My desktop suddenly decided to not boot.
First off my specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6600
2 GB DDR21066
Asus P5N32-SLI Premium (Nforce 590 Intel)
Asus 7950GX2 video
2x WD Raptor 74 GB SATA hard drives
Creative X-Fi Fatality soundcard
Windows XP Professional w/ SP2, updated with the latest high priority updates.
The only recent change I've made is installing World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. The game froze up on a loading screen (I wasn't the only one, guildmates on ventrilo froze at the same time, so it was probably a server crash). I couldn't Alt-F4 or Alt-Tab out, so I hit the reset button on my tower. When the system reboots, it goes through POST just fine. But when it gets to the part where it would start loading Windows, it just shows a short line of random characters and a blinking cursor. Keystrokes just repeat the string of random characters. I took 2 pictures of it to better display:
http://home.wi.rr.com/eunichron/randomchar.jpg
http://home.wi.rr.com/eunichron/randomchar2.jpg
Putting in the Windows XP disk doesn't do anything. I can get into the BIOS and change settings. I did have a problem a couple months ago with the SATA cable on my primary drive coming loose, so I'll try cracking the case open and seeing if it came loose again. That's all I can think of though. I won't mind a reformat because I only use my desktop for gaming. However I can't even get in to reformat because the system won't boot from the DVD drive.
Any help is appreciated.
Update:
It was as I thought, loose SATA cable again. So, now that this has happened twice within a couple months, anyone have any suggestions to prevent it? Is this a common problem with some SATA drives and mobos?
First off my specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6600
2 GB DDR21066
Asus P5N32-SLI Premium (Nforce 590 Intel)
Asus 7950GX2 video
2x WD Raptor 74 GB SATA hard drives
Creative X-Fi Fatality soundcard
Windows XP Professional w/ SP2, updated with the latest high priority updates.
The only recent change I've made is installing World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. The game froze up on a loading screen (I wasn't the only one, guildmates on ventrilo froze at the same time, so it was probably a server crash). I couldn't Alt-F4 or Alt-Tab out, so I hit the reset button on my tower. When the system reboots, it goes through POST just fine. But when it gets to the part where it would start loading Windows, it just shows a short line of random characters and a blinking cursor. Keystrokes just repeat the string of random characters. I took 2 pictures of it to better display:
http://home.wi.rr.com/eunichron/randomchar.jpg
http://home.wi.rr.com/eunichron/randomchar2.jpg
Putting in the Windows XP disk doesn't do anything. I can get into the BIOS and change settings. I did have a problem a couple months ago with the SATA cable on my primary drive coming loose, so I'll try cracking the case open and seeing if it came loose again. That's all I can think of though. I won't mind a reformat because I only use my desktop for gaming. However I can't even get in to reformat because the system won't boot from the DVD drive.
Any help is appreciated.
Update:
It was as I thought, loose SATA cable again. So, now that this has happened twice within a couple months, anyone have any suggestions to prevent it? Is this a common problem with some SATA drives and mobos?
