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freezing after reformat

T2urtle

T2urtle

Diamond Member
My brother's computer was getting cluttered with junk and just filled with pointless files and programs. So i thought we should just reformat. with sp1 home. After the format the computer freezes solidly every now and then and a restart makes it just good. It can eithe happen every 5 min or not happen for the whole day.

Never had this issue before, i'm thinking its a bad format, and we should reformat once more to make sure there isn't a problem with the format.

 
well after reformating again thinking that was the problem. it still happens mainly when the computer is cool or cold.

what can be the issues in this? harddrive failing?

 
unstable hardware. dl hd manufacturers diagnostic software. more likely ur psu is flakey or the overclock is too much or theres dust and overheat or bad ram
 
after I reformatted again the comp hangs at the xp boot screen now

my psu was newly replaced about 2 years ago, a thermaltake 420 or 480 watt which is more enough power. the rest of the system is about
4 to6 years old.

what are the best ways to test all possible failures


the computer isn't OCed or anything just a stock p4 1.6ghz, 384mb of ram, 80gb, geforce4 system. pretty run of the mill stuff back in the day.
 
find a 2nd computer. and then swap parts 1 by one and test using mem test or some other burn in program to stress it. yes, its fun!😉 narrow down the possibilities until u find it. ah the fun of trouble shooting.
 
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
find a 2nd computer. and then swap parts 1 by one and test using mem test or some other burn in program to stress it. yes, its fun!😉 narrow down the possibilities until u find it. ah the fun of trouble shooting.
Click to expand...

yeah try this and then run a diagnostics on the drive
 
i ran diag test on my WD 80gb drive thats the main drive. All tests passed on that.
unable to obtain SD ram parts tho.

will open up the case in the morning and clean out the dust in that.

I finally got the computer to boot up and everything right now is working i'm actully posting on it at the moment.

Can you guys give me a list of most likely things to go wrong to least likely?

Since it pass the HD diag test i'm ruling out the harddrive. I dont really think its a video card issue but it could be for all i know. I ruled out software related issues. CDroms aren't related to anything but both drives are fairly new. I'm thinking chances are a little higher for the ram being bad. I have 768MB, the 256mb stick if i recall was as old as all the whole computer which is like 6 years+ and the 512mb if i remember correctly i got from bestbuy one of those rebate deals.

PSU was replaced about 3 years ago. Not due to failure but just normal maintence, i felt a stock 300w wasn't able to run 2 optical drives and 2 hard-drives enough, so i got a 420-or 480 thermaltake unit.



EDIT>>>>

i've been trying to do the memtest 86 thing for the past 20 mins. i created the floopy boot program. But it wont run during boot up. I see the computer checking the floppy but it never boots up the program for me to run thru the tests.
 
Originally posted by: T2urtle
i ran diag test on my WD 80gb drive thats the main drive. All tests passed on that.
unable to obtain SD ram parts tho.

will open up the case in the morning and clean out the dust in that.

I finally got the computer to boot up and everything right now is working i'm actully posting on it at the moment.

Can you guys give me a list of most likely things to go wrong to least likely?

Since it pass the HD diag test i'm ruling out the harddrive. I dont really think its a video card issue but it could be for all i know. I ruled out software related issues. CDroms aren't related to anything but both drives are fairly new. I'm thinking chances are a little higher for the ram being bad. I have 768MB, the 256mb stick if i recall was as old as all the whole computer which is like 6 years+ and the 512mb if i remember correctly i got from bestbuy one of those rebate deals.

PSU was replaced about 3 years ago. Not due to failure but just normal maintence, i felt a stock 300w wasn't able to run 2 optical drives and 2 hard-drives enough, so i got a 420-or 480 thermaltake unit.



EDIT>>>>

i've been trying to do the memtest 86 thing for the past 20 mins. i created the floopy boot program. But it wont run during boot up. I see the computer checking the floppy but it never boots up the program for me to run thru the tests.
Click to expand...

did you set floppy to boot first in bios?
 
longshot here, but give it a try:

your mft (master file table) may be trashed (corrupted) from reinstallation of a new filesystem. do this:

insert dos floppy
get to prompt
type format /mft
wait for prompt
eject floppy

reboot
 
ojingoh

You are likely right on the money on this one. The drive passed, so it's functioning correctly.

It's fairly common that the MBR or MFT becomes corrupted due to failed install, or because of a change of OS.

MBR issues can also pop up if the boot sequence is physically changed on a dual boot setup/reformat, or if a master HDD was switched to slave. It can also be caused by (rarely) viruses.

When in doubt, delete all partitions, fdisk the MBR, clear the MFT and drive on. This will fix any issues.
 
ok well I don't know too much info about the mrb info.

this was my testings last night. I cleaned up all of what I can for the dust. re ran the comp same issues. removed a stick of ram and reran. same swaped the other stick of ram same issues. I swapped video cards. I went and got a third hd and installed fresh xp in that and it still paused. I did everything I had access to and nothing went good. had the comp not post a couple of times in the process. now I took it back to stock formating and when I load the comp it leads me to a never ending circle of formating. it just keeps asking for the xp cd and won't load. so now I think the drive is trash. because when a got a spare 6 gb drive in and formatted it. it loaded and froze later on


something I did notice. when it froze on the xp boot screen when the little green or blue bar on the bottom runs across the screen. it would hang there and the screen would get dim and never get pass that.

out of the top of my head the items I didn.t swap area. mobo, cpu, psu. I didn.t bother with opticals cause I don't think they play a role. sorry if my typeing is a little trash but I,m on the phone typing and it isn't the easiest thank

 
the computer now is at a state where it will not post. just hangs at the winows load screen repeatedly when a swap out drives with the 6gb unit it will get pass the botting screen and hang right after at a blank screen. it does this constantly.


if its a issue with my mfb or how can I do something about it if the machine doesn't post period. and is that mfb related to the actaul drive or like something in the bios. I have no problem getting a new hd if that is the problem but it doesn't seem like it.
 
UPDATE on symptops now.

I think you guys are 100% right. with that whole master boot idea.

when i boot up the computer now, it will just dim out and that blue bar will not even show. it stays there froze solid forever. I've got it actually boot up in safe mode once and everything was working great for 30 mins and then it froze again and that method no longer works.

When i try to reformat the computer, it will either freeze during the reformating stages or post great. after the reformating the computer works great but i get like 2 restarts out of it and it goes back to the freezing thing.

it falls completely under the hard-drive being bad or that MFB. What i dont understand is when i had the replacement 6gb HD, it would get past the blue bar screen and just freeze at the blank screen. So replacement of the drive seems unless but i think i would like to still try it. what do you guys think i should do at this step.
 

It would seem to me that there is another possibility, the format software. It is possible that your executable code for format has been clobbered. You might want to consider re-installing it before tearing your machine apart.
 
by what do you mean exactly?

i've reinstalled/reformated the drive like 6 times, it works right after i install windows and then after a couple boot ups it stops working.

I've torn apart the machine and put it back together and the issue got worst. wont boot now.
 
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