All, I woke up to my P5B Deluxe (running Windows XP SP2 fully patched through 12/2006) with the following screen Saturday:
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
... Several attempts at rebooting finally let me get in Windows long enough to make sure I had a decent backup of my data. (I have since had to re-install Windows XP.)
I noticed later in the day that my backups' MD5 hashes were not the same as the originals, which got me to thinking maybe I had some sort of virus or hardware issue. On some files, the file sizes between the archive copy and original copy would match exactly, but the MD5 would differ. On other files, both the MD5 hashes and the file sizes would differ significantly. (My C: drive is my main OS drive, all one partition. My D: drive is a backup drive, as is my E: drive, an external USB 2.0 drive. All partitions are NTFS.)
My current set-up is: one WD 250GB hard drive on SATA01, and a second one (same make and size) on SATA02. I do not do any RAID array/striping. I have two older IDE DVD burners on the PATA connector (the JMicron connector on the mobo, if I'm correct). A third hard drive is a perpendicular density 300GB Seagate housed in an external USB2.0 Vantec anodized aluminum case.
The only way I can ever get this system to boot up correctly is by treating setting the SATA set-up as "AHCI" and doing the same under the JMicron BIOS entry. I have often wondering why I need to set things to AHCI to get things to boot the way I want them. It seems like in my case, the plain "IDE" setting would work but it never seems to boot up right, or else reboots.
I have the current BIOS 0804 installed and have correctly installed the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility 8.1.1.10 for Windows XP. Before re-installing to try to address my data corruption issues this weekend, I had installed "JMicron JMB36X RAID Controller Driver v1.12.07.00 for Windows XP (WHQL) -- JMB363_1120700." I have since *not* reinstalled the JMicron controller driver since I am not doing RAID. Damn the yellow exclamation point in the device driver listing... The yellow "!" was the only reason I ever installed the JMB36X driver anyway.
I cannot get the Intel Matrix Storage Manager to install despite reading somewhere that I should install it so as to optimize my SATA experience, even though I'm not using a RAID array. Trying to install it, I get some error message saying the current configuration isn't current or else is lacking in some way. I *have* since installed Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Tools, although I am not sure I need it. I did notice that when I first installed Lifeguard, I got some error message about the 137GB registry issue, which surprised me since my XP installation is a slipstreamed installation current through 12/2006. I thought the 137GB issue was more a Win2K issue anyway. I let WD install its "fix."
So... any ideas as to why I might have had data corruption? ... What the "...\CONFIG\SYSTEM" error meant or pointed to? And, have I set up my two plain SATA drives all right with the AHCI setting?
Thanks for any insights. I know this is a long recitation, but I want to get it right. I cannot doubt my hard drive's data credibility again like this weekend. My nerves are shot.