Disk Boot Failure....

[Guyzerr]

....is the message my little nieces computer was giving her when she started up her computer so I thought I would simplify things and install a new HD and do a clean install of XP. I installed a new HD that I had kicking around, did the install and rebooted it about a dozen times and everything worked fine. Then as an experiment I changed the jumper on the old HD and set it as a slave unit, reinstalled it so I could extract her pics etc. I rebooted the box and got the same error message so I removed the old HD, rebooted the box and XP opened as it should. I called my sister, she came and got the box, took it home and fired it up. She got the same error message.

I checked all the wiring connections when I was in the box and all looked good.

What the hell gives? Bad hard drive controller... bad cable...

 

[Francis]

....is the message my little nieces computer was giving her when she started up her computer so I thought I would simplify things and install a new HD and do a clean install of XP. I installed a new HD that I had kicking around, did the install and rebooted it about a dozen times and everything worked fine. Then as an experiment I changed the jumper on the old HD and set it as a slave unit, reinstalled it so I could extract her pics etc. I rebooted the box and got the same error message so I removed the old HD, rebooted the box and XP opened as it should. I called my sister, she came and got the box, took it home and fired it up. She got the same error message.

I checked all the wiring connections when I was in the box and all looked good.

What the hell gives? Bad hard drive controller... bad cable...

Could very well be a virus.. It might have been on the second drive and when you made it a slave and booted it, it got onto your clean drive again and infected it..

 

[Guyzerr]

Could very well be a virus.. It might have been on the second drive and when you made it a slave and booted it, it got onto your clean drive again and infected it..

I doubt that because when I removed the " bad " HD it rebooted a few times just fine.

 

[darkangel]

While in the BIOS, I'd recommend that you ensure that it is recognizing the drive correctly on each startup. The easiest way to ensure this is to reset your BIOS default settings. While on the BIOS screen, look for an indication either along the top or bottom designated by one of the function keys (I believe it used to be F10 to restore defaults). Be sure to save your changes and exit.

Second, physically check all cabling. A loose or in some cases failing IDE cable (assuming it is an IDE and not SATA connection) will produce these errors. Power everything completely down, remove the side of the case to give access to the drives and start with reseating the cable both at the drive end and the controller (where they plug into the motherboard) ends. Ultimately, if you were to pick up (or could somehow borrow) a different IDE cable to test for a short time it may also call out a failed or failing cable as well.

Third, we can't overlook the possibility of a failed drive itself. Formatting and/or recovering the drive will most likely not correct an error of this type.

 

[Francis]

I doubt that because when I removed the " bad " HD it rebooted a few times just fine.

Yes, but you said you installed a drive you had and booted it about 12 times and then switched the jumpers on the old one and installed it..

I installed a new HD that I had kicking around, did the install and rebooted it about a dozen times and everything worked fine. Then as an experiment I changed the jumper on the old HD and set it as a slave unit, reinstalled it so I could extract her pics etc.

Example:
It can take a few kick ups before a virus on a drive that was removed re-installs itself. It has to re-infect the new drive main root directory by installing itself on the main drive, then update the registry and on the last boot up it does the dirty deed.. This can be a one quick step or slow process to avoid detection..

I had one on the kids computer that we figure was installed from a web site that would not even let us get passed the BIOS start up on the Hard Drive.. Sneaky Basturd...

 

[Guyzerr]

While in the BIOS, I'd recommend that you ensure that it is recognizing the drive correctly on each startup. The easiest way to ensure this is to reset your BIOS default settings. While on the BIOS screen, look for an indication either along the top or bottom designated by one of the function keys (I believe it used to be F10 to restore defaults). Be sure to save your changes and exit.

I did all that before I installed the new HD.

Second, physically check all cabling. A loose or in some cases failing IDE cable (assuming it is an IDE and not SATA connection) will produce these errors. Power everything completely down, remove the side of the case to give access to the drives and start with reseating the cable both at the drive end and the controller (where they plug into the motherboard) ends. Ultimately, if you were to pick up (or could somehow borrow) a different IDE cable to test for a short time it may also call out a failed or failing cable as well.

Other than trying a new cable I had done everything else while I was inside the box.

Third, we can't overlook the possibility of a failed drive itself. Formatting and/or recovering the drive will most likely not correct an error of this type.

That's why I initially saved a bunch of time and installed a brand spanking new HD right off the bat. The problem resurfaced after I changed the old HD to a slave and stuck it back in the box. When I removed the old drive for the second time it booted up just fine. The problem redeveloped after she got it home.

 

[Guyzerr]

Yes, but you said you installed a drive you had and booted it about 12 times and then switched the jumpers on the old one and installed it..



Example:
It can take a few kick ups before a virus on a drive that was removed re-installs itself. It has to re-infect the new drive main root directory by installing itself on the main drive, then update the registry and on the last boot up it does the dirty deed.. This can be a one quick step or slow process to avoid detection..

I had one on the kids computer that we figure was installed from a web site that would not even let us get passed the BIOS start up on the Hard Drive.. Sneaky Basturd...

Ok... I get what you're saying now.


Here's a new twist... my sister called and being ever so impatient she tried starting it up again and got the same error message. She then took it upon herself to do a control-alt-del and the system rebooted itself just fine. wtf is going on here?

 

[darkangel]

Yeah well I'd try switching out the cables.

 

[Francis]

Ok... I get what you're saying now.


Here's a new twist... my sister called and being ever so impatient she tried starting it up again and got the same error message. She then took it upon herself to do a control-alt-del and the system rebooted itself just fine. wtf is going on here?

Tell her to run a Trend Micro Scan Free Online Scan called HouseCalls and not shut down the system..

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/?cm_re=Threatbox-_-Consumer-_-HouseCall71

Also if you give me the hard drive types I can probably get you Hard drive software to help you..

 

[Guyzerr]

Tell her to run a Trend Micro Scan Free Online Scan called HouseCalls and not shut down the system..

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/?cm_re=Threatbox-_-Consumer-_-HouseCall71

Also if you give me the hard drive types I can probably get you Hard drive software to help you..

She's already shut it down. What do you think happened with the ctrl-alt-del issue?

She's on Shaw. Shouldn't their virus software be able to detect it if it's run?

I gotta get over to her place this weekend and see if I can get it cranked up. I'll run the Trend stuff then. If it catches something will it fix it or does one have to pay for removal? I hate that shit.

 

[darkangel]

An online scanner is better than software scanners. And you don't have to pay for removal. You can try Kaspersky online scanner too.

 

[Francis]

She's already shut it down. What do you think happened with the ctrl-alt-del issue?

She's on Shaw. Shouldn't their virus software be able to detect it if it's run?

I gotta get over to her place this weekend and see if I can get it cranked up. I'll run the Trend stuff then. If it catches something will it fix it or does one have to pay for removal? I hate that shit.

I have not looked at Shaw stuff in a while..

It had been a while but I just bought Norton's again for the first time in 5 years.. I had been a big Norton's fan but had used AVG for those 5 years when Norton's went nuts with cost and shit..

CTRL-DEL could well have been just a fluke and skipped the virus or bad driver that might be in a bad sector on the hard drive if that is the issue..

It's weird that it would happen again..

But if it is the second drive that is bad it might stop the computer from booting up.. Even if it's not the main drive if sees a problem in boot it will stop..

Disconnect the second drive and see if that solve the problem. You can go into the BIOS and just turn it off and see if that works .. Not sure how savvy your relative is, so not sure if you want to send her into the BIOS..

You can try the cable but I have rarely found those to be problems.. Usually its the drive and or virus on the drive..

 

[Tuffdisc]

Make sure in the BIOS that the disk you want to boot up from is correctly the boot drive

I have installed windows on a disk, yet somehow the BIOS never managed to pick up that I wanted that drive to be the boot up disk

First thing I would of done was to clone the drive, there are a few good freeware, but the one that came with my SSD drive was this
http://www.acronis.co.uk/homecomput...ing software&gclid=CNeJweqHgaMCFYeY2Aodm1i0ZA

 

[Zorak]

Have you tried it again yourself since? With the 'faut' disk removed? And same message? Did you swap round any of the IDE cables to see if that was the problem?

Are you sure that as Tuffdisc said that the bios is all set up? The correct drives being slaves and primary etc.

Also, turn off any disk self monitoring and analysis options from the BIOS, because these can cause problems where error messages are falsely reported and prevent start up. (And they offer little to no information in terms of analysis anyway)

 

[Guyzerr]

The original " bad " drive is sitting on my desk and wasn't installed when she took the unit home. Regarding the BIOS I checked everything there yesterday and all was good. Sometime this weekend I'll get over to her place and run the Trend Micro scanner to see what's going on there. If that doesn't work I'll be banging my head against the wall. This is one weird scenario only because of the ctrl-alt-del issue.

 

[Tuffdisc]

The original " bad " drive is sitting on my desk and wasn't installed when she took the unit home. Regarding the BIOS I checked everything there yesterday and all was good. Sometime this weekend I'll get over to her place and run the Trend Micro scanner to see what's going on there. If that doesn't work I'll be banging my head against the wall. This is one weird scenario only because of the ctrl-alt-del issue.

Are you sure that the disk that has windows installed is boot disk 1? If so, another trick is to disable all the other hard drives with the bios, and re-install windows again.

This is to trick the installation process into believing that there is only one drive, you can happily enable the hard drive(s) again once Windows is thoroughly finished with the installation process.

Because sometime Windows installs the MBR onto another drive, thinking that this is the primary drive, even though you want to install it on another drive

 

[Guyzerr]

Are you sure that the disk that has windows installed is boot disk 1? If so, another trick is to disable all the other hard drives with the bios, and re-install windows again.

I am absolutely 100% positive that it's the first drive. The second drive is the CD and the third is removable.

This is to trick the installation process into believing that there is only one drive, you can happily enable the hard drive(s) again once Windows is thoroughly finished with the installation process.

There's nothing to trick because there is only one HD in there. I also looked at the directory tree when I got into the system just to be sure nothing duplicated in it. All was well there.

Because sometime Windows installs the MBR onto another drive, thinking that this is the primary drive, even though you want to install it on another drive

Because of the ctrl-alt-del issue my goal is to put the original HD back in and get it running properly. Because of that issue it's obvious to me the HD, cable or controller isn't shot and there was no need for me to put a new one in. Francis might be on to something with the virus idea.

 

[Guyzerr]

I went to my sisters this morning and put the original HD back in. While doing that I triple checked all the connections and cables again. It booted up without any error message what so ever so now I'm fairly sure it's the HD ribbon cable that's faulty. What else could cause an intermittent problem like that? I do recall when it booted up to the error message the boot sequence didn't how any drives as having anything in it. This time the HD was listed.

I also fired up the Trend Micro scan but didn't stick around to see the results. I'll talk to my sister about it later just for shits and giggles.

 

[Tuffdisc]

What else would cause an error message like that? If the hard drive itself was formatted

 

[Francis]

I went to my sisters this morning and put the original HD back in. While doing that I triple checked all the connections and cables again. It booted up without any error message what so ever so now I'm fairly sure it's the HD ribbon cable that's faulty. What else could cause an intermittent problem like that? I do recall when it booted up to the error message the boot sequence didn't how any drives as having anything in it. This time the HD was listed.

I also fired up the Trend Micro scan but didn't stick around to see the results. I'll talk to my sister about it later just for shits and giggles.

Guy, unless you heaved real hard on the cable I doubt that was the issue.. But hey anything is possible..

I would suspect if anything the problem will reappear in a day or a few days if its what I think it might be.. Then you have issues that need hard drive software to find and see if the drive is still good or can be fixed..

You still have not said what brand it is so can help further.. Some drives have more issues then others. Example Seagates are known for bad sectors, as for Western Digitals were bad in some series for controllers and just dieing.. Fujitsu had their issues as well..