virus named "funny UST scandal.avi" which made me scruffy. To protect my pc I generally updates my avast anti virus. But the avast failed to remove that virus.then the first thing i did is formatting.(Ofcourse the virus not allowed me to format drives from windows,I did format through MS-DOS)Even i format my entair system the virus is reappeared.Then atlast I partetioned my hard disk and got rid of that virus.

It got even weirder.. So I got my new HD and Crysis didn't seem to patch, again. But then I tried to patch TrackMania United, and that worked. I don't know WHAT to think now, is it Crysis-only, or a general bug on my hardware?

Then I did something as I would describe; a final desperate attempt..

I copied the whole Crysis DVD to a map on my desktop, tried patching it that way, but still no luck.
But then.. (I think this is ridiculous) I copied the Crysis.exe from my DVD in my Crysis folder on my HD, started the setup.exe from the copied DVD folder on my desktop, hit repair, and I noticed there was a file added in my 'Localized' folder. So my final attempt was to start patch 1.2 with this 'new' Crysis.exe and to my surprise it patched! Patch 1.2.1 also worked.. Tested the game, works..

Still, I am not happy, because my PC just crashed like 30 minutes ago, again the famous blue screen with white codes.. It crashed while I was installing a program, SUPER or GIMP (can't remember..).

And I have no pirated software, I got Nero6 when I bought my laptop a few years ago.

So for now on, I won't bring it in, not even for a check up. I got Crysis patched and so far there is nothing else that needs to be patched. If however, I keep getting more crashes, like one every day (one in a month is even too much!), I will have to get it repaired of course.

So.. Yeah.. Thank you all for the support guys, I really, really appreciate this!
Let's just hope I don't bump this topic in a few days (or hours..) with the same problems, or more like; system crashes..

I have one older HD, but I can not connect it inside my PC. So I think it's from an older type, maybe PATA as you say. But I think that the best thing I could do now, is nothing! If I try to reformat again on an older HD, all the trouble might be back there. I have patched the game(s), so I hope everything works and keeps working for a long time. But like I said, if my PC crashes a couple more times, it's time to bring it to the shop. Let us just hope that won't happen..

I might upgrade my PC in 4-6 months..
New motherboard, new processor.. And maybe this time only Intel, not AMD.