computer working but not responding(!?)
 

I am working on a friend's PC that had a UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME blue screen. Turns out HDD is bad, waiting for an RMA.

Meanwhile, I loaded a fresh copy of XP w/SP2 on a spare HDD, then loaded some of his apps. Most work fine at first, but after a few minutes, double-clicking on any icon does nothing, also Task Manager doesn't work (CTRL-ALT-DEL). Tried this on a second spare drive, and got the same results.

The CPU is a P3-450MHz, could it be old enough to cause this problem, is it possible the CPU is overheating? (fans are working).

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

****just went and checked on the PC, and it has a few instances of explorer, defrag, etc. which I tried to start 6 or 7 min ago.********

how big is this drive? I have a spare PC here.. P3 450Mhz and it only works with a 12GB drive.. I have a 120GB usb attached, but I'm stuck at 12GB! Unless I mess around with the bios a bit. Make sure that your drive is clean, your friends is clean..

-http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php
check it.. down it.. and post the stats. :)

The drive is 80Gb, it had been working since 2004. I think 80GB is the most this m/b supports.

I also tried loading XP on 2 different 20GB drives with the same results.


***It's OK now. It seems that the combination of Windows Update and McAfee Virus Def Update running at the same time were too much for the poor old PC! It was using 100% CPU for about 1/2 hour.