windiag shows errors then no errors

[Merlin]

XP Home is a bit unstable at the moment and I'm trying to pin down the problem so that I can spend what little cash I have with some confidence.

After a crash, sometimes Win XP starts up again no problem, sometimes it says a file (e.g. isapnp.sys or ntfs.sys) are missing or corrupt, sometimes not at all.

Here's the thing that I want to focus on first, though:

After a crash, I shove in the Windiag floppy and run the tests. Sometimes it finds errors, but if I keep restarting the tests, or just let them run over and over, then eventually windiag runs all tests and reports no errors at all.

Just as though the RAM faults fixed themselves (if there were any faults in the first place)!

Has anyone else seen this and discovered what was going on?

Could this actually be a symptom of motherboard or hard drive problems?

Thanks for reading; grateful for any help.

Merlin

[marshman]

Most systems become unstable at some time or another,the simplest way is to back up you important data onto discs and re install windows,this will cure the problems.

[Merlin]

Hi Marshman

Thanks for your suggestion, but I strongly suspect that I have a hardware problem somewhere. I do back up regularly and create restore points so that I can re-install XP whenever necessary.

Sometimes after a crash, XP gets up again OK. Sometimes I have to go with Safe Mode. Sometimes it starts then restarts several times. Eventually, though, it gets going again without me having to re-instal XP or re-create any "missing or corrupt" files. Sometimes the pc won't even boot up from the recovery CD or even see that it's there!

I have dusted out the box, re-installed XP, defragged, etc etc. It's odd that windiag detects errors in the RAM and then later says there are no errors.

Maybe running windiag warms up the system to a nice operating temperature??!!