If you were able to backup your files, do you have somewhere that could actually store 400gb of data? Even if you had a DVD writer, with that much data were talking hundreds of CD's, the only answer would be to have an external HDD that could hold that amount of data.

Just to be sure a format is what you need, I'm looking at the Task Manager problem as an example. If you go to Task Manager, is the username feild blank or is there no user name field at all? If you can't see the user name field at all, then I'm willing to bet it's just hidden. All you need to do is place your mouse between the "Image Name" field and the "CPU" field on the titlebar, you'll see the cursor change to two arrows pointing in either direction, and then drag. The "User Name" field will then be revealed?

Hi silent, what was the error message you received when you tried to start the RPC service? And what exactly happened when you tried to boot from CD? As for safe mode, if you select Windows XP, and then press F8 immediately after that, you'll have the startup menu were looking for.

Please you click on and accept the following reg key, which will reset your RPC to it's default settings: http://www.mad-monkey.co.uk/resources/pchf/serviceRpc.reg and then restart the PC. The RPC service is fairly heavily replied upon for many of Windows services.

To start from your CD-ROM:
- Make sure the CD-ROM has been given boot priority in BIOS. Press F2 or [DEL] when starting your PC. Look for Boot Priority, and make sure CD-ROM is highest on the list.
- Make sure that the CD is a geniune Windows CD, is not scratched and is the full (as apposed to Upgrade) version.

If in doubt, try the CD in another PC.

lol, ok

- Save it to your desktop, or somewhere you will remember.
- Go to Start, Run, and type in regedit
- In the Registry Editor, go to File, followed by Import and then open the file you just saved.
- Restart the PC.

no prob's. Let's take a look at the event log to see if there is further information about the problem here. Go to Start, Run, and type in eventvwr

From event viewer, look in both "Application" and "System" events. I'm looking for events related to RPC. If you find any (you should do), please can you give me the description, source and event id?

ohhhh dear!!

Right with event id 11, 5 and 55 together is not good. How far do these go back, before all of your problems started?

No sign of RPC (Remote Procedure Call) events? Not at this point it will make much difference, there's no possibility of salvaging Windows, I'm suprised it's still running at all. We need to start looking at getting that data off.