Cadius

Recently I purchased a SATA 500GB WD Caviar Blue HDD to replace an aging Seagate Barracuda.

At first the drive worked fine. It appeared normally on the BIOS (and still does), and the boot order wasn't changed during installation.

However about 15-30 minutes in, I got a strange crash and when the drive was rebooting I got a "DISK BOOT ERROR, PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND HIT ENTER" error message.

I tried somethings to fix this but nothing would work. I would insert my Windows DVD, however I'd either get long periods of just a flashing cursor or the same error as above.

I tried to just drop the new drive and go back to my old one (which was working fine), and did work for a time, but eventually crashed. Now everytime I try to boot off that drive, instead of going into the "Loading Windows" screen, I get a BSOD that flashes for a second and my system reboots. The same thing happens when trying to boot into safe mode.

Thinking that either my install got somehow borked or that I have somehow screwed up my MBR, I popped in my Windows DVD again (this time with new HDD disconnected), and I can boot off of it... sorta. I get to the "Windows is loading files..." progress bar, which slowly fills, then freezes. I have let it sit for over an hour with no change.

If it matters: Both HDDs and my DVD drive are SATA. I have tried switching the ports around, getting new cables, etc.

Basically comes down to: Old HDD is now getting random BSODs that I can't read. New HDD is getting a "DISK BOOT ERROR, PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK" error. And I cannot boot off my Windows DVD. I have tried using my Vista 32bit, Vista 64bit and my Windows 7 Beta/RC DVDs, all of which crash at the same point.

Also: I have flashed my bios to the most recent build, which didn't change anything, and I do not have a floppy drive (which seems to be a consistent solution to the new HDD problem via what I saw looking around on the internet).

EDIT:

Forgot to post my system specs: Mobo:Asus M2N-SLi Deluxe (nforce 570 SLi chipset)
CPU: Athlon x2 AMD 6000+
RAM: 4GB DDR2 800
Video: 8800GTX

Nothing in my system is overclocked besides the video card, which was OC'd by board manufacturer.

RAID is disabled in my BIOS and I have never used it.

MaverickUK

Hey,

If you want to know what the BSOD messages are, then do the following below. When this is done, please write down the error message and post it here - it will help identify what exactly the problem is.

Control Panel > System > Advanced > Start-up and Recovery > Un-tick automatically restart.

Next time you get a BSOD, your computer won't restart unless you tell it to.

Cadius

The problem is, I cannot get into Windows in anyway. However, I was able to figure out the bolded part of the error message. It crashed because of MEMORY_MANAGEMENT. I am unsure of th rest and don't think I can get any better than that.

Edit:
I was able to get some more.

Technical information was:
STOP: 0x0000001E (0x00000000000000000, 0x00000000000000000, 0x00000000000000000, 0x00000000000000000)

dai

check all the cables to the drives are secure

what psu
brand
model
wattage

Cadius

All the cables are secure.

PSU is a PC Power and Cooling 750 Silencer Quad.

dai

run memtest on the ram 1 stick at a time

http://www.memtest.org/

is the windows partition on the new drive marked active

check the drive is set to run as ide in the bios

Cadius

Re Memtest: All for sticks failed individually, and I also tried out each DIMM socket. Some however failed more than the others. (I have two different pairs. Both pairs preformed somewhat similarly - but neither made it past 10% pass rate).

Also unsure if it matters but according to memtest, the timings on the sticks were off. 5-6-5-17 instead of the 5-5-5-12 on the sticks themselves. Not terribly familar with RAM, so unsure if that is significant.

Also two of the sticks were hot to touch after running the test.

@Windws: Unsure what you mean here? I was able to get a full windows installation on the drive before it crashed, if that matters.

@BIOS: Both drives are set to "auto" (only auto and disable) for IDE thing.

dai

check the voltage range of the ram on the makers site,the m/b may default to low

if it is correct

rma the ram

Cadius

RAM voltage isn't anywhere in my BIOS. The only voltages I see PCI-E Voltage, CPU/Core Voltage, Standby Core Voltage and Vcore Voltage.

dai

look in your manual i have been trying to d/load it for the last hour without success

Cadius

I was able to get a stick of RAM that passed memtest. It unfortanutely did not fix anything and I am still crashing and unable to load things like windows DVDs.

Edit: While I was in BIOS I noticed something strange. My cpu is running at 60C at boot. This seems way, way too high. Possible solutions?

dai

redo the paste with some arctic silver

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_s...structions.htm

make sure the legs are locking down

Cadius

Could an overheating CPU be the cause of all my boot issues?

dai

maybe do the paste and see where your at

i prefer the bolt down fan and h/sinks

Cadius

Everything is bolted down fine, and I don't seem to have any spare thermal paste around, so I'm going to have to order some new stuff.

Edit: Just want to clarify that I actually used it in the installation, I just can't seem to find the tube of it that I had before.

I applied new thermal grease as the website you linked told me to, and m CPU is still running over 60C at bootup. Time to replace it?

dai

what speed is the fan running according to the bios

Amd_Man

I see that you have 2 different pairs of memory so the voltages may be different from one set to another. If you have 2 that are the same, install them. For the Cpu heat issue, go into Bios and navigate to Power/Hardware Monitor and enable Q-Fan Control and set to Performance. That will spin the fan at max Rpm's. For the memory, go into Bios/Advanced/Dram Confiquration and make sure that the timings are set to Auto. The memory voltage control is in Bios/Jumper Free Configuration and see if it's set to Auto. Till you find out what voltages your memory requires I would leave that on Auto. You can if don't have your manual, get it at this link.
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...sli_deluxe.pdf

Edit: If the timings are on the memory then manually set them in Bios to what they require. Also, if the timings are on the memory then the voltages should also.

Cadius

My CPU fan is already set to preformance, and I also have a 25cm fan blowing on it from the other side of the case, and a 120mm fan nearly directly to the side of it blowing out. I'm pretty sure the CPU fan is running at over 3000 RPM, somewhere in the 3.1k-3.2k area. This heat issue is new. The last I checked (probably 2 or so months ago) my CPU was idling at upper 30's or very low 40's C. Hot, but nowhere near the 60-65C I'm getting now.

I tried various comboinations of memory, including running two of the same pair and such. I also tried manually setting the timings to no avail.

I know what voltage my DIMMs should be running at (1.8v according to corsair's tech support), but I have no way of finding out what they're running at. Only ways I know to check voltages are through windows, and I can't get in.

Edit: I have my manual, and I see no mention of RAM voltages in the bios.

Amd_Man

The Voltage control is on Page 19-4 section 4.4.1. I would follow Dai's sugestion and change the Thermal Compound on the Cpu. When you flashed the Bios did you go into the Bios right afterwards and load set-up defaults. You have to that after flashing the Bios then reboot after that and reload some settings.

dai

the fans on the front and the side should be blowing in ones at the rear or top should be exhausting
no change in temps would indicate it is not seating properly

look in section 4-20 in your manual for the ram settings

also check you cpu voltage is not set to high
you will find this in 4-21