Crash - Endless loop - plz hlp! *updated*

[GasX]

update:

Everything is seated correctly. Checked all Bios settings - nothing out of whack. Tried booting with a Win95 floppy (only thing available) and it worked. Disabled CD/R no change. Disabled HDD and rebooted with WINXP CD in place - this worked, but couldn't go far because it wanted to set-up XP and couldn't see a HDD. The problem lies with the hard drive- I am certain of this.

Does anyone have any advice other than a clean install at this point? I realize that it may be an eventuality, but I'd rather avoid it...


original post:
My brother just took delivery of the PC I built for him.

It has started going nuts. It locked up on him and he had to unplug it. It will not boot now. It gets to the screen where you can go into safe mode. From there it tries to go into windows, but comes back to that screen endlessly.

What could the problem be? My only theory is that something came loose during transit and that it is affecting the boot process? Is that a likely cause or is there something more insidious?


PC specs:

256MB Kingston SDRAM
Athlon 950MHz Socket-A
Shuttle AK12A
AOpen Medium Tower
integrated sound
12X CDRW
40GB 7200 RPM Western Digital
External Zip
Hercules 4000XT (Kryo II)
Win XP (clean install)

 

[Spikesoldier]

Cant even get to windows in safe mode? wow. The USPS does X-ray and scan packages/mail, unless you tell them its electronics and may be damaged. Maybe the hard drive was scanned and something went wrong. Tell him to reinstall XP.

 

[GasX]

Actually, I got the barebones system in the mail and finished it myself including a clean install of WinXP. I then drove to my parents for Thanksgiving and gave it to him there. He then drove it back to his place. Thus, no "x-ray" issues...

grrrrr..... I really hope he doesn't have to do much to fix this...

 

[GasX]

Anyone else?

 

[LongTimePCUser]

Did you make any bios changes?
Try going into the bios and choosing a "fail safe" set of options.

Did you get the most current XP video drivers for the Hercules board?

 

[GasX]

<< Did you make any bios changes?
Try going into the bios and choosing a "fail safe" set of options.

Did you get the most current XP video drivers for the Hercules board? >>


No bios changes
Yes, I updated to the XP video drivers

The PC was working fine for me at my house. It crashed once at my parents house and now is basically dead at my brother's house.

If a connector came loose, would it cause this type of problem? I am really hoping that is the problem!!

 

[GasX]

The answer is out there...

 

[MattPhelps]

Sounds like a hardware problem like a loose cable or something. I assume you have checked all the IDE cabling and that the RAM and PCI/AGP cards are all still seated correctly??

 

[GasX]

I am glad to hear you say that. I have him checking all the cables and then calling me to say whether or not that fixes the problem.

fingers crossed...

 

[GasX]

bump for the update and persistant need of help...

 

[GasX]

bump -= still need advice

 

[GasX]

still need advice...

 

[vcarpio]

This may be relevant -- or this may be not.

Did you partition the HD using standard FDisk before installing WinXP?

I installed WinXP on a brand new 60GB HD (from BestBuy's Thanksgiving sale). Before I did, I fdisk'ed it to 3 partitions (OS/Programs/Data). That was a mistake.

Everytime I tried to install WinXP, on its first reboot, it said invalid OS (sorry can't remember the message -- I didn't take notes).

I even tried the partitioning option in WinXP's setup, but on reboot, same invalid OS message.

This went on for a day and a half (lost a lot of hair).

I then paid closer attention to WinXP's partitioning option -- it said something about the HD already having an OS which could lead to problems. I began to suspect my fdisking it might have caused problems. Also, I noticed each time I defined my 3 partitions in WinXP's partitioning option, it reserved a 4th 7MB partition. When I tried to create an extended partition on it, WinXP wouldn't allow it, saying it's reserved for OS use.

So finally, I booted up the utils diskette that came with the HD (WD's Data Lifeguard) to run diagnostics.

Somehow, I decided to run the util to write 0's on the HD. (I didn't run any other util on the diskette other than the diagnostic which said my HD is OK for XP.) The progress bar indicated over 5 hours to complete so I cancelled at 2% completion. I figured maybe I just needed to write a few 0's on the first couple bytes to wipe out whatever signature XP is finding as invalid OS. I tried WinXP's setup again -- it worked!

Now the thing is, my first partition is F:, second is G:, and third is H:. I strongly suspect that XP kept my first attempts at partitioning (C:, D:, E: ) in the 4th 7MB partition. Since I didn't write 0's on the whole drive, WinXP's install "saw" the previous install and thought that C:, D:, and E: are already in use.

If the above makes any sense and you think it applies in your case -- like maybe the reserved 7MB partition got corrupted, then, I think you'd need to re-partition/re-install.

(Edit: some characters I typed converted into a smiley)

 

[GasX]

I had some serious issues during the install with the partitions and fdisk. Reading your post brings that nightmare back in all its gory detail. Looks like it's the same deal.

thanks,

Matt