MJK

My old Raptor HD died and I got an RMA for a new one. I had two HD's setup on my old PC and made the secondary the primary during the time I waited for the new HD from WD

During that time though, I felt for a HD that was just formatted (secondary) ran extremely slow. Don't know if it was the fact it was a normal HD and the Raptors increased performance of Pc that much, but it felt like it was lagging a lot. (I have 2 Gb of ram so I gues that is enough on XP)

So when I got the new Raptor from WD, I decided to make it my primary again,transfer everything, and then format the old one.

After installing XP though I have had lots of problems getting the new HD to work, it seems to freeze after certain amount of time (complete freeze, no ctrl +alt etc works, have to reboot)

Also after these freezes when trying to load up windows on that HD I get this error:

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.

Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.

Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

Weird thing though is if I shut down and wait an hour or so to boot it will load right into windows before freezing again and getting that Message. I thought it might be temp but I it says on the outside the temp is usually between 90-110 F, and core temp was normal (MB 40 C and Processor 32 C)

I tried running XP recovery console but it gets an and asks me for a command prompt and I type one letter and it freezes and I cannot do anything but restart.

Also, after getting that error the HD isn't detected by XP when I try to format it (when I enter setup and it asks me which HD i would liek to install XP on it only lists one) I tried switching cables with no luckso that isn't the problem. I think after getting this error (not recognized by windows) one time it appeared in BIOS while one time it was not in BIOS (had disappearing HD trying to reformat twice)

So now that is the problem? Did WD send me a crappy HD? Or is there something else wrong with my PC since my other HD was kind of lagging (or its normal since I'm comparing it to Raptor performancce)

Thanks

blah789

It's very possible it's a controller error too (the SATA or ATA controller, or whatever the drive is connected to). Temperature is also a possibility (temperature of the drive, not necessarily of the CPU or memory).
Not sure how to diagnose though. Do you have a spare computer you could plug your new Raptor into, and run diagnostics from WD? Download the Data LifeGuard Tools for that.

MJK

Don't have another PC available with SATA.

The other drive works so shouldn't it not be the controller?

When the raptor drive works it works great for about 15 minutes before freezing, shoudl I contact WD about getting a new drive?

blah789

At least run the data lifeguard tools and see what they say before contacting WD.
And consider swapping the drive positions (make the drive a slave, without anything else connected for example)

MJK

They are both SATA.

Ran the extended diagnostic and found nothing wrong with the HD.

WD told me it would be the OS then, I then formatted the HD in windows, reformated in XP installation, then installed XP, installed Motherboard drivers, then when I put in disk to install Video card drivers it froze completely, then after a few minutes unfroze, froze again, unfroze, then froze again when I hit start and didn't unfreeze and restarted after a certain amount of time by itself before I got the same error message.

If its not he OS, not the HD, I have no idea what is wrong anymore. My other HD works ok I guess except for the lag and the fact Windows Repair kind of screwed it up.

MJK

Reset CMOS

Ran Kill Drive, and reinstalled Windows with the Raptor as the only HD connected, still froze, though now it would freeze for a minute (couldn't move cursor) then ununfreeze before freezing again.

dai

what are you running
video card
cpu
m/board
ram
power supply
brand
wattage

check the listings in the bios for voltages and tempretures and post them

MJK

video card: BFG Tech BFGR76256GTOCE GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16
cpu: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
m/board: AsUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI x 16 ATX Intel Motherboard
ram: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
power supply: APEVIA ATX-CW500WP4 500W ATX Power Supply

The Mobo Temp was 40 C while CPU was 32 C last time I checked, overall PC temp on front ranges between 90 and 110 F. Also forgot to mention last time the screen froze for good PC made a beeping noise, don't know if that is significant. When the HD disappears from Windows, if I restart/shutdown PC it wont' appear, but if I disconnect Power from PC and reconnect it will reappear right away.

dai

APEVIA are low quality see if you can borrow a quality 550w psu to try in it

note the beep code and check what it is saying here

www.bioscentral.com

MJK

This time after it froze got bluescreen and something about checking memory/memory dump, restarted before I could finish reading it both times. Running memtest. Will try to get new PSU as fast as possible

dai

to turn off the auto reboot
control panel /sysytem/advanced/startup and recovery settings
then untick the auto reboot box
post any bsod error messages the computer freezes on in full

MJK

I ran memtest and didn't even finish it and got loads of errors on test 5, just exited and reran with one stick.

So should it just the memory and it will be fine? I guess the memory being bad accounts for the other HD laggy performance. Just weird that Not even a month ago when HD crashed I ran memtest loads of times and it was fine every time.

SHoudl I still get new PSU?

dai

you have to run memtest on 1 stick at a time or you will recieve erroneous erros reported

MJK

Both memory sticks passed memtest when they were on their own...

Bought new powersuplly, connected it, and first two times I started it up it got to post MB Logo screen (where it shows like pimary drive, master slave etc.) then froze, then I went into bios and reset to default settings, now I get to windows was improperly shutdown screen, and no matter what I pick I just get a restart loop

New Power Supply is thermaltake 550W

Well, for some reason if I have both sticks of ram in, I get restart loop, if I hate one stick in, doesn't matter if it's stick A or B, it will get into Windows.

But even with new PSU, and one stick of ram, still freezes...

I was pretty much always installing something when it froze also. I can just leave it idle or surf net just fine, but when I install something or load something is when it seems to freezes (eg halfway through installation of XP SP3, when it was loading videocard driver disk, etc.)

dai

which thermaltake only the true power are any good the rest are the same as what you already had
you should have gone with the corsair
with psu's you get what you pay for
Power Supply Information and Selection

run
chkdsk /r

check the voltage of your ram and set it at 2.1v in the bios it is probably at the default setting of 1.8v

the best way to install a spack is to slipstream it into your original xp disk with nlite
then run a repair install with the slipstreamed disk
http://www.nliteos.com/

MJK

Regarding PSU: This is the on I bought: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153059

Only PC store around here that I know of is Best Buy, and of the brands they had really thermaltake was the only one on the good list. Had the new PSU worked I planned on ordering a corsair off newegg and returning this one.

I'm going to try and freeze PC one more time and get the blue screen error, then will try chkdsk and changing ram voltage.

dai

it's no better than the one you had and expensive

MJK

I thought it was a good PSU and planned on getting this one had it fixed my problem: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139004

Well I can't get PC to freeze now...so don't know if its "fixed" or not...

MJK

Would this PSU be acceptable?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-052-_-Product

dai

only the toughpower line is recommended
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...corsair%2b550w