Tech Support Journal

Much of the pains in troubleshooting connectivity are usually brought about by being too careful and installing more than what is sufficient.

A call that we have attended to was for a newly purchased Acer notebook was having problem connecting to the company’s wireless network.

Although the basic troubleshooting measures like releasing and renewing of IP, ensuring that the WEP keys and settings were correct has already been done the user is still unable to connect to his company’s network.

The notebook would be able to connect to the wireless network for a few seconds then it would be disconnected.

After going through the network settings, it seems Intel® PROSet/Wireless Network Connection Software has been disabled and Windows Wireless Zero Configuration are being used in place of it.

In the Network Connections settings, there were 2 other protocol installed along with TCP/IP, one is WLAN Transport and the otherAEGIS Protocol (IEEE 802.1x).

Removing both WLAN Transport and AEGIS wireless protocol resolved the issue immediately.

The reason could be due to Windows’ Wireless Zero Configuration does not work well with the above two protocols which was actually meant to be used with Intel’s wireless software.

In other instances, I have encounter NWLink NetBIOS and NWLink IPX/SPX/NetBIOS Compatible Transport Protocol being installed in an environment that is non-Netware, causing the startup to be extremely slow and user having random network problems.

In most scenario where the network are solely Windows machines, there is no need to install anything more than Client for Microsoft Network, File And Printer Sharing and TCP/IP protocol.  QOS is only required in an environment where you have managed switches that are able to prioritize traffic based on the type of packets being transmitted.

System startup with ‘Pci.sys is missing or corrupt’.

An attempt to boot from XP CD generates an error ‘File setupdd.sys could not be loaded.
The error code is 14
Setup cannot continue.’

Removing the pci modem changes the error code from 14 to 7. Removing and reinstalling the AGP graphic card and memory modules and ensuring that they are fitted properly boots the system up fine without the need for a reinstallation of Windows.

There are also other things to bear in mind when you’re planning to troubleshoot or recover and XP crash, (These points are especially useful when your system crash with the error - “Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt C:\windows\system32\config\system”) ;

1. There is always a folder in Windows installation folder that consists system files that can restore your system to the state of your first install, provided that the crash isn’t hardware failure related. (e.g. C:\windows\repair) The folder with your system files prior to the crash is located at c:\windows\system32\config. Copying files (after backing up the original files) to the above location will restore your system to first boot state.

2. Enabling wildcards to ease copy and deletion process, which can be useful when you’re working in recovery console mode. The command is  AllowWildCards = TRUE , to be typed at the command prompt. Another command AllowAllPaths = TRUE is also useful as it allows you to access all files and folders on the system.

3. Once you’re back into your first install state, you can then set explorer to display hidden and system files and folders, disable simple file sharing from the folder options in Windows explorer. This will enable you to see a folder call “System Volume Information Folder” which consist system files backup at various time from c:\windows\system32\config . You may need to give yourself rights to the folder in order to access its contents.

Restoring the system files from point 3 will be a closer match to your last system state prior to the crash.

A system that was working fine all along suddenly starts rebooting itself & was unable to boot into Windows XP GUI interface.

Starting the system in debug mode without restart, an option that you can select by pressing F8 key before the startup process, shows an unmountable boot volume error.

Booting with an XP boot CD & doing a directory list with dir command shows an error like unable to enumerate drive.

Reinstalling Windows XP on another drive so as to retain the data was the first option taken but the problem was finally resolved by just replacing the power supply unit which seems  to have a faulty fan causing the POST test to proceed slower than usual.

System boot up without any error immediately after replacing the PSU.