Windows 2k problems

Well, I'm not a very smart person when it comes to this so I'd really appreciate any help you could give me... lately I finally updated my computer from win98se to win2k, mostly out of recommendations because my computer was having some issues than because I wanted to, supposedly this was to solve my problems, not only did it not solve my problems but it caused more... so here's a list of the most common problems, if you could help me solve any, I'd really appreciate it:

- Control panel crashes every time I try to open it since I installed my videocard (GForce4 64 MB)
- A program called scvhost.exe (I don't even know where that is from) crashes all the time
- Sometimes the search utility of windows won't even open, also when this happens, when I double click on the modem status (I still use dial-up), it won't open, and also the icons can't be moved, I click over them and try to drag them and nothing happens
- Windows installer recently stopped working, I had installed a few programs using it, and a few days ago it started saying something about it not being correctly installed or something else, I have no idea how to fix this
- When I try to open the add/remove software, what comes up doesn't make sense, it's a blank screen, with a portion of gray (a vertical stripe of like 20% of the total width at the left, the rest totally white) and at the top saying, in plain text, not in tabs, add software and that stuff
- Windows won't shut down completely, it goes to the 'It's now safe to shut down your computer' thing, I know why this happens, I read it on microsoft's site, and frankly since I can't seem to find which program is the problem, I can't really fix it.

And I think that's it, the last problem is not so critical, I find it just a minor nuisance, but the rest are quite annoying, specially the one about windows installer, so any help would be really welcome, thanks.

hmm.... can you maybe give us some specs. on your computer... RAM, CPU, and so on?

but sounds to me like there could be a number of problems... try scanning for any viruses, Trojans, or maybe you just need a little more memory, cuz I had a few of theose problems using win2k and after I poped in another 128mb stick of RAM they started to clear up (but they didnt dissapear all the way)....If none of this helps I would suggest to try a reinstall, but thats just what I would do be cause i'm a perfectionist hope it helps

Well, actually my computer is pretty old...

OS: Windows 2000 Professional
CPU: PIII 600 mhz
Ram: 320 (64 first, 256 added later)
HDD: Was supposed to have two but it seems I couldn't set up the second one (actually the old one, which I changed to primary slave) so it's only one of 40 gigs

Oh yeah, as for virii and that stuff, my antivirus detected, immediately after I installed (just recently formated) 4 worms, well, actually just two different worms, both having infected two files each. one was bachi or something like that, and the other I don't remember, something that started with an L

Ok so now my cocmputer is SCREWED!!!!!! (the computer I'm using currently doesn't work well 'nd I c'n't type the letter a, so where one should be, you'll see 'n ') Well, yestered'y I downlo'ded the windows sp4 to supposedly fix some problems with my computer, not only did it t'ke 'ges to downlo'd but it 'lso screwed completely my computer!!!! now everytime I try to st'rt my computer, I get the following, 'nd I quote:

"***STOP: 0000007B (0XEBC1B84C, C0000034, 00000000, 00000000)
IN'CCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

So, wh't the heck is this, why is this h'ppening 'nd wh't c'n I do? I still h've ' perfectly cle'n HDD, no OS, no nothing, 'ctu'lly I couldn't even m'ke it work in conjuction with my current HDD so there w's no sh'ring 'nything with the other, I need here your help b'dly!

well, It seems to me that when you installed the service pack it might have overwriten certain files and setting thus rendering your computer useless,
So you cant boot into windows? I just pops up a blue screen?, well there is something very wrong with your installion of windows, I cant really thinkof any reason why win2k should give you this much trouble, so I would definatly recomend a reformat and install windows again unless someone else on this forum has a better idea... , that should clear most if not all of your problems, and if it doesnt work I would bet that your hard drive is defective, because that could be the reason why everything is crashing on you, how old is you HD?

I really hope we can find a way to help you...

Well I'm going to poke my eyes... I just formatted one week ago... anyway, I decided not to format but rather re-plug my old HDD, now I have win2k installed there, with nothing but the modem drivers installed, so basically it's somewhat of an emergency HDD, to connect and ask for help since my sister and mom's computer are useless... I suppose I'll just wait a bit more

Oh yeah, and in case you think of it, I don't think I'd be able to check my other HDD (the one that's screwed) from the one I'm currently using, I was never able to make them work together (perhaps an error on my side, but I think I did all I was supposed to) and also the partition I made on both HDD are primary, so I doubt they'd work together at all

so you say you stuck a another harddrive in your computer and took the other one out and now it works somewhat?, and you said that you didnt think that they would work together because of the two primary partitons?, well to my knowledge they should work just fine as long as you have them set in a master/slave configuration and have all of the jumper setting correct... I have never had any problems with having two primary partitons accept when it comes two dual booting, but it sounds to me like you just want to retrieve data off of it?

The problem will best be solved by, formatting your computer and installing sp4 and critical windows updates before you ever connect to the internet. It sounds like as soon as you connect, you are getting viruses because you don't have the specific vulnerabilities patched yet. Also make sure that you have your virus software installed before you ever connect to the internet and update your virus definitions before you do anything else.

Hmmm, you got wrongly what I meant about my HDD's, here's the somewhat complete story so you might get my point, and while we're at there, perhaps you can tell me what I did wrong...

I had a 9 gigs HDD for a long time until I recently (three weeks ago) I bought a 40 gigs one (32 gigs actually, damn bastards stealing my 8 gigs!) and a new Video card (GForce 4 to replace my voodoo 3 3000), I tried to install the new HDD and it just didn't work, at first it was the jumpers though, had forgotten to change them so both drives were set as masters, which of course made no sense, so then I fixed that, formatted, transfered system files, and made it into a secondary partition of DOS, which didn't work, then I tried it the other way around, 40 gigs as master and 9 gigs as slave, didn't work either, I tried to reformat them (I hadn't installed anything yet, so no big deal about formatting once more), made a primary partition on the 40 gigs and an extended partition on the 10 gigs, my computer DID detect there were two HDD plugged, but when it came to detecting the second HDD (9 gigs), it didn't detect them, for example, when I tried to format them, I could do 'format c:/s' but not 'format:D/s' which should have been my slave HDD because D drive was actually my RAM drive at that momment (and currently DVD-Rom drive), perhaps I did a mistake there, I don't know, I'd hate to format, frankly, but if it's needed to get things working, preferently both HDD's working, I'd deffinitely go for it. So... do you have any idea what I did wrong? where both HDD's supposed to have a primary partition?