Strange Errors and Issues I have never encountered..

Syribo

Syribo

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 9, 2008
Messages
1,515
Okay.. I have no idea how to even explain all of this properly, and all of the computers I have ever fixed or built in my life, I have never seen anything happen quite like this. And because of what happened, I am not able to type out word for word what some of the errors were but I will try my best to explain this.

My desktop computer:
Q6600
8GB DDR2 RAM
3 Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11 drives (No RAID. One has OS, other two are for storing stuff)
MSI P7N Diamond SLI motherboard
2 EVGA 512mb 8800GTS video cards
Vista 64-bit
Corsair 750TX PSU

The last few days I've been getting random popups errors. Now I can't remember exactly what they said, I'm sorry, but it would ask to send the info to Microsoft. And then after closing out of it, it would act normally. But the message would come up randomly when doing nothing or doing pretty much anything. I really wish I could remember exactly what it said now..

So, just a little while ago I was watching a show with my friend on the computer. We left the room for a bit to go cook some crepes. Come back in, and there are about 20 windows open with errors, something about hard drives. And my windows system files. Then a little popup bubble at the bottom saying something about no hard drive disk space free.

I did have a ton of space on each drive. So I restarted the system... And wow. No wallpaper. No icons anywhere. My dock is gone. When you click the start menu, nothing was there. I think my antivirus popped up for a moment and started talking about a trojan? I literally could not do ANYTHING. And then those 20 or so windows popped up again.

Again, I apologize this is vague.. I really am sick as hell, and delirious from fever and medication and can barely remember anything.

So I put in my Vista DVD and try to repair, it can't find any OS installed. So I go to install a new Vista OS. I format the drive, and go to install and its says "Windows is unable to find a system volume to match its criteria". Okay. So then I format my second drive and try it again, same problem. I format the third one and the same problem.

So I decide to unplug the SATA cables from two of the drives and try the installation. And.. it works. Vista is now installed on my drive.

HOWEVER... When I plugged in the other two drives again, when I boot up the system its says "Operating System not found" or "No Operating System found".

I am.. so confused about what happened, or what I should do. Does it sound like one of the drives died? But why would that have screwed up my OS, if it was one of my storage drives?

Or was it really a virus? I used NOD32 for anti-virus and Super Antispyware for spyware protection. I always run it, I always update them. I've never had a virus, ever. This would be the first time.. And I haven't been using the system much lately. I have a laptop now, and I mainly use that. I use the desktop when watching movies or shows or playing a game.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.. I know this was long, but it was such a process of what happened. It was one after another.. and now I have no way of seeing what the original errors were since I've reformatted.

I really just want to get the other two drives to work..

Could it be some kind of boot problem? Like, it's not booting the OS drive as the primary drive? I went into the BIOS but could not figure out if there was a way to check on/change that.
 
Hmm and now I am getting a BSOD.. I installed some updates, restarted, and get a 0x0000007E STOP message.

I think this is from the 3GB+ RAM problem? I forgot that I have to take out some RAM sticks before installing Vista, then install the updates, THEN put the rest of the RAM back in...

But what I don't know, is do I have to reinstall Vista completely again in order to do this? Or can I just turn off the system. Take out some sticks of RAM, turn it back on, install the updates, turn it off, put RAM back in?
 
Can you borrow or buy a non-Seagate HDD and try to install Vista on that?
 
now im hungry for crepes. :mad:

eh, didn't take me as long as i thought it would to read all that...

so when you plugged the other 2 drives in, are you sure it was still booting to the correct HDD?
 
Last edited:
Getting another drive might be difficult..

I realized I put all of my BIOS settings back to original, so I went in and adjusted the RAM timings thinking it could be a problem. Now I am getting a different BSOD before it gets to the welcome screen with 0x0000000A

This is so crazy... I think it's the RAM problem, having more than 3 gigs while installing Vista 64-bit, until installing that update that is giving the BSODs. But no idea what is up with the hard drives..

And hi enginurd :) Long time no see! Crepes are great ;)
 
Hmm, just a guess here but what probably happened was that your original Vista install placed the MBR on a different drive from your OS drive. So when one of those drives was corrupted, infected, or became defective, it screwed up the boot load of your OS drive. Usually a complete format of the drives should fix the issue.

However to rule out that the hard drives themselves are the issue, do the following tests:
[Testing the Hard Drive]
Download the CD image of Hitachi Drive Fitness Test, burn the ISO file to a CD, and then boot from it, just like you would do with the XP/Vista install CD. Test the hard drive and see if any problems are found. DFT will run on most manufacturers' hard drives. Alternatively, you can use Seagate's SeaTools for DOS to test a Seagate or Maxtor drive. For a Western Digital drive, you could use Data Lifeguard Tools for DOS to test a Western Digital drive. For a Samsung drive, you could use Samsung's ES-Tool.

Format each drive individually with the other drive not connected. Also make sure in the BIOS that the correct boot drive is selected.

As for the RAM thing, IIRC, it's best to do a fresh install with only 2GB of RAM installed in the situation you've described. However to rule out that the RAM itself is the issue:
[Testing the RAM]
Download Memtest86+ v4.20 or whatever the latest version is, unzip it, burn the ISO file to a CD, and then boot from it, just like you would do with the XP/Vista install CD. Let Memtest+ run for at least 15 passes with ZERO errors on each stick of RAM separately as well as test the RAM all together. Go for a full 24 hours if you want to be completely sure that the RAM is not a problem. If you start seeing errors, than your RAM is defective or you have incorrect settings for the RAM.

Now if both the HDD tests and RAM tests turn up nothing, my other guess is that motherboard's onboard storage controller is defective somehow.
 
First few thoughts:

If you have the money, ditch Vista, I tried to install Vista over 20 times on my old computer and never had success. I would get the weirdest errors, like my screen wouldn't work half the time on boot, but I could hear the computer going through boot phases, or it would freeze immediately when I installed AV or SP2 with a fresh install. Funny thing was that each time I tried the install, I would get a different issue popping up.:rolleyes:

The errors you were getting do sound strange. The first thing I started thinking was hardware. Have you run chkdsk on all drives?

It's possible that when you plugged in the other two drives, it changed the boot order in the BIOS? The boot order will be indicated in the "Advanced BIOS Features" section of the BIOS. From here you should see "boot sequence." You can set your first boot device or second boot device from that menu. Just be sure you have the right drive selected as your primary.

Alternatively, you should be able to press something like F12 to selective boot and choose the drive you want to boot from.
 
Oh I wish I had the money to get 7 or something else right now.. but I don't. I'm disabled and money is just bad right now! That's why I am praying to God nothing has to be replaced... I'm sure the hard drives are still in warranty and can be replaced, I've already been through FOUR Seagate replacement drives because they just stopped working over the last almost three years.

I will try the HDD test tools. Right now, I took out all but 2GB of RAM and am in the middle of re-installting Vista, again. I actually have had good luck with Vista over the years.. the problems I've had were all hardware problems (Like when I originally got the parts for the system, one hard drive and one gpu were both DOA right away)..

I am just sad about this. Thank goodness I backed up the important things, my pictures going back 11 years ago, onto my laptop, all 3 hard drives (That did me no luck though), and onto 5 different CD's ;) So thank goodness that's safe! I just lost so much other stuff.. so sad.
 
DMFD-Minister said:
First few thoughts:

It's possible that when you plugged in the other two drives, it changed the boot order in the BIOS? The boot order will be indicated in the "Advanced BIOS Features" section of the BIOS. From here you should see "boot sequence." You can set your first boot device or second boot device from that menu. Just be sure you have the right drive selected as your primary.

Alternatively, you should be able to press something like F12 to selective boot and choose the drive you want to boot from.
Click to expand...

You know, I thought about this.. but.. this sounds silly.. I can not tell which drive is which. Actually, I guess it is easy to do.. I just look at on the POST screen, what the drive says when it comes up, and remember THAT is the primary drive for when I plug in the others and try to figure out which one is which!
 
heh, if you can't tell, then you can just cycle through the different port numbers as the main boot drive, since there's only 3 possibilities.

and next time, ask for help before killing all of your data. ;)

oh, and yah, it's been a while; missed this place. anyhow, u got a good recipe for crepes? :p
 
enginurd said:
heh, if you can't tell, then you can just cycle through the different port numbers as the main boot drive, since there's only 3 possibilities.

and next time, ask for help before killing all of your data. ;)

oh, and yah, it's been a while; missed this place. anyhow, u got a good recipe for crepes? :p
Click to expand...

Oh my, I know! I told you, I've been sick for almost two weeks now and am so delirious and not thinking clearly AT ALL! I will wake up tomorrow and scream "What did I do!!!" to myself probably! ;)

These Windows updates are killer to have to do each time... it's been almost an hour and it's still downloading updates. 82, yikes.
 
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