Every time I try to run the system restore (Just selecting it from the system tools menu) I get an error. The tech info behind the first "Sorry but I have to close this app" meessage...

AppName: rstrui.exe AppVer: 5.1.2600.2180 ModName: srrstr.dll
ModVer: 5.1.2600.2180 Offset: 00009826

Can anyone enlighten me as how to fix it, as the way I trash stuff out, I NEED the sys restore function...

Thanks!

I had a good look around, as I am having major XP Pro issues as well, but none of the info I found related to your error message.

If anyone knows any info which can help me I'd be very grateful too - the background:

started getting blue screens and hangs, sometimes with the IRQ_IS_LESS_THAN type errors. General advice on internet seemed to be wipe page file and rebuild it.

This worked, but on next reboot the machine hung on BAD_POOL error, and now even if I boot using a genuine XP CD it hangs. It will not let me get to the recovery console.

It appears to be hanging on mup.sys, and some advice appears to be "try removing cards one at a time" so that's what I'll be doing tonight, but if anyone has any insight please let me know:-)

It is an Athlon, with ATI 9600, Audigy Platinum, mostly bog standard.

I had a similar problem with system hang, sometimes would load and run (slooowwww) for a while then hang, or hang right from the start. After hours of reinstalling and all that crap, it turned out to be an intermittently bad slave hard drive. Probably not your problem but if you are running two internal drives, you may want to run both of them thru the paces (especially if they are Maxtor!)

Hmmm - interesting. I only have one internal hard drive, but two CD/DVD rewriters. Might disconnect one of them in my trial and error testing process - and see what happens.

Thanks

Not specifically helpful to you, but I don't put a lot of stock in 'System Restore' on XP. Here's why:

Brand new Dell Optiplex SX280. XP Pro SP1. I get it set up, set a restore point (completely fresh system, only the pre-loaded software, namely Office & Acrobat). I install a USB modem, start getting bluescreens due to a crap driver from the manufacturer (Zoom I believe). I do a system rollback, I still get bluescreens. I have to re-run setup from the System Restore disks (aka Nuke from High Orbit) to fix it. If it won't work in a pristine system, how well will it work on a well-used box?

I haven't used it since.

-Zeke

Ah. Did you install from scratch or use the Dell install? Big difference...

Ditto. I had a hard drive get corrupter to the point where XP bluescreened no matter how I started it until I detached that hard drive. I still haven't gotten the data off of it.

It was the Dell install (as are most all the desktop installations I deal with at the office). I restored from the included Dell CD's, not a retail Windows disk.

-Zeke

ps: what is the major difference?

The default Dell install I've found in every Dell I've used and owned is usually flakey as hell and definitely not pristine. They've added their own junk and usually put a whole bunch of other stuff in for other models in the same series.

One of the first things I usually do is just to wipe it and start over from scratch using a retail Windows disc and then download the necessary drivers and bits from the Dell support site. Don't go for the generic drivers from Microsoft or the manufacturer as sometimes you need the customised Dell variant. An example would be my laptop, if you download the generic sound drivers then the volume control don't work properly.

The "IRQ_IS_LESS_THAN" errors have always been caused by one of these for me:
1) Bad sound card / sound card driver (Sound card in a slot that is shared interupt)
2) Bad Drives or drive controller
3) Bad Ram
4) Bad Power Supply

By restore, do you mean restore or reinstall? Restoring implies dell gave you a disc image with all the preinstalled apps, and it just unzipped the disk image and wrote it to your drive. Usually dell has been giving real XP CD's these days, which allow you to do a real install of XP, then install the drivers seperatly.

Matthew

I used the bundled CD's to re-install the OS. They didn't pre-image anything special for me. Mea Culpa on the terminology. I re-installed. You're right, the Dell drivers were on a separate disk. All told it was a complete waste of time for a $30 POS modem which ended up going back to Staples and exchanged for another brand.

And speaking of drivers, the Broadcom integrated 10/100/1000 NIC has been a real PITA to image with. I couldn't get RIS to work at all (bluescreen with "Stop 0x00000027 RDR_FILE_SYSTEM" after getting the Broadcom drivers to work, which involved hand-editing the .inf files). At least with Ghost the NDIS driver worked OK once I'd created it's profile in Ghost Console.

-Zeke

tman,
I think I know what you mean. The I386 file on the SX280 doesn't include 'drivers.cab', for instance. I can understand that, but it was a problem when attempting RIS.

-Zeke

well, the IRQ less than errors did go after I wiped the pagefile and got Windows to rebuild it. Now my issues are definitely hard drive related. I can't even install XP on another drive if my old main ddrive is still connected - instant blue screen.
Couldn't even use Knoppix with Captive-ntfs to try and sort the filesystem out - it just hung, so something major is up.

So anyway - currently building another PC, and I'll see whether I can get the old drive mounted in any way to grab the info off it. Not too much new since last backup, but enough for it to be a pain in the butt.