BIG FAT Computer Problem...

[srygonic]

A few days back, I was using dreamweaver when suddenly my computer shut down for no apparent reason. After that it refused to boot back into Windows XP. It could only boot up until the XP loading screen and hangs right after that and goes blank. Got the same result after restarting 2 or 3 times. Managed to boot it in safe mode and transfered all my data to D: drive (same drive as C: but different partition).

Tried to reinstall windows booting from the Windows CD. Deleted the C drive and installed Windows on it. After installing Windows, D drive was unaccessable with over 140GB of data on it. D drive was shown as unformatted and raw when trying to open it. Restarted computer and met with "Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press Enter" error.

Tried reformatting drive and reinstalling Windows XP again. During installation, it hanged a couple of times. Had to restart. There was also an error in copying file i386 or something... tried two XP cds and still no difference (nothing wrong with the XP installation disc). Had to cancel and it finished installing Windows. After that Windows was very buggy. The drive cannot be opened, it would say "Cannot located Setup.exe" or something. And when restarting the computer, the XP cd had to be used to boot or else it wouldn't boot. Tried checking the drive with DSKCHK and it took very long to get through stage 5/5. The 20GB partition we tried to check, took more then 12 hours and was only at like 41%. Trying to Install Macromedia Fireworks hanged the computer we thought was working fine. Only option was to hard from the casing.

So we tried reformatting drive and reinstalling XP once again. It hanged number of times while installing and there were a few other errors that came up. Like "An error occured while trying to copy file ***** (many different files), cannot copy file to desination directory. Click retry to retry or Cancel to" Also coming up frequently was a BSOD saying "Unmountable boot volume ....... STOP: 0x000000ED (0x81AFF900, 0xC0000006, 0x00000000, 0x00000000), STOP: 0x0000009C (0x00000004, 0x00000000, 0xB2000000, 0x00070F0F), STOP: 0x000000ED (0x81EFAC08, 0xC0000032, 0x00000000, 0x00000000). There were some other different ones as well.

After finally installing Windows, trying to install Macromedia hanged the computer. And now it won't boot. It keeps getting stuck at the BSOD saying Unmountable boot volume.

Is it Macromedia? Cause I really have a damn project to do and this stupid ****ing computer is suddenly giving me alot of problems out of nowwhere!

Also I took out the other HDD and 1 stick of RAM already. Memtest86 shows RAM ok...

Would really appreciate anybody who took the time to read it and advise... Thanks alot really.

 

[Lord Evermore]

If you're getting errors just trying to install Windows, then something major is failing. Possibly that hard drive.

Try it with each stick of memory individually. Even if memtest86 says it's good, real usage is the easiest way to test it when you're having such obvious problems. You may need to try installing to another hard drive to determine if that's the problem, or use the manufacturer's drive test utility on the one that's not working (PowerMax for Maxtor, et cetera). Make sure the CPU isn't overheating of course, cooling fans are clear of dust, BIOS shows temperature is okay.

chkdsk taking forever has always been a sign of major hard drive failure when I've run into that.

If the data that you moved to the other partition is very important, you might want to stop playing with it immediately, and see if installing to another hard drive is possible. If that works, then the drive is obviously failing. In that case, your options would be to try some recovery software to try to read the data off the bad drive (assuming Windows won't allow you to mount the partition again, or if the partition is unreadable), or send it off to have a recovery company read it for large amounts of money. If the drive is failing, every minute you have it running is increasing the risk of losing the data permanently due to a head crash or incorrect writing.

 

[imported_Stew]

Either messed up HDD, or messed up Motherboard, I'd say.

What brands are they?

 

[zagood]

Yeah, sounds like a bad hard drive. Go to the manufacturer's website and search for dos based diagnostic tools. Some of the major ones:

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?swid=1
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Hitachi is also for IBM drives.

Or, of course, if you've got an extra HD lying around, try installing windows on there.

-z

 

[Bozo Galora]

like the man said - STOP doing things.
buy another HDD that will take all your 140GB and install it by itself, install GetDataBack software, slave bad drive (cable position and jumper), recover data.

 

[NYTRIDR]

bad hdd for sure

 

[srygonic]

Ok!.. But why does it only occur when installing Macromedia most of the time. Going to try Seatools later. BTW, using two HDD. 1 160GB SATA and 1 200GB PATA.. Already took out the 200GB PATA. Later will try putting in the 200GB PATA and see how it goes. For anybody interested the Motherboard is MSI K8N Neo4-F.

Heh already resigned to the data loss on both HDDs.. It was both almost full... Arghh... Well gotta d/l again.

 

[n7]

Everyone here thinks it's HDD, but you guys are wrong, sorry.

It's the RAM!

I've had the exact same type of issues, twice now, with two different PCs.

First time it was a bad RAM slot, second time it was RAM incompatible with mobo.

Memtest will pass too, but that doesn't matter.

I would bet very good money on your RAM.

Try diff RAM, & watch everything work beautifully.

 

[halw]

Check your mobo manual for a list of memory compatible with your system.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Memory incompatibility (what little reality there is to that) wouldn't cause a sudden failure and then suddenly make it impossible to install Windows. Aside from that, the listing in the manual is not a definitive list, it's just what they have tested it with and know to work.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Memory incompatibility (what little reality there is to that) wouldn't cause a sudden failure and then suddenly make it impossible to install Windows. Aside from that, the listing in the manual is not a definitive list, it's just what they have tested it with and know to work.

It's entirely possible you are right.

However, i am extremely positive that you're wrong on this one, mainly since i've experienced almost the same thing twice, & while i thought it was the HDD the first time, the second time, i knew it wasn't, & sure enough, it wasn't...

I'm bookmarking this one; OP pls. update this when you figure out what's wrong, since i really am curious to see the resolution on this one.



Edit: nvm, i misunderstood your post.

I'd agree that a compatibility listing means eff all.
His RAM obviously worked before; so that's why i assumed that one dimm failed, etc.

 

[n7]

Update?