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WindowsXP Boot Error

Torn

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 21, 2004
Messages
433
I was having some Windows issues a week ago so I decided it was time to reinstall. After reinstalling, everything seemed fine. I turned off the computer for the night, came back in the morning to turn it on and the win boot screen partially faded in and then the computer froze. I then had to reboot, let it come back up and all was ok, except that the secondary HDD wasn't showing. Rebooted again and all is well untill I turn it off again and back on. Same thing except the second drive came up after a single reboot. I figured it was my old 6GB drive going bad so I pulled it out and chucked it. I installed a new 40GB along with the secondary drive that was in their allready and reinstalled Windows again. Reformated both drives before installing. I'm still getting the lock up at boot. Again, rebooting fixes it and as long as the drive stays on, its fine and runs perfectly. Whenever I turn it off, freezes on Windows boot screen. Any ideas what might be causing this? The second drive is a 40GB Fireball.
 
You may be having some PS issues. When your PC boots it draws a lot of power as it spins up all your drives. If the PS is weak, you are going to have problems.

My advice is to try swapping it out and see if that fixes the issue.
 
blackrino9 said:
When your PC boots it draws a lot of power as it spins up all your drives.
...gee, my hard drives spin all the time, even after the PC boots.....:D My $00.02:

1 - Download the drive tests provided by the drive manufacturers. Hitachi / IBM call theirs the "drive fitness test" but all the majors have a version. Run the "extended tests" and see what you find.

2 - Memtest86+ - Run all night with "all tests" enabled. "No Errors" is the only acceptable answer.

Now, while you still may have a PSU or other issue, the problem sure sounds like a data integrety issue. These two tests will go a long way in narrowing the real issue down.

Good Luck - B.B.S.
 
I'll try the drive fitness and memtest...it BETTER not be the PSU. Its an Antech TruePower 420 that I just got 3 months ago...
 
Hrm...DLed the Maxtor disk checker and ran it with zero errors. I guess memtest is the next step...anyone else have ideas? BIOS update maybe?
 
Yeah I was just going to suggest that. I had a similar problem and flashing the bios fixed it.
 
Hm...something else just occured to me; I installed the "optional" nForce 2 IDE drivers. I wonder if that could be causing issues...can't believe I didn't think of that.
 
Yeah, that could very well be the problem.
When it comes to optional drivers, remember this : If it aint broke, dont fix it.
 
Interesting development. It no longer hangs on Windows boot screen now that I have a new boot drive, however the same second drive does not show during the first 2 or 3 boots. Odd since I ran the Maxtor disk check and it said the drive is fine. Is their a better utility to test with? Once its up and running, the speeds are perfect using HDSpeed. Can't be the PSU. The rails are perfect in BIOS.
 
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