- Dec 11, 2008
- 1,809
- 0
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Hi all... long time reader, first time poster. Sorry for the length of this, but my problem is ongoing and strange. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Current setup
GA-965P-DS3 rev1.3 mobo (F12 BIOS)
Core 2 Duo E6600 (was running 333x9, currently running @ stock trying to diagnose this)
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme heatsink
4GB (2x2) 800MHz 4-4-4-12 G.Skill RAM (was running 833MHz, currently running @ stock)
EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB video card
Auzentech X-Fi Prelude sound card
OCZ GameXStream 700W PSU
3xSATA HDD -- 200GB Maxtor (system), 500GB Seagate, 1TB WD Green
Windows XP Pro SP3
Back story
For a couple months I've been wrestling with a system that worked fine for a year and suddenly stopped POSTing. It turned out to be a combination of problems: I had a stick of RAM go bad; the RAM is spec'd to use at least 2.0V, while my mobo's default Vdimm is 1.8V; and my heatsink (TRUE) backplate was shorting out the back of the mobo. Even though my RAM booted fine at 1.8V when I first built this rig, it would not do so any more, so I couldn't diagnose the problem by using single sticks. I bought new 1.8V RAM, did an out-of-case build with the stock heatsink and it worked. I ended up wrapping the TRUE's backplate with electrical tape and now the system POSTs with the new RAM and everything else intact.
Current issue
So I've been using this for a couple days with a mild overclock, putting it through its paces again. Temperatures have been great, and everything's been pretty stable. The only things I've done recently were install new video card and sound card drivers. However, I was running WoW yesterday and got a nasty crash that prompted a chkdsk on one of my storage volumes, but it passed and everything booted up again OK. Happened again, and this time I got the "DISK BOOT ERROR, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" BIOS message.
All three drives are detected in the BIOS, but I double checked connections anyway. I reset BIOS to fail-safe defaults and tried again, but no luck. Cleared CMOS by shorting the mobo jumper, no change. On one of my attempts, I did get a "NTLDR is missing" message. Running recovery console from the Windows XP installation disc sometimes locks up and I have to power cycle, although I managed to run chkdsk on a few volumes and it fixed some index errors. I also ran FIXBOOT and FIXMBR commands, and I didn't get the NTLDR message any more. If I have all three drives plugged in, I tend to get the following message from the XP setup disc as it's trying to load:
"Setup has either detected multiple disks in your machine that are
indestinguishable or detected raw disk(s). Setup has corrected the problem
but reboot is required. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit."
It will reboot and just say this again, so obviously setup did not correct the problem. If I only have my system drive running, I do not get this error, but sometimes the setup utility will lock up while starting or even during a chkdsk from recovery console.
After a couple rounds of this, I can sometimes get past the "DISK BOOT ERROR" and Windows will start to boot. It will go into a forced chkdsk, show no errors, and then I see a quick BSoD flash and the system reboots. I can't read the BSoD message because the reboot happens immediately. This happens whether I have one, two, or three drives running and will continue cycling like this until I stop it or I get another disk boot error.
I ran Seagate's SeaTools diagnostic utility and all three drives passed its short test, although the Seagate drive is running hot according to SMART readings.
I plugged these drives into an older machine and they were all detected and ran fine. All my files appear to be intact. This tells me:
* I may have a drive going bad, but I don't know why everything would detect and work properly on another machine.
* I may have a bad installation of XP, but I'm seeing low-level problems just trying to run Windows setup and recovery console.
* My mobo could be having some issue with the SATA controller, although again it's odd that the drives are all properly detected and I can get Windows to start booting sometimes.
* Possibly even a RAM issue. I don't really expect this new RAM to be the problem, and it just passed a single memtest86+ set anyway.
Any insight into this problem would be awesome. I've gone two months now without my main rig working and I'm really pulling my hair out on this one.
Current setup
GA-965P-DS3 rev1.3 mobo (F12 BIOS)
Core 2 Duo E6600 (was running 333x9, currently running @ stock trying to diagnose this)
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme heatsink
4GB (2x2) 800MHz 4-4-4-12 G.Skill RAM (was running 833MHz, currently running @ stock)
EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB video card
Auzentech X-Fi Prelude sound card
OCZ GameXStream 700W PSU
3xSATA HDD -- 200GB Maxtor (system), 500GB Seagate, 1TB WD Green
Windows XP Pro SP3
Back story
For a couple months I've been wrestling with a system that worked fine for a year and suddenly stopped POSTing. It turned out to be a combination of problems: I had a stick of RAM go bad; the RAM is spec'd to use at least 2.0V, while my mobo's default Vdimm is 1.8V; and my heatsink (TRUE) backplate was shorting out the back of the mobo. Even though my RAM booted fine at 1.8V when I first built this rig, it would not do so any more, so I couldn't diagnose the problem by using single sticks. I bought new 1.8V RAM, did an out-of-case build with the stock heatsink and it worked. I ended up wrapping the TRUE's backplate with electrical tape and now the system POSTs with the new RAM and everything else intact.
Current issue
So I've been using this for a couple days with a mild overclock, putting it through its paces again. Temperatures have been great, and everything's been pretty stable. The only things I've done recently were install new video card and sound card drivers. However, I was running WoW yesterday and got a nasty crash that prompted a chkdsk on one of my storage volumes, but it passed and everything booted up again OK. Happened again, and this time I got the "DISK BOOT ERROR, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" BIOS message.
All three drives are detected in the BIOS, but I double checked connections anyway. I reset BIOS to fail-safe defaults and tried again, but no luck. Cleared CMOS by shorting the mobo jumper, no change. On one of my attempts, I did get a "NTLDR is missing" message. Running recovery console from the Windows XP installation disc sometimes locks up and I have to power cycle, although I managed to run chkdsk on a few volumes and it fixed some index errors. I also ran FIXBOOT and FIXMBR commands, and I didn't get the NTLDR message any more. If I have all three drives plugged in, I tend to get the following message from the XP setup disc as it's trying to load:
"Setup has either detected multiple disks in your machine that are
indestinguishable or detected raw disk(s). Setup has corrected the problem
but reboot is required. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit."
It will reboot and just say this again, so obviously setup did not correct the problem. If I only have my system drive running, I do not get this error, but sometimes the setup utility will lock up while starting or even during a chkdsk from recovery console.
After a couple rounds of this, I can sometimes get past the "DISK BOOT ERROR" and Windows will start to boot. It will go into a forced chkdsk, show no errors, and then I see a quick BSoD flash and the system reboots. I can't read the BSoD message because the reboot happens immediately. This happens whether I have one, two, or three drives running and will continue cycling like this until I stop it or I get another disk boot error.
I ran Seagate's SeaTools diagnostic utility and all three drives passed its short test, although the Seagate drive is running hot according to SMART readings.
I plugged these drives into an older machine and they were all detected and ran fine. All my files appear to be intact. This tells me:
* I may have a drive going bad, but I don't know why everything would detect and work properly on another machine.
* I may have a bad installation of XP, but I'm seeing low-level problems just trying to run Windows setup and recovery console.
* My mobo could be having some issue with the SATA controller, although again it's odd that the drives are all properly detected and I can get Windows to start booting sometimes.
* Possibly even a RAM issue. I don't really expect this new RAM to be the problem, and it just passed a single memtest86+ set anyway.
Any insight into this problem would be awesome. I've gone two months now without my main rig working and I'm really pulling my hair out on this one.