Does this sound like a hard drive issue?

[Hardball]

Hi all-- My computer had been running fine until yesterday. It was used yesterday morning and turned off, and then turned on later in the afternoon. When it was turned on it could not boot into Windows. It gets to the point where the devices are listed, but at the bottom of the screen it has "a disk read error occured, press ctrl-alt-del to restart". Rebooting, even multiple times does nothing to change this as it can't get past this point.

I created a bootable cd with the Western Digital diagnostics program on it and tested, and everything passed, no errors. I then tried to get into the Recovery Console by booting from the XP Home setup disk, but at the point where it says "Setup is inspecting your computers hardware configuration", it hangs and goes to a black screen. So I can't access the recovery console. I am currently running Memtest86+ from Ultimate Boot Disk, and no errors so far. The WD 160GB IDE hard drive is about 2.5 to 3 years old and has shown no signs of any issues up to this point. There have been no hardware changes or software issues. Any ideas as to what I can try to fix this without having to lose all my data with a full format and reinstall of XP?

 

[MobiusPizza]

It is not neccasarily the HDD at fault here. Try to run chkdsk c: /r using UBCD

If memtest passes, the issue can still be with motherboard, PSU, CPU or HDD

Try also reseting BIOS to default

If you can't use Windows XP setup disc, it points to a problem bigger than software issue that makes it more complicated. But are you sure it really hung in a black screen? It may have taken a while. Give it a good 15 minutes

Regarding to data, you can always plug the HDD to an enclosure or another computer to back up first.

 

[Hardball]

AnnihilatorX --I just started to use the Ultimate Boot CD yesterday. Which program on there has chkdsk c: /r on it? As far as the PSU goes, I tried plugging in several different power connectors to the HDD and nothing changed. I'm pretty sure it's not the PSU.

You asked about if it really hung in a black screen when I had installed the XP Home setup cd to try and get to the recovery console. Immediately after the message "Setup is inspecting your computers hardware configuration" the screen goes black and I saw no activity from the HDD light on the front of the computer. When the inspection of the hardware configuration is going on, isn't there supposed to be a progress bar on screen indicating how far along the process is? There is nothing at all on the screen.

 

[MobiusPizza]

chkdsk will be available through the NTFS DOS.

It's hard to say PSU is not at fault. A PSU giving unstable motherboard voltages can make a system appear normal but give all sort of hidden issues for example, and it's not easy to diagnose and rule out without another PSU at hand.

It can even be the XP disc or the DVD drive (separate issues in combination with some corrupted files affecting boot). Try making a bootable XP installation USB in place of your CD if possible

 

[Hardball]

I'm not sure this motherboard will support booting an XP install from USB. Isn't that something only more modern (last 3 years?) motherboards can do? How do I find out if that is possible with mine?

 

[corkyg]

That is possible. My Asus P4PE will not support flash memory boot. (But it does have a floppy drive!)

 

[MobiusPizza]

USB booting has been around for years. If your BIOS boot order list has 'removable devices' listed, then it will support it.

Have you actually tried booting to safemode through F8?
Another IDE channel?

If your CD drive and HDD shares the same IDE channel, we can't isolate and be sure the Setup bing stuck is not cased by the same reason as HDD can't be read.

 

[Hardball]

AnnihilatorX --I tried to get into safemode through F8 but it doesn't work. Nothing happens. Thr HDD is on IDE channel 1 by itself and the CD/DVD burner is on IDE channel 2 by itself with no other devices attached to either of them. If the IDE channel itself was bad I wouldn't have been able to run the diagnostics on the HDD that I did, right? Plus, when the diagnostics were running the HDD activity light on the front of the case was blinking like you would expect it to during such a test. I don't think it's the IDE port, but should I switch the ports, putting HDD on IDE 2 and DVD burner on IDE 1? Will switching them in and of itself mess something up? Can switching them like that cause problems or damage??
This whole thing is strange in that there had been no issues or warning of trouble with the computer leading up to this incident.

 

[MobiusPizza]

I would personally try that

You can switch IDE channels with following considerations. If you switch both HDD and CD burner together, then you don't need to reconfigure anything apart from maybe boot order in BIOS.
If you have 2 IDE cables and try to change HDD only to channel 2, you may need to change the jumper in your CD burner from slave to master, and check HDD is on master not cable select.

 

[Hardball]

Both are currently set to master and both have their own IDE cables and their own IDE channel (HDD on IDE 1 and CD burner on IDE 2). With that in mind, can I simply plug the HDD into IDE channel 2 and the CD burner into IDE channel 1 with no other changes? It is basically to see if IDE channel 1 is functioning properly. Will this switching of the channels as I've described cause any issues as far as the BIOS or system is concerned?

 

[MobiusPizza]

Both are currently set to master and both have their own IDE cables and their own IDE channel (HDD on IDE 1 and CD burner on IDE 2). With that in mind, can I simply plug the HDD into IDE channel 2 and the CD burner into IDE channel 1 with no other changes? It is basically to see if IDE channel 1 is functioning properly. Will this switching of the channels as I've described cause any issues as far as the BIOS or system is concerned?

Absolutely none apart from possible boot order changes in BIOS

Anyway after backing up all important data to another system you should run chkdsk /r first before deciding what to do.

 

[Hardball]

AnnihilatorX -- I don't think there is a way for me to run chkdsk /r as I can't access the Recovery Console and as far as I can tell it is not included on UBCD version 5.1.1. Do you have any suggestions on how I could run it another way?

I'm beginning to think that the problem might be the CPU. I tried to run several of the CPU stress tests included on UBCD, but they all halted immediately after they started and the 3 lights on the keyboard (numlock,capslock, and scroll lock) all started blinking as soon as the test halted and I had to do a hard reset in order to reboot the computer. If the cpu is gone, what would be the symtoms and how could I test to see if that is the case?

 

[Hardball]

Probably not the CPU as I tried the UBCD in another computer and ran the CPU stress tests and got the same results as I did on the problem system. Oh well, back to the drawing board....

 

[MobiusPizza]

The quickest way to do is to find another PC and plug the HDD in to to chkdsk there within Windows. That's what I'd personally do in your case, which allow me to backup files too.

Alternatively, try BartsPE, which is like UBCD but in a windows enviornment.

Never done those stress tests so I am not sure. You can't really rule out anything. But the HDD still is the top suspect. I am not sure how the WD diagnostic performs what tests

If you manually listen to the disk, does it have clicking sounds or non-smooth opertation?

So you didn't find out anything by swapping channel or changing IDE cables?

 

[Hardball]

AnnihilatorX-- Is there any risk to the good system from installing the problem drive into it? It is almost certainly a mechanical failure of some sort, although there were no clicking sounds before it failed. It did seem like the system had been slower overall for the last month or two, but I'm not sure if that's related. In the HIGHLY unlikely event that a virus or malware of some sort is behind all of this, would the good system be at risk then from hooking this drive into it?

I swapped the IDE channels as well as different cables, and tried each memory stick on it's own, but same result. I also got UBCD4WIN and tried that out. It has Recovery Console as well as FREEDOS and NTFS4DOS, but all failed. Recovery Console would hang at the "system is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration" prompt (I waited 20 minutes just to make sure), FREEDOS would say invalid drive C:, and NTFS4DOS would show .... for a second when I typed CHKDSK C: /r, and then drop me back to the A:\> prompt.

I also removed the battery and shorted the jumper to clear CMOS and still no dice!

 

[Hardball]

Update: I have decided to get a new hard drive to remedy this problem. My question now is regarding what I have to do to the new drive in order to install the OS.

When I installed the previous drive I had made a backup image after I did the fresh install of XP Home. I used Drive Image XML to make the image. Do I still need to format and partition the new hard drive in order to restore the image I have, or is that already incorporated into the image file of XP Home that I have from Drive Image XML? I assume I will have to boot from CD and use BartPE or UBCD, both or which have the Drive Image XML plugin, in order to restore the image file to the new hard drive, but do I need to format or partition the new drive prior to doing the image restore?

 

[MobiusPizza]

It's probably too late to say this, if you unplug your old drive and you could get into Windows setup (it will still work without a HDD), then there is something wrong with the storage system and you ruled out the CPU, RAM, PSU

Anyway, to answer your question, it depends a lot of Drive Image XML the software. I am not familiar with it. I bet you should be able to put the image on it without formating, like Ghost and Acronis can. Just try, if it doesn't let you, formating is just as easy to do.

Paritioning you need to do so beforehand depending the nautre of your image and the Dive Image software. I used Acronis before and it offers both a disk image or a volume image (partition). If you made an image from a single partition only, you have a choice in Acronis to apply the image to a say 80GB partition or to the whole 1TB disk. However. if your original image contains several paritions, i.e. a disk image, in which case you shouldn't do paritioning yourself. This all depends on how Drive image handles partitions.

 

[Hardball]

I got this from the Drive Image XML sites FAQ:

Q. How do I restore an image back to a working state?
A. Note that you must put the image into an existing partition. If necessary create a new partition with Windows Disk Management first. You do not need to format the drive. The size of the partition you create will determine the size of the drive - for example if you create a 20GB partition and then restore a 10GB size image to it, the size of the drive will still be 20GB.

This was there also:
Note on boot drives: If you want your computer to boot from the new partition you must set it to "active" with Windows Disk Management

Does any of that answer my question, because if it does I can't see it?

Do you think that means I need to put in the XP Setup CD, format and partition the new drive, swap out the XP CD for one that has the Drive Image XML program on it, and then Restore the image I have at that point??

The image file I have is of a single partition for a 160GB hard drive, the one that went bad. That drive was setup up as a single partition with XP installed on it. No other partitions on it. The new hard drive is the same size, 160GB.

 

[MobiusPizza]

Do you think that means I need to put in the XP Setup CD, format and partition the new drive, swap out the XP CD for one that has the Drive Image XML program on it, and then Restore the image I have at that point??.

That's the easiest to do.
I'd also click install and let Windows XP copied the files on the desired partition until first restart before you put the image on. Unless you have easy access to diskpart. The reason why is as below:

diskpart can set a partition as active. It may be on UBCD I am not sure. Otherwise Windows XP setup will do that for you, hence the reason you need to choose the partition you want to image on and let XP setup run up to the first restart.

 

[Hardball]

So the order of operations looks like:
-Run XP Home Setup in order to format and partition
-Click install and have XP start it's installation up to the point of the first prompt for restart
-Swap out XP CD for one that has the Drive Image program (such as UBCD or BartPE)
and then try to restore the image, assuming that all of the boot related files are now in place via the XP routine that was run.

What about the issue of needing to set the new partition to "active" from Windows Disk Management in order for the computer to now boot from the new partition? At what point do you think that Windows Disk Management can be accessed in order to set that, or can it be done another way with another program, possibly one on UBCD?

 

[corkyg]

USB booting has been around for years. If your BIOS boot order list has 'removable devices' listed, then it will support it.

Yes, it does have Removable Devices, but USB is not one of them. There are four choices - Floppy; LS-120; Zip; and ATAPI MO. The latter relates to an older form of external magnetic optical (MO) drive.

The P4PE last and latest BIOS was 1007, dated November 2003. LOL

 

[MobiusPizza]

Yes, it does have Removable Devices, but USB is not one of them. There are four choices - Floppy; LS-120; Zip; and ATAPI MO. The latter relates to an older form of external magnetic optical (MO) drive.

The P4PE last and latest BIOS was 1007, dated November 2003. LOL

I had experience with motherboards with removable devices listed, and USB counted as one.
USB has been around for more than 2 decades and I am pretty sure most boards <10 years old support USB booting.

 

[corkyg]

Evidently your experience did not include the Asus P4PE. Bootable flash drives don't work.

 

[corkyg]

I think the P4PE is just outside of your 10 year zone.