This Laptop Will Just Not Quit Messing With My Head

digerati · Aug 4, 2008, 01:56 AM

Okay, so a friend/co-worker has a HP DV9000 laptop that was giving him problems. He could only browse websites that were in his favorites. I get the laptop, disable the anti-virus suite and go to work cleaning it out with adaware and resetting network sockets and what not. Adaware finds like 1,000 infections and I clean it out. Browsing works a bit better, but still certain websites weren't working, but hey, we had progress. I give him back his laptop to take home.

He goes home and re-enables his norton 360 thingy, the computer tells him he needs to restart, he restarts, and at boot he gets "Error: Userinit.exe - failed to intialize" and it won't boot properly. I figure maybe the registry got corrupted? I bring home the laptop to use one of my xp discs to repair the registry and the xp setup tells me that it CAN'T FIND A F*XING HARD DRIVE! Alright, this is a problem. But maybe I'll just use a bootable flash drive, but oh wait, the interweb tells me my 8gb flash drive is too big for that.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Syndicate2083 · Aug 4, 2008, 07:40 AM

you could always just partition the flash drive down to like 3 gigs or something.

Nuke209 · Aug 4, 2008, 07:05 PM

I believe it has to do more with the SATA thing, that's why it cannot find the HD.
I know on my notebook, I have to set the SATA from AHCI to Sata Compatility to install xp onto it.

Aug 4, 2008, 01:56 AM	#1
digerati Everyones life has worth Join Date: May 2003 Location: My Yellow Bug Posts: 3,779 Rep Power: 0	This Laptop Will Just Not Quit Messing With My Head Okay, so a friend/co-worker has a HP DV9000 laptop that was giving him problems. He could only browse websites that were in his favorites. I get the laptop, disable the anti-virus suite and go to work cleaning it out with adaware and resetting network sockets and what not. Adaware finds like 1,000 infections and I clean it out. Browsing works a bit better, but still certain websites weren't working, but hey, we had progress. I give him back his laptop to take home. He goes home and re-enables his norton 360 thingy, the computer tells him he needs to restart, he restarts, and at boot he gets "Error: Userinit.exe - failed to intialize" and it won't boot properly. I figure maybe the registry got corrupted? I bring home the laptop to use one of my xp discs to repair the registry and the xp setup tells me that it CAN'T FIND A F*XING HARD DRIVE! Alright, this is a problem. But maybe I'll just use a bootable flash drive, but oh wait, the interweb tells me my 8gb flash drive is too big for that. Anyone got any suggestions?

Aug 4, 2008, 07:40 AM	#2
Syndicate2083 HardwareHeaven Lover Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Framingham, MA Posts: 228 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	you could always just partition the flash drive down to like 3 gigs or something. __________________ -Crash the silence for the sake of memory. Intrinsic Realities, Veteran-USN.

Aug 4, 2008, 07:05 PM	#3
Nuke209 DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: St. Paul Posts: 568 Rep Power: 0	I believe it has to do more with the SATA thing, that's why it cannot find the HD. I know on my notebook, I have to set the SATA from AHCI to Sata Compatility to install xp onto it. __________________ 2006 Subaru Impreza WRX