Need Help! Windows won't boot.

[Cerpin Taxt]

So I left my computer on last night, and went to bed. This morning, I found the computer as I usually do -- audibly running, with the monitor dark from entering energy conservation mode. Normally, a quick shake of the mouse will kick the monitor on, and then I see my desktop as I left it the night before. Not this morning, however.

The computer did not respond to the mouse shake this morning, or anything else for that matter. I did a hard reset, and the computer prompted me to start Windows in Safe Mode. I selected "Start Windows Normally," and after seeing the Windows logo screen for a few seconds, I saw a quick flash of a Blue Screen that was too quick to read, and then the computer restarted.

Attempting to start in Safe Mode didn't even succeed in reaching the logo screen. It just restarted the computer. Several attempts at this produced the same results each time.

So I booted from my Windows disk, and prepared to repair/reinstall Windows. I have two hard drives, one of which is partitioned into two equally sized partitions, so I had C: at 80G, D: at 160G and E: at 80G (C: and E: being partitions on the same 160G drive). Windows was installed on D:.

However, when the setup utility reported the available space, this time it reported D: as unpartitioned space, lacking in NTFS. This didn't make any sense to me, so I killed the power, and moved my SATA cables to different SATA ports on my MOBO. Stupid me, I actually connnected them to the SATA ports reserved for SiliconImage RAID arrays, and a boot didn't even recognize the drives. No big deal, I moved the SATA cables back, and now booting to the Windows repair/install utility, it recognizes all my partitions as NTFS.

So I selected the drive on which Windows was previously installed, and (I've done this before) it usually recognizes the windows installation and gives me an option to repair the installation instead of formatting and re-installing. THIS TIME, however, it just told me that it recognized a /Windows directory, and offered me to either delete this folder and my applications, or to create another folder (which I called Windows2) and install Windows into that. I chose the second option.

Now the computer is running through Windows setup, and itll be another 40 minutes or so before I know what the extent (if any) of my data loss maybe.

My primary concern is the email history on my machine that I need to preserve for work. I have the rest of my work documents presumably intact on the partitioned disk which lacks a Windows installation.

Does anyone have any idea what might have caused this episode? Any predictions on the possibility of significant data loss? Here's my hardware configuration:

MSI K8N Neo Platinum SLI Mobo
A64 3500+ Winchester
2x512 Corsair VS RAM
Leadtek 6800GT
Seagate Barracuda 160GB (windows installed here)
Hitachi Deskstar 160GB (used only for storage)
NEC 3520 DVD R/W
Lite-On CD R/W
450W PSU w/ 20A on the 12+ rail

I also run Anti-Vir constantly, and the computer sits behind the firewall in my router. I have no problems with viruses or spyware leading up to this.

Any help or comments are greatly appreciated!
-Garth

 

[scorpmatt]

Sounds like your PSU might going on the fritz, had this happen to me awhile back, took my 80GB harddrive with it.

My suggestion is to replace the PSU asap

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Yeah, I suspected that it might be the PSU, but it's hard for me to believe that shaky power would affect my ability to boot windows when after re-installing windows it ran fine. It seems like somehow my Windows installation became corrupted to the point it wouldn't boot, but re-installing everything it boots fine. It seems to me if the PSU was no good then even a fresh installation would have problems. I realize it could be an intermittent problem in the PSU, so may be the problem won't happen again for a while even if it is.

In what way would a fritzing PSU make something like this happen?

 

[bovinda]

Were you able to get your data you wanted to recover off the drive using the alternate installation?

One thought for the future...you can change the settings on your computer so that you'll be able to read the BSOD message before it restarts. This could help you figure out what the source of the problem was if it occurs again. To do this, R-click on My Computer, click "Properties," select the "Advanced" tab, select "Settings" under Startup and Recovery, and deselect "Automatically Restart" under System Failure.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

The only data I was particularly interested in salvaging was my Outlook inbox full of business emails. My other important documents were safely intact on my second hard drive, and backed up to disc. I just don't back-up my emails as often as I should.

Unfortunately, once I reinstalled windows, I could launch some of my applications, but not Outlook. My emails were toast.

Anyway, its up and running now. I spent all day reinstalling all of my apps and tweaking Windows to the way I like it. I guess I'll learn to back up my emails more frequently.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I still dont understand how a fritzing PSU could cause all this, so if someone would be kind enough to explain it to me, I'd be much obliged. Is it normal for such a problem to be intermittent to the extent that my computer will run normally for a while until the PSU succumbs to so much duress that this happens again?

-Garth