25wood

Windows XP professional.

I have been running XP prof from a Maxtor 300gig SATA drive without problem for a number of years, however on boot up the other day the loading screen for windows started up normally and then the system re-booted. This kept repeating endlessly. Under SAFE running option the drivers are loaded and after a few seconds the system re-boots. I have loaded the XP set up disk but when I press ‘R’ to attempt a repair I get a blue screen stop error ‘Driver Corrupted MMPOOL Stop 0X000000D0. The same blue screen appears when I try the complete re-install option from the Windows set up CD. I have downloaded the hard disk checking software from Maxtor (Seagate) and the HD disk gets a clean bill of health. The only Option the Maxtor software gives to resolve my problem is to write zero’s to every sector which would lose my data and progs’. I have even booted up another computer to Windows and connected the rogue drive via an external SATA USB case, the system starts to look at the Maxtor drive and after a few seconds ‘blue screens’ so I cannot access the drive this way. The computer that the MAXTOR drive came off works perfectly with another HD so there cannot be any issues with the mother board having caused problems.

The drive therefore is able to attempt to load Windows but fails during the load process.

The drive is not accessible from the XP recovery console or re-installation CD

The drive has no manufacturers errors.

The problem would seem to be driver related but if I can’t ‘get into’ the drive how can I resolve the issue?

Deleted090308

Welcome to TSF.

When you connected the HDD to the other PC - did you receive the same error message?

See if you can access the drive with a live Linux CD, for example Ubuntu.

25wood

Thaks For the suggestion I will try it and report back to you.

Regards Tony

25wood

I have downloaded a Linux based bootable live CD iso from 'SLAX'. I have loaded the software and under the heading 'media' it can see the rogue drive but reports it as 52G which I presume is 52 gig when in fact it is a 300 gig drive. Is the 52g the ammount of used capacity? Now that I can access the files is there any way I can re-load some of the Windows files that may be corrupt or delete Driver files that would appear to be causing windows not to load fully? I can copy my files to save them but I have a number of progs on the drive that have been purchased as downloads and I have no backups for them so i could do with repairing the Windows installation if possible. Thanks for your help.

Tony

Deleted090308

I don't know what the 52G is supposed to mean.

Disconnect any hardware you've recently added - then try to start Windows.
Tap F8, choose "Disable automatic restart on system failure".
The blue screen will appear - please write the full message down. That will help us pinpoint what's causing the problem.

To start deleting drivers blindly will be an endless (and futile) task.

25wood

Thanks for your time,
If I press F8 when boot up starts I get the Boot menue. If I wait after boot up I get the screen which gives the options of ;- 'start up normally'; 'Start last good config':'safe mode' etc. If i choose any of these options the windows load screen starts, pressing F8 does nothing and the system keeps repeat booting ( see original post ) I cannot get the 'disable auto restart ----------'. The only time I get blue screen is if I load the original Windows disc and choose either 'Repair' or complete re-install. Thanks again.

Regards Tony

25wood

I have downloaded the DISKWIZARD available off the seagate maxtor site with a view to making an image of the rogue drive. I set up another empty HD on the computer to transfer the image file to in order to see how the software worked. I quit the software to think about what I was intending to do and removed the empty drive and re-booted the rogue drive. SURPRISE windows loaded!!!! I am now scared to turn the computer off in case Windows fails to boot again. I cannot put the empty drive back on the computer without switching off. I hope the image software supports a USB external drive so I can transfer the image to it. Are there any diagnostic routines I can run on the rogue drive that might ensure that it boots into windows before I have to switch the computer off?
Regards Tony

Deleted090308

To check the file system:
Click Start >> Run >> type cmd, press Enter. In the command prompt - type chkdsk, then press Enter.

Turn automatic restart off to receive an error message instead of reboot.
Control panel > System > Click the "Advanced" tab > click Startup and recovery - Settings > Untick "Automatically restart" > Click OK.

25wood

Thanks for the reply.

Ran chkdsk Errors:-
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the master file table(MFT) bitmap.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.

I think that the /f option will only work on start up because Windows is running.

Regards Tony

25wood

I have tried to run defrag, the error message reads:- defrag' of 'C' has been aborted due to inconsistences that were detected in the file system. please run chkdsk (see above) or scandisk to repair these inconsistences.

Clearly there is something wrong and switching off the computer is not an option. I have tried to load the 'seagate' 'disk wizard' to make an image of the drive but the programme calls for a re-boot to finalise installation so this prog is not an option. HELP!!!!

Regards Tony

25wood

I have run 'sfc /scannow' and immediately the windows file protection checking screen gave the error 'Files required for Windows to run properly must be copied to the dll cache' please insert Windows SP2 istall disk. Having done so the checking screen proceeded with the windows CD rom working occasionally and appeared to finish with no error message. I then tried to run defrag again but came up with the same error in my last post.

Regards Tony

Deleted090308

There's no way around it - the system has to be restarted...

But, first:

Turn automatic restart off to receive an error message if the system hangs.
Control panel > System > Click the "Advanced" tab > click Startup and recovery - Settings > Untick "Automatically restart" > Click OK.

Also, to run chkdsk /r when the PC restarts:
Right click the C: drive in "My computer" >> Properties >> Tools >> Check now. Tick both options and click "Start":

25wood

Hi again,

I read an article on 'sfc scannow' at http://www.updatexp.com/scannow-sfc.html in particular this advice:-

Has the registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Setup\SourcePath got an incorrect entry? SourcePath value should be C:\

I found that my entry was not 'C' but 'E' which referred to a second HD that ran on the computer before I first had the problem that Windows would not fully boot up. I changed the entry to 'C'.

I then decided to run the 'Windows Files and settings transfer wizard' to make a recovery file but unfortunately half way through this routine the system crashed and I had to switch the computer off and reboot. On reboot after some time luckily Windows loaded again. chkdsk /r went through its run, and of course the Seagate disk wizard completed installation. I immediately made an image of the rogue drive in case it went wrong again. Defrag has now run with no file errors so presumably the problem whatever its cause is now fixed.

Thaks for all your help Regards Tony

Deleted090308

Good news.
Thanks for sharing the registry fix.