Steam Help

D

Daria

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Joined
Jun 23, 2008
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241
Help! this is beyond me... i cannot get steam to start... along with several other components on my computer however it is not a virus.. Feels like a program that has gone rogue and decided to cancel most of the programming. Firewall?.... Heres how it goes...

I can click steam and with the task manager up I do see that steam comes up for about 3-6 seconds then disappears and nothing else happens... Mind you only comes up in task manager that it is trying to come up. Other then that no visual application shows up nothing.

Help!
 
this is happening with other applications as well? that's......odd? could definitely be a virus, or malware...could also be a windows glitch or just general software problems. it could always be a RAM or hard drive error. here's what I would do...

1. Scan for viruses and malware in safe mode (spybot, ad aware, and virus scanner).

2. If everything is clean, download and reinstall steam. see if that takes care of the problem.

3. Grab Memtest and run it to check your memory. You probably also want to do a checkdisk on your drive...sometimes a group of bad clusters can cause programs to behave poorly.

4. If that doesn't seem to fix things, AND you're seeing this problem with other programs, then you may just need to reinstall windows. BACKUP FIRST! You should be able to do a non-destructive install of windows, but not always, so make sure you've got everything important backed up, and then reinstall.
 
Before you try a complete reinstall, go into your Steam folder (C:\Program Files\Steam) and delete the file named ClientRegistry.blob (or maybe just rename it to ClientRegistry-backup.blob or something like that). Now try to launch Steam. The first thing it should do is download the latest updates Steam. It's worth a shot anyway.
 
1. Scan for viruses and malware in safe mode (spybot, ad aware, and virus scanner).

2. If everything is clean, download and reinstall steam. see if that takes care of the problem.

3. Grab Memtest and run it to check your memory. You probably also want to do a checkdisk on your drive...sometimes a group of bad clusters can cause programs to behave poorly.

4. If that doesn't seem to fix things, AND you're seeing this problem with other programs, then you may just need to reinstall windows. BACKUP FIRST! You should be able to do a non-destructive install of windows, but not always, so make sure you've got everything important backed up, and then reinstall.



I did do #1 already no go there tried the different antivirus scanners also no go.. spybot and adaware didnt find anything either.
I did uninstall and reinstall steam but that did not work either...
Im going on with memtest right now ... but I do not know how to make checkdisk run manually how do you do that?

The other thing is... I was trying to reinstall windows safely so that way I can save everything. but the computer refuses to open the cd when i insert it in the computer or prompt to boot up from the cd in the beginning through setup.
Strange eh? I can insert a dvd in the computer though and it will read it fine but will not read the windows CD whether i have the computer try and boot it up right after POST or once its loaded up....
 
Daria said:
I do not know how to make checkdisk run manually how do you do that?
Click to expand...

If you want to do the startup disk check, enter CHKDSK /X at the command prompt. You'll get a message about being unable to lock the drive and it'll ask you if you want to run it when the computer restarts. Say Y to that, and reboot for the fullon disk check.

Daria said:
The other thing is... I was trying to reinstall windows safely so that way I can save everything. but the computer refuses to open the cd when i insert it in the computer or prompt to boot up from the cd in the beginning through setup.
Strange eh? I can insert a dvd in the computer though and it will read it fine but will not read the windows CD whether i have the computer try and boot it up right after POST or once its loaded up....
Click to expand...

Sounds like a major software problem - could be malware, but it's hard to know for sure. You can run MRT from the command line, and that'll do another kind of malware scan.

This might not do anything because of problems with the CD drive, but SFC.EXE can find out if system files are corrupted.

Finally, try accessing the CD in safe mode, as that might use different drivers (no custom ATAPI drivers from Nero or Roxio, for instance)

You might also get some milage out of installing SP3 for XP, although that should be a last-ditch effort, as it could also totally screw things up.

Finally, for backing up, see if you can get your hands on an external USB drive and (if you can) back up your hard drive to it. NTBACKUP is a great tool, but it's only available in XP Pro, so if you have Home it won't be there.

Um .. that's all I have off the top of my head. If I think of more, I'll unload it here.
 
Flippy the Squirrel said:
If you want to do the startup disk check, enter CHKDSK /X at the command prompt. You'll get a message about being unable to lock the drive and it'll ask you if you want to run it when the computer restarts. Say Y to that, and reboot for the fullon disk check.



Sounds like a major software problem - could be malware, but it's hard to know for sure. You can run MRT from the command line, and that'll do another kind of malware scan.

This might not do anything because of problems with the CD drive, but SFC.EXE can find out if system files are corrupted.

Finally, try accessing the CD in safe mode, as that might use different drivers (no custom ATAPI drivers from Nero or Roxio, for instance)

You might also get some milage out of installing SP3 for XP, although that should be a last-ditch effort, as it could also totally screw things up.

Finally, for backing up, see if you can get your hands on an external USB drive and (if you can) back up your hard drive to it. NTBACKUP is a great tool, but it's only available in XP Pro, so if you have Home it won't be there.

Um .. that's all I have off the top of my head. If I think of more, I'll unload it here.
Click to expand...

I went ahead and tried to do the chkdsk so ill reboot after the mem test is done... would it do the same thing if i typed chkdsk /c? I doubt it only because it stated it was read only. Thats what i did initially but then stopped it and typed chkdsk /x.

In safe mode it did not boot up the disk there either... at least im not sure i tried so many approaches in safe mode im not sure if i did check the windows CD. I forgot how to make the computer boot up in safe mode anyone remember how? I only get it to do that by shutting off the computer abruptly which isnt good either heh...

You however did lose me at sfc.exe and mrt do i also type that in the command prompt? If you could guide me a little better with that thanks!
 
Flippy the Squirrel said:
Okay, SFC is described more eloquently by microsoft, so ...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/222471

Also, to enter Safe Mode, just tap the F8 key a couple of times right as XP is first starting to boot, and you'll get a boot menu from which you can select Safe Mode.
Click to expand...

thanks for that... however when I insert my windows install cd it says it is not the correct windows cd ?? thats the only one i used since i installed it :(

On another note. I do have a program called Registry Mechanic ever heard of it? scanned the computer with that found everything ok :(
 
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Daria said:
thanks for that... however when I insert my windows install cd it says it is not the correct windows cd ?? thats the only one i used since i installed it :(

On another note. I do have a program called Registry Mechanic ever heard of it? scanned the computer with that found everything ok :(
Click to expand...
Hmm ... if SFC won't accept that CD, you might have problems. However, Microsoft provides answers for that, too:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/900910/en-us

It's likely you've updated your computer since last it was installed, and stupid Windows can't figure that out.

Programs like Registry Mechanic look for obvious structural errors, and can't account for everything (or they'd have to update the software several times a day), so while it's good to know it can't find anything, it's not a promise the everything is okay there -- although it probably is.

by the way, what are the "several other components" that you can't get to start?
 
Flippy the Squirrel said:
Hmm ... if SFC won't accept that CD, you might have problems. However, Microsoft provides answers for that, too:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/900910/en-us

It's likely you've updated your computer since last it was installed, and stupid Windows can't figure that out.

Programs like Registry Mechanic look for obvious structural errors, and can't account for everything (or they'd have to update the software several times a day), so while it's good to know it can't find anything, it's not a promise the everything is okay there -- although it probably is.

by the way, what are the "several other components" that you can't get to start?
Click to expand...


Well i replaced the cd drive apparently it was bad works fine now.. booted from cd reinstalled windows while keeping the old stuff... still not able to get steam to work.

Other programs that I am unable to get to work are zonealarm and avast and nero. Argh!
Oh well i backed up what i could... here goes the reformating!
 
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