Can't load Windows...HDD problems?? Or motherboard?? Or Microsoft???

[lektrix]

All was well for one month and a half until 2 days ago. I turned on my computer, came back 5 minutes later, and I see that my HDD is busy doing something (I don't know what it was doing). It appeared that my system was completely frozen (couldnt do anything) so I did a hard reset...that's where everything went bad, and then worse...Windows refused to load, saying that I was missing a file called "pci.sys"..it worked 1/20 resets but after that it stopped working and kept giving me the same error message..I go to recovery console to try to fixboot, chdksk, and almost everything else possible, but it could not read the drive Windows was on (Windows was installed on my RAID-0 with 2 Raptors)..

This is what Norton Ghost 9.0 said about one of the Raptors when I loaded the Ghost bootup CD and TRIED running some diagnostics tests:

Error #119: partition ends after end of disk
ucEndCylinder (18078) must be less than 9039.
Disk Geometry error(s) detected on this drive. (POPUP)

it seems that the partition tables on one of the Raptors in the RAID-0 config screwed up THUS screwing up everything..SO i take off the RAID-0 config, format each drive, and reinstall Windows XP on the Raptor that had the aformentioned error above. It installed fine, but on my next reboot, after it says "VERIFYING BLAH BLAH", it gives me an unreadable error message in weird symbols. This leads me to believe that the Raptor is partically dead and dying...but I can't be sure until I run some SMART/HDD tests...

SOOOO I install Windows XP on my other Raptor, but now I get these error messages RANDOMLY in no selected order:

A reading error has occurred.
Please press CTRL ALT DEL to restart.

NTLDR is missing.
Please press CTRL ALT DEL to restart.


The frequency of experiencing these errors are VERY HIGH if I have 2 or more HDDs (I have 4) connected to my motherboard. If I just run the 1 HDD that contains Windows, it almost loads into Windows (except for when I had the error with weird symbols)..So what is the problem? Why is this motherboard so random with HDDs? 1.5 months ago, I had the same errors AFTER installing my RAID-0 setup, but suddenly started working when I had 4 HDDs plugged in. Now I can barely load Windows with 2 plugged in. I doubt any of the HDDs have problems (except for that Raptor I mentioned), they pass the POST SMART test, and they certainly worked 100% fine in my old NF3 setup. I'm also running a heavily OCed system, but I doubt that has any effect on the HDDs. All 4 HDDs are on SATA ports 1-4 which AFAIK are locked. I even ran @ optimized defaults and the same problems came.....

Can anyone help me?

I want to be able to run and load up 4 HDDs at once without unplugging and plugging, which doesnt work sometimes since Windows is dumb and doesn't always display a hotplugged HDD...

 

[DaveSimmons]

> Opteron 144 @ FX-57+

Or cut back on the OC?

 

[lektrix]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
> Opteron 144 @ FX-57+

Or cut back on the OC?

My OC has been running fine for 4 months...

why would it fail all off a sudden and screw over my hard drives?

I can't read my Raptors (RAID-0) at all..

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: lektrix
My OC has been running fine for 4 months...

why would it fail all off a sudden and screw over my hard drives?

Because the ambient temperature is probably higher now than it has been for the last 4 months. Assuming you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that is...

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle

Originally posted by: lektrix
My OC has been running fine for 4 months...

why would it fail all off a sudden and screw over my hard drives?

Because the ambient temperature is probably higher now than it has been for the last 4 months. Assuming you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that is...

AC FTW

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: lektrix
...it looks like this is going to be my 3rd format in 2 months if there is no other fix :\

My OC has been running fine for 4 months...

I sense a possible conflict between these two statements, but if you're sure they're unrelated the problem could be any of these:

- visiting too many pr0n sites (virus, trojan, etc.)
- fans / cooling (missed this one)
- hard drive
- cable
- motherboard
- memory
- PSU
- The Gods

 

[lektrix]

Well I just ran Norton Ghost 9.0 Boot disk and of course, I cant test the drives...
my data drive is fine, one of my other raptor shows that it's fine (but i cant test it), but the 2nd raptor shows this error:

Error #119: partition ends after end of disk
ucEndCylinder (18078) must be less than 9039.

Disk Geometry error(s) detected on this drive.

Is the raptor dead or has the RAID-0 simply failed EVEN THOUGH it says healthy in DOS?

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: lektrix
...it looks like this is going to be my 3rd format in 2 months if there is no other fix :\

My OC has been running fine for 4 months...

I sense a possible conflict between these two statements, but if you're sure they're unrelated the problem could be any of these:

- visiting too many pr0n sites (virus, trojan, etc.)
- fans / cooling (missed this one)
- hard drive
- cable
- motherboard
- memory
- PSU
- The Gods

If you first 4 months formated drive 2 months ago, how could you oc your cpu without a formated HD?

 

[lektrix]

Originally posted by: videogames101

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: lektrix
...it looks like this is going to be my 3rd format in 2 months if there is no other fix :\

My OC has been running fine for 4 months...

I sense a possible conflict between these two statements, but if you're sure they're unrelated the problem could be any of these:

- visiting too many pr0n sites (virus, trojan, etc.)
- fans / cooling (missed this one)
- hard drive
- cable
- motherboard
- memory
- PSU
- The Gods

If you first 4 months formated drive 2 months ago, how could you oc your cpu without a formated HD?

I dont know what youre asking me, but OCing is not the issue here.. I just ran everything @ optimzed defaults and its still the same problem..

Error #119: partition ends after end of disk
ucEndCylinder (18078) must be less than 9039.

Disk Geometry error(s) detected on this drive.


What does that mean?

 

[smopoim86]

what channels are your drives plugged into, wasn't there issues with drive problems on channel 1 and 2 if you OCed

 

[videogames101]

Sry, i'm horrible at typing, anyways I meant that if you got windows up 2 months ago how did you oc your cpu 4 months ago? Some crazy stuff there, but i mean i'm just making sure. It could be a way to many other problems if you somehow pulled that off =)

 

[Crescent13]

Ocing could have caused the problem, just dropping the oc won't fix it. Also, optimized defaults aren't always accurate. For example, optimized defaults on my ASUS A8n32-sli Deluxe set my DDR500 3-4-3-8 ram to DDR-233 2-3-2-12.

 

[videogames101]

Originally posted by: lektrix

Originally posted by: videogames101

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: lektrix
...it looks like this is going to be my 3rd format in 2 months if there is no other fix :\

My OC has been running fine for 4 months...

I sense a possible conflict between these two statements, but if you're sure they're unrelated the problem could be any of these:

- visiting too many pr0n sites (virus, trojan, etc.)
- fans / cooling (missed this one)
- hard drive
- cable
- motherboard
- memory
- PSU
- The Gods

If you first 4 months formated drive 2 months ago, how could you oc your cpu without a formated HD?

I dont know what youre asking me, but OCing is not the issue here.. I just ran everything @ optimzed defaults and its still the same problem..

Error #119: partition ends after end of disk
ucEndCylinder (18078) must be less than 9039.

Disk Geometry error(s) detected on this drive.


What does that mean?

Well by intuition here i assume that part of the disk is damaged. If the partion is larger then the hard drive, in GB, itself then there an issue=) So try running just the first one then just the second one.

 

[pcgeek11]

This statement says that the partition says it is really big but the drive size is being seen as a lot smaller... It appears that the partition table is screwed or the drive is.

Error #119: partition ends after end of disk
ucEndCylinder (18078) must be less than 9039.

Disk Geometry error(s) detected on this drive.

What does that mean?

pcgeek11

 

[T9D]

Overclocking can cause data to get corrupted. Specifically the boot drive. My brother had it happen to him and I've heard of it happening to a lot of others too.

 

[xtknight]

Error #119: partition ends after end of disk
ucEndCylinder (18078) must be less than 9039.

Disk Geometry error(s) detected on this drive.

What does that mean?

It probably has something to do with your RAID0. 18078 is just above twice of 9039. I wasn't aware Norton Ghost supported RAID0 (how could it without drivers?)

If you OC and don't lock your SATA bus, data can get corrupted. Or if your memory is corrupt, a buffer can get corrupted. Even the CPU itself could have been pushed too far.

"ACCESS IS DENIED"...I don't know what that's supposed to mean either but I've gotten it on every healthy partition I've tried to copy to (on multiple PCs) with the recovery console so I wouldn't worry about it.

You can't access the RAID0 drive at all in the recovery console? What does it say? Is it simply not picked up? Do the drives show in the BIOS? What happens if you go into your RAID setup program? Is there any 'status' for the array? You could try 'testdisk', but I'm not sure if it's indirect enough to feed itself through Windows' RAID drivers or if it must have absolute raw access to the drive. I'm not even sure if the recovery console can execute anything but you can try it. Somehow you should get a Windows up and running with the RAID drivers and then run the 'testdisk' program (Google it) under a Windows environment.

 

[lektrix]

Too much of a hassle, I spent 2 hours trying to repair but kept saying access denied.

I just took off the RAID-0 and installed on a single raptor. Strangely, it STILL screwed up, so Im suspecting one of my Raptors is dying.

After the post says "Verifying blah blah", I get a set of weird symobls (unreadable)...sometimes it says NTLDR is missing.. or A READ ERROR HAS OCCURRED....is it my HDD? or my motherboard? Or simply windows being stupid?

AFAIK, people say that SATA1-4 ports are LOCKED on the DFI NF4 so I should be safe no?

 

[allanon1965]

return the cpu back to stock...then try again....I know for a fact that overclocks can and do cause this exact type of problem, just because it worked for 4 months doesnt mean it will forever....overclocking pushes the cpu past its accepted rate and it WILL cause it to die prematurely. Period.....

 

[lektrix]

The funny thing is, this only happens when I have all 4 HDDS plugged in (2 raptors, 1 Seagate 400gb, 1 WD 400gb). If I only have 1 raptor plugged in, it almost always works. I installed XP on my OTHER raptor and it seems to be running fine now. I think the first raptor may be bad but I havent run any tests on it yet. Is it true that you can't run multiple hard drives on a NF4 board?

 

[lektrix]

???

 

[allanon1965]

Not to my knowledge...I am running 2 on my nf4 board right now....

 

[piasabird]

Maybe it is a fluctuating power supply.

Also what kind of heat buildup do you get in a case with 4 hard drives when you are running Raptors??? Seems like that could make a lot of Heat, as well as use a lot of power. Hope you have good airflow around those hard drives.

I really dont have much compassion for people who overclock. First they overclock then they act like they were robbed.

 

[Slammy1]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Maybe it is a fluctuating power supply.

Also what kind of heat buildup do you get in a case with 4 hard drives when you are running Raptors??? Seems like that could make a lot of Heat, as well as use a lot of power. Hope you have good airflow around those hard drives.

I really dont have much compassion for people who overclock. First they overclock then they act like they were robbed.

Actually, I've always been truly impressed with the water cooling people. They can spring a leak, lose everything, and recognize it as the cost of doing business. I think people get confused about o/c'ing, thinking it's about wringing performance for its own sake rather than having a goal in mind of what to do with their free cycles.

I agree that heat's probably the culprit here. HDDs don't like the extreme heat, they don't have a "burn-in" cycle where their performance improves. I'd be curious what sort of case temps Mr Raptor's endured throughout this.

 

[lektrix]

MBM5 reports:

Raptor FLA0 - 33
Raptor FLA1 - 35
Seagate 400GB - 37
WD Caviar 400GB (5.25" area) - 48

First 3 drives are in my HDD cage. I put the WD Caviar in a Vantec Vortex cooler with fan off to take some heat off the HDD cages, but apparently the Vortex is a useless POS unless the fan's turned on high which is way too LOUD for me. I have a 120mm side fan blowing in too and a front 120mm for the HDDs.