Pc Help Needed

[MikeCFC 45]

Since Tuesday i've been having problems with my laptop and windowsxp starting up.It either automatically shuts down,even though the power light is still active.When it does power up and takes me to my wallpaper screen i get the following message displayed in a boxed window.

AOLSoftware.exe-Corrupt File

The file or directory C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\AOL\AOLDiag\AOL\ServiceHostUKGM\Win32\1.5.6.1\permdata.box is corrupt and unreadable.

Please run the Chkdsk utility

Can someone help me on how to rectify this problem and to remove the corrupt file.As far as i know it's not a virus as i done a Mcafee scan yesterday and it does'nt detect anything,but i'm sure this is what is causing the laptop from not working properly.

If it's of any use,my laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1300,it's around 18 months old and my operating system is windows xp.

Thank you.

[Elliott 7]

Do you use AOL Internet Mike? Because the name AOL is obviously springing out in the file name. Try reinstalling the software if you do use it? If you don't, then quite possibly it is a virus or spyware/adware that your McAfee isn't picking up for whatever reason.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

The part 'permdata' refers to your permenant data, which is the actual software itself. As Elliott suggests above, uninstall and reinstall.

[MikeCFC 45]

Thanks for your feedback fella's.I managed to run the Chkdsk utility,which successfuly removed the corrupt folder,but my laptop is still giving me grief.When i power the laptop up the screen goes dark,but you can just about see visual activity in the background.Sometimes it does power up properly,but when my wallpaper screen appears,the screen will go dark again.Fuck all i can do about it today,being Easter Monday,hopefully a Dell technician will be able to help me tomorrow.

Using the downstairs computer atm.

[Blueboy123 0]

Laptop's are a pain, I've had issues with my thinkpad the past 4 days.

If it's automatically shutting down, that suggests that there's more than an issue with your AOL software. You need to make sure error reporting is on so you can see the errors or blue-screens when it restarts. It may present you with a STOP error of sorts which will indicate where the error lays. (right click my computer, properties, advanced tab, then startup and recovery option, check it writes to a dump file).

It could be your hard disc as it's trying to read a file it needs when loading the svchost process (ServiceHostUKGM) for AOL, if it can't enter this into the SVC host processes the startup will not continue. When you can see your wallpaper, can you press CTRL-ALT-DEL and get task manager up? Click on file, new task and run explorer.exe to get windows up.

You should then check all eventlogs - start, run and type eventvwr to see them. Click on help for any of the ones that show errors (look in system and application logs).

If you find nothing in there, it's more likely a BlueScreen error that's not writing to the logs, you need to look at your drivers for incompatibility as they can cause it (new one for my wireless screwed me!)

IF you can get the machine up in safe mode (press F8 at startup) and go to 'Safe Mode with Networking' you wil be able to start up a clean version of windows and also have net connectivity to update drivers.

Quick fix could be to get 'Advanced Windows Care - Personal edition' and run all on that and then fix, as well as getting ccleaner too, and try that too.

Not much else I can suggest at the moment, keep us posted and I'll try to check back in a day or so and see how it goes.

[MikeCFC 45]

Thanks Toby.I've just phoned Dell's tech support and it looks like the LCD on the laptop is fucked,in which they're sending out an engineer on Friday to replace it with a new one.

I can't believe it would be something so superficial

[Blueboy123 0]

Aha! At least that's easy to fix!

[MikeCFC 45]

Got a bright new screen fitted on my laptop and managed to sort out the AOL problem,bit strange as i don't use AOL as my ISP,their program was already installed on the laptop's system.Anyway's,all well now.

once again thanks peeps for your feedback and suggestions.