OK... I am running FSX on win XP and today, my PC froze...so I restarted my PC.It starts and at the blue "WELCOME" screen, it just sits there.I tried booting in safe mode and it boots up in safe mode.I tried restoring to a couple of weeks back and it still has the same issue?How do I fix this without a reinstall of everything. I have too many addons that I just don't want to go through reinstalling. Any ideas?Manny :(

OK... I am running FSX on win XP and today, my PC froze...so I restarted my PC.It starts and at the blue "WELCOME" screen, it just sits there.I tried booting in safe mode and it boots up in safe mode.I tried restoring to a couple of weeks back and it still has the same issue?How do I fix this without a reinstall of everything. I have too many addons that I just don't want to go through reinstalling. Any ideas?Manny :(

The fact that it boots up in safe mode indicates to me that it's driver related. I would uninstall and reinstall your video card driver first and see if that works. If not, try uninstalling the sound card driver and reinstalling in safe mode. You should also check the Event Viewer and see if it has recorded the crash and tells you what caused it.Best regards,Jim

Thanks Jim.I think its my primary HD that has failed. This time, when I booted, it tells me that the HD primary is BAD etc.Dang..this is the second WD 10,000 RPM disk that has given way. IMO, the WD 150MB 10,000 RPM disk should not be used as a primary disk. I can never trust this HD again.Dang! :(I am in no mood to rebuild my setup. Should I wait for Win 7? use this opportunity to get an i7 CPU?My system is a E6600 OCed to 3.2GHzor should I just get another HD and bring my Win XP system back up?I dread reinstalling FSX and its SDK etc in the proper order and going through that harrowing experience again. BTW.. I need to SDK etc for development.I was just reading that FSX Golden release thread and thats not going to help since even that installation needs to be done in a particular order while jiggling the door handle type install. <sigh!>

Thanks Jim.I am in no mood to rebuild my setup. Should I wait for Win 7? use this opportunity to get an i7 CPU?My system is a E6600 OCed to 3.2GHzor should I just get another HD and bring my Win XP system back up?I dread reinstalling FSX and its SDK etc in the proper order and going through that harrowing experience again. BTW.. I need to SDK etc for development.I was just reading that FSX Golden release thread and thats not going to help since even that installation needs to be done in a particular order while jiggling the door handle type install. <sigh!>

Sorry to hear you lost your HD Manny. I hope you are able to save any personal things like photos. Your current system should run FSX well for some time but I heard the best system now for FSX is with the i7 and the 64bit OS and a lot of memory. You can get a new HD relatively cheap by just searching thru Google; then you can reinstall windows on the new harddrive. You might be able to just copy your FSX folders over to the new harddrive and modify the new registry. I recall someone doing that who visits this forum so it is possible but I personally do not know how it is done completely. You might find the proper procedure by doing a search or hopefully someone who has successfully done it will chime in and give you the procedures. I know a lot of people are not comfortable with modifying the registry. Personally I would reinstall everything to avoid any potential problems. I know it's a lot of extra work for may be the best solution in the long run. Best regards,Jim

Hi Jim,Here are the new development. I think I have a compounded problem. The originally issue of freezing was due to My Ethernet (onboard) hardware failure I suspect. But because of my shutting down and on the the system, the HD is started giving trouble as well. When I boot up, the S.W.A.T warning says that my primary HD is BAD. However, it has not failed as yet.When I unplug my Ethernet cable, the system is able to boot up and I even flew around in FSX (in spite of my HD BAD message at POST).I have the ASUS P5W Deluxe WIFI MB. So I tried installing the wireless Ethernet and it booted up properly..but it froze when I browsed the Internet. So I had to uninstall the wifi as well. So I am coming to a reasonable conclusion that my onboard Ethernet is kaput..although the device p=manager in Control Panel does not show anything wrong with it. Not sure if I get an PCI ethernet card would work or not.So at this stage.. I can access my C: drive and take backup etc.. .but stillI just may use this opportunity to get an i7 and rebuild my system.

I just may use this opportunity to get an i7 and rebuild my system.

I like that attitude! My wife, however, does not agree. I wish you luck!Jeff ShylukSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

I know what you're going through, Manny. My first disk crash was a nightmare. But it convinced me to give disk or partition imaging backup a try.I had a second catastropic disk crash last year. This time, with recent image files on an external drive, reinstallation of everything on the new drive could not have been easier.With quality freeware imaging software available, it's now even more compelling.If you are still able to access the drive, it may not be too late to recover an image.John

Thanks guys for all the suggestions.But it gets very interesting... I got a USB/Ethernet adaptor and it still gave the trouble. When I go in safemode with networking, everything seems to work. I can browse the net. So that told me its not my hardware.So I did some Googling, (What did we do before google?) and found some forum where it was posted that Avast antivirus software. I remember that I had installed Avast last month so I gave it a shot and removed it. (BTW, AVAST may not be deleted with the usual uninstall. Their site hosts an exe file that is used to uninstall avast.It looks like I am now able to browse the internet. And my Primary HD looks good too. But I still need to test this somemore....to make sure this has solved the problem. I need a new anti virus program that would work well with FSX.Well anyway, I got myself Acronis Home 2009. I am going to read up on it and once it becomes clear what it does and what not, I'll try to back up my C: drive with all the Apps installed. Sheesh! What an experience!

Thanks guys for all the suggestions.But it gets very interesting... I got a USB/Ethernet adaptor and it still gave the trouble. When I go in safemode with networking, everything seems to work. I can browse the net. So that told me its not my hardware.So I did some Googling, (What did we do before google?) and found some forum where it was posted that Avast antivirus software. I remember that I had installed Avast last month so I gave it a shot and removed it. (BTW, AVAST may not be deleted with the usual uninstall. Their site hosts an exe file that is used to uninstall avast.It looks like I am now able to browse the internet. And my Primary HD looks good too. But I still need to test this somemore....to make sure this has solved the problem. I need a new anti virus program that would work well with FSX.Well anyway, I got myself Acronis Home 2009. I am going to read up on it and once it becomes clear what it does and what not, I'll try to back up my C: drive with all the Apps installed. Sheesh! What an experience!

Acronis is a great program!!! Make a backup file location on another hard drive to image to. Got me out of the ###### several times when too much tinkering caused my OS to crash. No problems just restore the image and all is back to normal. Couldn't recommend it highly enough.Andrew