Members Mudbass Posted June 16, 2006 Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 Originally posted by MrJoshua No, it's set to boot from CD first. It tries to boot from CD - it gets as far as "Setup is inspecting your system configuration..." and then it goes back to the blank screen. When I unhook the primary hard drive and leave the secondary drive hooked up, setup starts normally. It seems like I could install Windows on the second drive if I wanted, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. Hmmm...anybody starting to suspect a boot sector {censored}up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SteveyDevey Posted June 16, 2006 Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 Originally posted by ZedsDead During POST (Pre Operating System Test), Hey, FYI, POST stands for Power On Self Test. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted June 16, 2006 Author Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 If it was the boot sector, why would it prevent me from booting from CD? I'm pretty stumped here. I thought the disk wasn't spinning up, but I disconnected the secondary drive and powered up the system, and I can definitely hear sounds from the drive like it's being accessed (although I don't feel much holding a finger to the side of it that makes it seem like it's spinning). It shows up in the BIOS properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ZedsDead Posted June 16, 2006 Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 Originally posted by SteveyDevey Hey, FYI, POST stands for Power On Self Test. WOW, I can't believe I was wrong. Thank you for clearing this up, I'm writing it down now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted June 16, 2006 Author Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 I'm thinking the drive is screwed. Thank God it's just the OS drive, not the drive with the sessions on it. The rest of the band would kill me. Here's the plan. 1) Order new hard drive. Probably go SATA this time. While I'm sure that it's just coincidence the system drive has tied twice on this machine when no other hard drive has ever failed on me, ever, I want to get off that primary IDE controller if I can. Just because. 2) Get a copy of Ghost so I can make a drive image this time and store it on my fileserver. That way next time this happens I can restore an image instead of reinstalling everything from the beginning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ZedsDead Posted June 16, 2006 Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 Originally posted by misterhinkydink So why doesn't it boot from the CD? But I've been writing drivers for 30 years so what do I know. I'm not sure, I thought the problem is that the screen is going blank when the VGA driver loads. I guess I'm not paying attention. Wow, I could barely handling writing x86 drivers back in '89... I can't imaging making Punch Card Drivers in '76! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mudbass Posted June 16, 2006 Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 Originally posted by MrJoshua If it was the boot sector, why would it prevent me from booting from CD? Because with HDD0 hooked up, the windows CD tries to do a scan on HDD0 where it finds an existing installation of XP. If something's screwy on HDD0 it can cause XP to lock up. When you disconnect HDD0 and boot from CD, windows scans HDD1 thinking it's the primary drive and finding no previous installation of XP on HDD1 it wants to install XP there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted June 16, 2006 Author Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 Actually, I have a great idea. Problem might be the drive, right? How about I yank the drive out, stick it in another computer, boot into THAT computer's Windows session, and see if I can access the drive? That's a great idea, Mr. J. Why thank you, Mr. J. I'll get right on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mudbass Posted June 16, 2006 Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 Originally posted by MrJoshua Actually, I have a great idea. Problem might be the drive, right? How about I yank the drive out, stick it in another computer, boot into THAT computer's Windows session, and see if I can access the drive? That's a great idea, Mr. J. Why thank you, Mr. J. I'll get right on it. That will at least decide if it's the HD or the video card anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted June 16, 2006 Author Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 It'll be a little while before I can try that, but I'll be sure to update everyone as soon as I can. I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seat with anticipation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members lug Posted June 16, 2006 Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 If it looks like the hard drive, put it in a baggy in the freezer for a couple of hours and then lightly tap it on the table. Wipe off any condensation, and try to boot again. I've been driving writers around for 30 years, but what do I know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members misterhinkydink Posted June 16, 2006 Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 Originally posted by ZedsDead I'm not sure, I thought the problem is that the screen is going blank when the VGA driver loads. I guess I'm not paying attention.Wow, I could barely handling writing x86 drivers back in '89... I can't imaging making Punch Card Drivers in '76! Punch cards!!! Hell, we had high-speed paper tape!!! Actually we did build the OSs from cards. The minis had a boot loader for tty and the card reader while the drivers for those were were supplied by the vendor. We had our own RS232 controller and a couple of other controllers we wrote drivers for. All assembly using a line editor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitars69 Posted June 16, 2006 Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 have you even bothered with the video card suggestions? as a technician you learn to test the simple things first. yes, it COULD be the drive, but you can easily narrow it down to that by checking simple problems first. reboot your pc, after you hear the beep right after POST, press f8, it should bring up a menu that you can choose a mode to start in, or at least a "last known configuration" choice. If you haven't successfully booted from your harddrive picking the last known good configuration will load the settings that used to work. Or you can try safe mode (which I'd recommend first). That will load windows with basic drivers only including VGA drivers rather than SVGA. IF you can boot into safe mode, you'll know that your harddrive is fine and a setting/driver is incorrect somewhere. You can then boot to windows with the step by step setup, also a f8 menu choice. you can then see WHICH driver is messed. IF You CAN'T boot into safe mode, insert your CD and reboot (ensure your BIOS is set to boot to CD first) enter the recovery console and replace your master boot record and boot files. IF You STILL can't boot into windows after that then your drive may be the culprit. It would then be a good idea to move it into another computer and test it. this process will narrow down your trouble and may save you the cost of replacing something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the_big_geez Posted June 16, 2006 Members Share Posted June 16, 2006 Mr. J. WHen faced with such a situation, the first thing to do is to reduce the whole system ot its most simple state. This means disconnect EVERYTHING. ALL the drives. ALL the RAM. Etc, etc. Then you put things back, one-by-one, and when it craps out again, you've found what has failed. It's a painstaking process, but it can both save you considerable funds you would spend on point-and-shoot diagnostics and it can keep other important parts from getting 'et'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted June 17, 2006 Author Members Share Posted June 17, 2006 Now this is interesting. I yanked the hard drive and connected it to a working computer. Booted up, and it immediately ran chkdsk on the "new" drive. And has spent the last several minutes fixing directory errors and now recovering orphaned files on the drive. Oh, and it just booted into Windows. I'm going to try to access the hard drive now, but it seems it might still be a good drive, and just have become corrupted somehow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members MrJoshua Posted June 17, 2006 Author Members Share Posted June 17, 2006 Huh! And now it works just fine. I put it back in the other computer and it booted straight into Windows. I guess it just somehow got some corrupted ... something? I don't get it. But it's working now! Thanks for all the ideas, everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Deville Posted June 17, 2006 Members Share Posted June 17, 2006 You're welcome, Mr. J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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