great help is needed here

[mhd1st]

i used to play need for speed underground (1)
everything was going pretty smothly....
i was havaing an image of my c partion ...
and i decided to install a fresh windows.
first tried xp pro sp2 ;witch was my image indeed;
the same driver for every thing ,nothing have changed yet...
but the game didn't play at all : As follows:
i installed the game fully to my hard disk :All as usally:
i clicked on the icon ; now its supposed to play well as before ;
but not: the screen goes black full screen for few seconds and then
its partly black and i can see some of my desktop screen AND THEN
i got the error messeg (the same messeg for everything when anything hangs up)
i went for not sending it of course....
then i tried every version of win ever out there
currently i'm having Windows Media Center SP2
still the same Prob????
Even when i tried to open 3DSetup i get this annoying messege
error! could not find/open game registery key. Software\EA Games\Need For Speed Underground .
one more thing when i ever i reboot hte system after instaling it
i got the new messege :
c:\program files\EA Games\Need For Speed.exe is not a valid win32 application.


PC hardware :
MotherBoard : ASUS p4p800 se
Cpu Pentiume 4 : 2.8 1 MB cashe
VGA : Asus Geforc Fx 5200 128 MB
Sound card : Blaster Audigy2 zs
Hdd : sata Maxtor 80 GB

P.S
i've downloaded the latest driver.
your help is realy appreciated.

[mhd1st]

Anybody can help !!!!

[Fruss Tray Ted]

How did you reinstall Windows? Did you format the drive first? Did you install the motherboard drivers? Video, Lan, etc?

Considering you only have an os and the game installed, you may want to consider starting from scratch again.

[mhd1st]

How did you reinstall Windows? Did you format the drive first? Did you install the motherboard drivers? Video, Lan, etc?

Considering you only have an os and the game installed, you may want to consider starting from scratch again.

i did every possibilty ...nothing worked out for me
installed a fresh windows :
drivers for everything as usual ...nothing worked out for me
then another fresh windows only video card driver :confused: ...nothing worked out for me
then every possiblty .. its driving me nuts
what could it be???

[alex666]

i was havaing an image of my c partion ...

Not sure what you meant by this.

For what it's worth, I have had significant problems installing Sims2 on one of my computers. It had installed without issue on one of my systems, but on the other the damned game simply would not start. I reinstalled, checked drivers, all the usual. Finally, last night, I did a google search, changed my descriptors a couple of times, and finally hit on a thread that described various startup problems with Sims2. In my case, it was as simple as changing from 32 bit to 16 bit color quality in my display properties. That's all it was. Now I'm up and running.

So perhaps a thorough google search of "need for speed" might be in order. I mean, who knows, after reinstalling windows, maybe you have some basic setting that's different and precluding the game from running correctly. Good luck.

marty

[mhd1st]

thansk for for ur concern alex666
i did alot of search lately .nothing seems to ring a bell
it's funny that i have the same setting applied for my pc (or windows)
but the dammn game won't start again !!!!
i even take out my fx 5200 card and install it in another pc
....the game starts smoothly....

[alex666]

A follow up: after my success with Sims2, I installed the newest video drivers on my system. Every program works extremely well . . . except for Sims2. No matter what I do, I cannot get it to start up. And a google search yielded nothing. I finally uninstalled it and plan on reinstalling tonight. I'm hoping that perhaps reinstalling with the new drivers already in place might make a difference.

So much for my "this is what you need to do, it worked for me" advice!! :eek: :eek: :o :o :mad: :mad: ;)

Best of luck in solving your situation.

marty

[mhd1st]

first thanx for reply
second i discovered that my pc is bugged with viruses
jeefo mainly....
but i got it removed and the problem persists

[Fruss Tray Ted]

If your pc is riddled with virii and the reinstallation didn't remedy that, you couldn't have formatted and reinstalled properly. Either that or you got into trouble soon after the format and reinstall.

i did every possibilty ...nothing worked out for me
installed a fresh windows :
drivers for everything as usual ...nothing worked out for me
then another fresh windows only video card driver ...nothing worked out for me
then every possiblty .. its driving me nuts
I have absolutely no idea just what you did or didn't do by that post.

Did you wipe the harddrive before reinstallation/ Did you use recovery cd's or a Windows disk? Please provide more info, including system specs and os or we can't do much for you if we are running blind.

[alex666]

Yeah, I have not been able to resolve the sims2 problem on my one system. Very frustrating. I'm hoping that newer video drivers or perhaps a fix from sims2 will result. If I ever get time, I'm going to email the makes of sims2 and really raise hell, as a lot of folks have problems with sims2. Don't know if it will help, but maybe I'll feel a little better.

marty

[mhd1st]

thanx again Alex666 for your concern.
as for the virus i had to whip up all my drives and most of cds when my
pc was bugged with viruses.....it took me alot of time to scan every cd
i have ....
as for my system i got windows media center
and the latest nvidia driver....and latest driver for everything???
the game still not working????

[classicsoftware]

Where are you getting all of these copies of Windows? Are they legit or pirated? Pirtaed copies may not have all of the OS and this may be your problem.

I would do the following:

1) download the HD manufactures hard drive diagnostics.

2) Zero fill the drive.

3) FDISK

4) Format

5) Reinstall the OS

6) Install AV software.

7) Update AV software and scan

8) Perform an on line Virus Scan.

9) Run Windows update and make sure the OS is patched up to date.

10) Download and Install the latest version of Direct X

11) Check for the latest Video driver for the card in question

12) Install the game.

Let us know how you fared after you have completed all of these steps.

[Paleo Pete]

I agree but a zero fill is not necessary. If you repartition, everything is quite effectively wiped out, zero fill to me is overkill. Normally if a virus forces me to reinstall, I just format the drive (shut down first and UNPLUG IT for 5 minutes) then reinstall. Unplugging the power lets it completely drain capacitors and it's impossible for a virus to hang around in RAM that long.

I also write protect every floppy I use to start up with, and when possible I use a known clean CD to boot with, usually the Ultimate Boot CD or the Windows CD. Repartitioning is not necessary, nor is zero fill, to me both are overkill. Just format and be careful about your procedure, UNPLUG IT and let it sit a few minutes to completely clear RAM, then use a known clean boot media to do the formatting.

[Steve]

Sometimes a zero fill is beneficial. Seeing that mhd1st mentioned a problem with multiple viruses, zeroing out the drive could help clear any corruption of the MBR/partition table, be it viral or otherwise.

[Paul Komski]

I agree that a "zero fill" of the whole drive is overkill unless one is trying to remove all data from the drive to make it non-recoverable or to make the space more compressible.

Deleting partitions in fact just writes zeros to the partition tables but leaves the existing executable code on the mbr - so zeroing the mbr is a good idea if a boot sector virus is a possibility. Fdisk /mbr (or fixmbr) is sometimes suggested for the same purpose since this "should" leave your data intact but be warned that if the signature bytes are missing fdisk /mbr can zero your partition tables and lead you into a recovery situation if you thought it was going to be a safe and easy way to kill a boot sector virus.

Zeroing the whole of track0 (1st 63 sectors) is sometimes recommended to remove all residual traces of a boot sector virus or DDO.

WipeOut from http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/index.html does things in a jiffy and mbrtool from http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/mbrtool.htm can both backup, restore and zero mbrs and track0s. Both apps can thus "effectively" zero your drive.

[Whyzman]

i was havaing an image of my c partion ...
and i decided to install a fresh windows.
first tried xp pro sp2 ;witch was my image indeed;I'm wondering if your image is virus laden and perhaps takes a few reboots to do its nasty stuff...

[mhd1st]

thanx for all of you
Classicsoftware:
unfortunatlly all the copies of windows in Syria are pirate's one.
there is no legit ones here even if i could afford it!!!
as for the virus i believe it is gone for good
i did the following :
1- fdisk
2-formatted everything
3-fresh windows installed
4-installed av and updated it
5-full scan and zero virus at last
6-directX 9c installed
i noticed somthing when i tried to open
3DSetup for NFS it says the following:
Erorr! could not find/open game registery key.software EA Games\Need For Speed Underground
what does that mean

Whyzman:
as for i got rid of that image for good

[classicsoftware]

I would uninstall the game, re-boot and reinstall the game. Otherwise I would look on the EA website for the error message.

Get yourself a good firewall. There are several free ones. I personally like Sygate the best.

Also I would get Firefox as my default browser and stay away from IE. I woul also download and install Spywareblaster. If you need links, let me know.


Now this last part is editorial on my part. It is my pleasure to assist you. I find it amazing the way the web shrinks the world. Here is a middle aged Jewish guy in the United States helping an Arab man (I assume) from Syria. If the rest of the world could work together like we did to solve this problem with your PC, imagine what kind of world it would be?