HL2 froze, now my system takes forever to start up

[archcommus]

So last night I was playing HL2 and the comp froze. This could've been due to too high of an OC, so since then I've dropped it a bit. But anyway, the game froze up, and I had to hit the reset button. Ever since then, my comp takes forever to boot up. After the first startup screen, it'll stop for a few seconds on the second screen, the one with "Verifying DMI Pool Data..." at the bottom. I used to not even see this screen go by. After that it takes about 36 passes of the bar on the XP loading screen. Once it gets to the desktop, it takes a long time to load Norton (Sygate and UltraMon load quickly), and then after Norton is loaded, the HDD just keeps on doing stuff for way longer than it should. After it's finally done with all that the system is normal.

So how did the game freezing and me resetting the comp cause this, and how the hell can I fix it? I've tried defragging and running the system file checker, neither helped.

 

[Gerbil333]

I'd format it and see if that helps. If not, then your hd could be bad, or something else may be going bad.

 

[NarcoticHobo]

Formatting should help, I think this problem arises out of the fact that you had overclocked, something like the DMI is expecting that speed and doesn't get it which makes it take longer to check. I had the problem, reformatted and everything was OK.

 

[archcommus]

Well this problem happened before I took my OC down a bit. The game froze, I reset the comp, this problem started happening, and then just today I took down my OC.

I HOPE a reformat would fix it. It would be scary if it didn't. The only reason I thought it might not fix it is because it's slow BEFORE it gets to the XP loading screen, at the DMI screen, which made me thought it might not be related to Windows. So I was afraid, on a fresh install of Windows, that the first time I'd reboot I'd still see that. But is it already starting to associate with Windows at that point anyway?

And finally, can you figure out what happened in the first place? As I said, I didn't take my OC down until today. The game just froze, I reset, and boom, this started happening. What do you think's the cause? I need to know, because even if I formatted and it fixed it, what if it happens again, and suddenly I'm fux0red again.

 

[Budman]

If you do format make sure you backup your SAVE folder in HL2.


Have you tried a system restore to an earlier time?

 

[imported_Zeke]

I had a similar problem...its turned out to be a dying hard drive

 

[archcommus]

This happened last night, I did a restore to Thursday morning, didn't help. Is there any sense in doing a restore to a time even earlier than that? Guess not. Would boot files be included in a system restore? Maybe they are not, and maybe mine got corrupted somehow.

It shouldn't be anything like a dying HDD, as it was working okay until HL2 froze on me. And only HL2 has been locking up some, not Doom or anything else.

Because system restore didn't help, I'm really afraid it's something unrelated to Windows and that formatting won't solve it. But then I think, no, it can't be a hardware issue, it just happened after HL2 froze!

I won't mind doing a format as long as I can use my Ghost image from last Sunday, however I made it in Ghost 9, and to restore images from Ghost 9 you need a bootable CD (doesn't use floppies anymore). I got the program as a .bin off my friend (I admit it, sorry), and I can't figure out how to burn a bootable CD from that .bin and .cue with Nero. Any help with that?

 

[imported_Zeke]

yeah planetside killed my hdd in mid game, didnt complelty die for a week but hopefully thats not you

 

[NarcoticHobo]

Originally posted by: archcommus87
This happened last night, I did a restore to Thursday morning, didn't help. Is there any sense to doing a restore to a time even earlier than that? Guess not. Would boot files be included in a system restore? Maybe they are not, and maybe mine got corrupted somehow.

It shouldn't be anything like a dying HDD, as it was working okay until HL2 froze on me. And only HL2 has been locking up some, not Doom or anything else.

Because system restore didn't help, I'm really afraid it's something unrelated to Windows and that formatting won't solve it. But that doesn't make any sense, since it only started after that lockup in HL2.

I won't mind doing a format as long as I can use my Ghost image from last Sunday, however I made it in Ghost 9, and I can't get figure out how to burn the .bin file of the program onto a CD to make it bootable (needed to restore an image with Ghost 9). (Yes, .bin file, got it from a friend, sorry.)

The DMI pool is located on the boot sector of the hard drive, if you burn and image of the hard drive back it may have the same problem, unless you took the image before the problem happened.

 

[Tyrant222]

ouch 36 bars!

my last reformat i had it going at 1.5 bars. after my reformat yesterday its up to 4. im going crazy trying to figure out why.

have another hd to swap out?

 

[archcommus]

So what are the chances this is something a format wouldn't fix? How can a GAME kill your HDD???

Just wanted to stress this paragraph again:

Originally posted by: archcommus87
I won't mind doing a format as long as I can use my Ghost image from last Sunday, however I made it in Ghost 9, and to restore images from Ghost 9 you need a bootable CD (doesn't use floppies anymore). I got the program as a .bin off my friend (I admit it, sorry), and I can't figure out how to burn a bootable CD from that .bin and .cue with Nero. Any help with that?

I need to figure out how to burn that bootable CD from the .bin and .cue before I can restore my image file. But yes, I took the image last Sunday, the problem started happening last night. The image is of my entire C: partition, which is all my installed programs, and Windows. All that is on D: is my documents. So would that image include boot sector information or no?

1.5 bars? How? What do you do to get it down so low?

 

[archcommus]

Bump.

Bad time to let it die, guys!

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: archcommus87
So what are the chances this is something a format wouldn't fix? How can a GAME kill your HDD???

Just wanted to stress this paragraph again:

Originally posted by: archcommus87
I won't mind doing a format as long as I can use my Ghost image from last Sunday, however I made it in Ghost 9, and to restore images from Ghost 9 you need a bootable CD (doesn't use floppies anymore). I got the program as a .bin off my friend (I admit it, sorry), and I can't figure out how to burn a bootable CD from that .bin and .cue with Nero. Any help with that?

I need to figure out how to burn that bootable CD from the .bin and .cue before I can restore my image file. But yes, I took the image last Sunday, the problem started happening last night. The image is of my entire C: partition, which is all my installed programs, and Windows. All that is on D: is my documents. So would that image include boot sector information or no?

1.5 bars? How? What do you do to get it down so low?

It goes that fast when your Windows\prefetch folder is empty. If you've had a system running >6months you should clear it out once. It's an otherwise harmless procedure.

arch, if you have problems after a crash or other bad shutdown a chkdsk /F or even a chkdsk /R isn't a bad idea. I would never recommend a defrag on a system that's acting up. Only use that when things are running fine.

 

[LSANTHRAX]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: archcommus87

1.5 bars? How? What do you do to get it down so low?

It goes that fast when your Windows\prefetch folder is empty. If you've had a system running >6months you should clear it out once. It's an otherwise harmless procedure.

arch, if you have problems after a crash or other bad shutdown a chkdsk /F or even a chkdsk /R isn't a bad idea. I would never recommend a defrag on a system that's acting up. Only use that when things are running fine.

What exactly does the prefetch folder do? and how do you clear it out?

 

[archcommus]

What's the difference between /F and /R?

I'll try that when I get home.

 

[archcommus]

We really need to get some things cleared up here, this whole situation is very confusing.

Still don't know what caused it. Maybe my OC froze up the game, but that doesn't explain the boot times. My only guess is boot file corruption that occurred when the game froze/when I reset the comp.

Second, what went wrong? Is there any chance it's something physical?

Third, what could I do to prevent it from happening again?

Fourth, how can I make this Ghost 9 CD bootable so I can restore my image?

 

[archcommus]

Okay, guys, this is really starting to piss me off.

Remember, I wanted to get my bootable Ghost CD to work so that I could restore the image of my drive from last week. Since it didn't seem like I was going to be able to make it work, I went ahead and got rid of SystemWorks and Ghost altogether, and installed AVG Free. Now, it takes about 26 passes at the XP screen, but after that it boots up nice and quick, and everything is quick after that. So the startup situation has improved but is not perfect.

BUT...the second time I rebooted after I uninstalled SystemWorks, it stayed at the XP loading screen forever. It was probably up to 100 passes. So I hit reset. Upon reboot, it told me that Windows did not start successfully, and I had to choose what to do. I chose Last Known Good Configuration. That's when it started booting up like how I described in the paragraph before (about 26 passes, nice and fast after that). But ever since then, the system is not detecting my DVD burner or my virtual DVD drive. They are listed in Device Manager but with explanation points next to them, and in their properties it says it couldn't load drivers for them. I tried uninstaling them and rebooting, same thing. I tried uninstalling them and clicking Add Hardware to find them again, it found them alright but then had an error and said they weren't installed properly.

So what caused THIS, and how can I fix it?

 

[w00t]

reformat!!! fool u got f*$%ed by the internet by all that porn u probably look at jk but ya just get reformating thanu will be fine

 

[archcommus]

Well I want to restore my Ghost 9 image but I need to get the bootable CD working from NSW 2005 Premier first.

 

[archcommus]

Wow is all I can say.

I guy over at PCPer suggested that I delete all the upper and lower filter keys in this location in the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SYSTEM
CurrentControlSet
Control
Class
4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318

I did that, but I was STUPID and thought that all the folders were that name, because the ends of them were all exactly the same. So I went ahead and started deleting the upper and lower filter keys in all of them, until after about six of them I realized that only the first one was that exact folder that the guy told me to look in. So I just hoped that I the extra stuff I deleted wouldn't hurt anything, and rebooted. Well, my CD drive issue got fixed, but now my keyboard doesn't work. Even upon a reinstallation of the device I am just told the device could not be loaded in Device Manager with a Code 10. This is most likely due to me deleting the extra keys.

So how the heck do I get my keyboard to work again?

On a side note, the system is nice and zippy now that I got rid of SystemWorks. Startup is still slow but after that it's great. Doesn't do me any good without a working keyboard, though. :\

 

[asm0deus]

your windows seems so abused i would reinstall/reformat and forget any images you made since they are probably abused also. systemworks is crap.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: asm0deus
your windows seems so abused i would reinstall/reformat and forget any images you made since they are probably abused also. systemworks is crap.

I am thinking the same thing... that's way too much hassle for me, if it's that broken, I'd format for sure and start fresh. Should be fine after that (for a little while at least)

 

[archcommus]

Well I went ahead and formatted. I still see the Verifying DMI Pool Data screen, which back when things were perfect I didn't see at all, but at least it goes by quicker now than it did after things got messed up. The bar goes by about 14 times on the XP loading screen, with my ATI drivers in, nForce drivers, Audigy2 drivers, and SP2. I don't know how I could get it faster.

So is something wrong because I still see the Pool Data screen? Or is it okay since it IS faster now than it was after things got screwy?

 

[imported_Mitchell]

Did you defrag the swap file?

I would go ahead and resize the swap file then defrag the system.

See if that helps before formatting. It just could be the windows swap is seriously fragmented hence the longer boot times.

 

[archcommus]

Never considered that.

Well, I already formatted, but I'd still like to try that. What do you recommend setting it to? I have 1 GB of memory and a 120 GB hard drive.