[FearTheBoy]

I recently put together a PC with the Asus A8N-E motherboard and an Athlon 64 3200. I have an Western Digital (WD800JB) IDE drive for the WinXP SP2, another 200GB IDE drive, and SATA RAID for running programs. I have already replaced the chipset fan under warranty.

The PC has been running fine for about a month, until last night. I came home and the monitor was sleeping, so I moved the mouse and see the desktop. I go to run FireFox and the PC hangs. I wait a little and the screen goes black. I rebooted the PC, it goes through POST, and I get the "recent problem" screen. I choose to start Windows normally, the screen goes black, and reboot! It goes through POST, reboots, repeat! I have yet to see the Windows loading screen! :upset:

At this point I think it is the IDE drive. I looked in the BIOS and the drive is there. I run IBM disk tools (didn't have WD tools available) and the drive checks out. I put in the WinXP CD and it crashes everytime it scans for hard drives. :4-dontkno

I have not changed anything since building the PC and installing the OS. I have the usual broadband router/firewall and run the nVidia firewall software that came with the MB. I will run the WD drive tools tonight. I will also try using a boot disk.

If you need more info, please ask. Thank you in advance!

 

[Guest]

hope this helps u out

try running a disk utillity like disk doctor, scandisk.

 

[linderman]

Welcome to the forum:

I would first evaluate your system temp and voltage readings / asus probe on your mobo cd will do the trick for this.

post back your findings / if you cant get into windows at all / then I would try swapping out the power supply / maybe borrow one from a friend


regards

joe

 

[FearTheBoy]

New findings

I ran the WD disk diagnosis tools and the drive is fine. I tried using a boot disk, but it stops and appears it is looking for "<windows root>system32\hal.dll"

As mentioned previously when I run the Windows install CD it crashes, here is what the blue screen reads:

*** Stop: 0x00000024 (0x001902FE, 0xF7902814, 0xF7902510, 0x0F70801FC)
*** ntfs.sys - Address F70801FC base at F7073000, Date stamp 41107eea

I don't have the time at the moment, but I will try using the power supply from my old system. The PSU I am using now is an Antec TRUEPOWERII 550W, any good? The temperatures all look very acceptable. Thanks.

 

[linderman]

Fear:

Dont waste your time trying another PSU / the antec is top shelf chances are better of me winning lotto than that PSU being bad:

I would wipe the drive with a drive cleaner / eraser to get past the boogered files / of course dont do this if you have files on the drive you are trying to keep as DBAN is NOT reverseable non recoverable !!

http://dban.sourceforge.net/ download the floppy version

make sure if you have more than one drive to pull the power connectors from any drives you dont want erased / its an easy prog to get confused with and it CAN erase multiple drives !! so if you have other drives in this computer that you dont want erased ~~ pull the power connector from the drive

once inside DBAN just type "automode" when it ready to start up / its a slow prog as it makes 3 passes / it can take hours !! it has a progress indicator within the erasing screen

once dban is finished it wont get hung up on old windows files anymore as it will be as fresh and clean as it was when bought new !!

if its a drive recovery you are trying to perfrom / let us know and we can steer you in that direction too !!

regards

joe

 

[FearTheBoy]

I installed Windows on a spare 5GB laptop drive and the system works fine. So, it is definitely the hard drive.

I have two partitions on the suspect drive. One is strictly for Windows and the other has many files that I would not want to lose. If I can just wipe one partition, I would be happy.

I guess I should have put a smily after my PSU comment :tongue:

Thanks for the help

Edit: Would you attribute all this to the drive or a software/virus issue?

 

[kodi]

Set the Drive up as a slave and transfer the files to another drive then format /reinstall OS then transfer files back

 

[FearTheBoy]

I ran DBAN and wiped the partition that was giving me trouble. I was able to run the Windows install CD and see the drive! I started the install, had the install format the partition, and let it do its thing. When I came back to the PC, I had a black screen saying that there was an error and file "<windows root>system32\ntoskrnl.exe" was missing. I assume that when the PC rebooted as part of the install, the install files weren't there. So, I am back to where I started :dead:

I have never seen a drive go bad like this. It is recognised, passes diag tools, and can be formatted, but Windows cannot write files to it?

 

[linderman]

Hello:

I think KODI gave you the best option / back-up the file you need to another machine or another drive / the erase the WHOLE drive ~~ chances are there is some glitch on the other partition that bugging up the install !! slave the drive to a diff machine to back-it up or get a second drive to install windows with or boot to the 5 gig you have and copy the files you want saved to that drive / then run DBAN on the whole drive


regards

joe

 

[FearTheBoy]

I moved the files, but didn't have time to DBAN again. I will try the full DBAN before buying a new drive. Thanks for all the help! :grin:

 

[FearTheBoy]

Full DBAN did not work either. I am going to try to get an RMA. Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[whodat]

greetings
did you give us your memory specs?
also please read this thread
good luck

 

[FearTheBoy]

CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory

 

[whodat]

if its not sent back yet, try it with 1 stick in the machine.....did you read through the thread?

 

[FearTheBoy]

Are you suggesting that I have blaster/sasser? It's too late to try removal since the suspect drive has been wiped with DBAN, unless the worms reside in memory somehow.

In all honesty, I think the drive is junk. After using a spare drive, I got WinXP installed and the system running normally. I the WinXP install on the bad drive and get the same results, even after DBAN.

I am still open to suggestions. Thank you.