PC hangs at crcdisk.exe during boot...

[deadken]

My buddy gave me a HP s3500t Slimline PC. He was having intermittent boot problems where it would 'loop' during start-up. Simply holding down the power button to stop it, and then rebooting it would take care of the issue for another month or so, until it happened again.

He took the HD and DVD drives out. Figuring that a dual core CPU w/ 3GBs of ram, and a video card wasn't a total POS, I spent a few dollars and bought a used 200GB Sata HD and Sata Optical drive from the For Sale section.

I did a fresh install of Vista (32bit IIRC) and then did the updates. I don't particularly care for Vista, but after the updates, I didn't mind it as much as I thought I would. I used the PC every now and then and it seemed to be fine. Once, it hung during boot, but I simply held down the power button and re-booted and all was well. So, I offered it to my sister and brother in law, since I really dislike them being on a Dell P4 machine. This rig should be a significant improvement for them. Of course, last week I saw another update and installed it (every update except IE-9). I shut it down when it was done and haven't used it since.

Today, when I am ready to bring it to them, it won't boot. Well, it would, but no display... Ok, so I try it with a different monitor and find it still won't show a display. I decide to pull the cover off of the VGA port (it was screwed on, since the PC has a dedicated video card), and sure enough, I get a display. Ok, this should be an easy fix right? Well, the machine now hangs on every boot. Aaargh!!! Ok, so I boot into safe mode and find that it hangs at Windows\system32\drivers\crcdisk.exe. I search the internet and find that most people suggest a format / re-install. Someone got away with copying the crcdisk file from a recovery disk onto the C: drive, but I couldn't get to the repair section of the recovery disk. Well, not the dos type repair section. The repair section I did get to, did some checks and then tried to reboot. Same problem.

So, should I re-install the O/S? Is there anywhere I can find the crcdisk.exe file? Perhaps I can copy it onto the HD using a thumb drive and Knoppix?

I really don't want to give them a machine that will be problematic. But since I've never owned a Vista machine, I don't know if this is a software problem (like most on the web are suggesting) or if it's something else (the HD was formatted and checked by the seller, then I ran a quick check on it when I got it).

Any suggestions?

BTW: I can't remember what the most recent updates were, but I assumed that it was a driver for the integrated video. I did make sure and check to see that BIOS was set to PCI-e video adapter.

 

[cubby1223]

First thing first, Windows does not hang at crcdisk.exe, rather Windows hangs after crcdisk.exe, which just so happens to be the very last entry that gets pushed onto the screen on most systems.

In other words, crcdisk.exe is not your problem

 

[VirtualLarry]

sounds like mainboard problems?

 

[deadken]

First thing first, Windows does not hang at crcdisk.exe, rather Windows hangs after crcdisk.exe, which just so happens to be the very last entry that gets pushed onto the screen on most systems.

In other words, crcdisk.exe is not your problem

Ohhh, that's interesting. I figured that the last thing to get started was crcdisk.exe. But you're saying the last thing that finished was crcdisk.exe.

So, how does one find what the last item started was?

sounds like mainboard problems?

Is that a question or a statement?

Thank you guys for the help so far. Since I posted, I found the section that let me restore to an earlier time. I picked the restore point from before the last two updates. IOW: Before the antivirus software install, before the last updates on Feb. 20th and on Feb. 13th. That would take off the last 10 updates or so. Still no luck. So, I just began a format and re-install from the hard drive. Last time it was from the cd-rom set.

 

[Rackmountsales]

crcdisk hangs are usually associated with missing, corrupted, or incompatible SATA/RAID drivers - are you using either of those configurations?

 

[sm625]

If something like this happens you dont want to be giving this machine to anybody who will be calling you when it breaks.

 

[deadken]

Update:
The Windows re-install went MUCH faster from the HD partition it had made then when I had installed Vista onto the fresh HD from the (4) install disks. Unfortunately/Fortunately, the PC started hanging right away after I formatted the HD and re-installed Vista. That tells me it wasn't a software or update problem and instead is a hardware problem.

I'm thinking it is a Motherboard problem. I can't get the standalone video card to work at all. Windows shows the video card as NVIDIA GeForce 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 630i. I believe that is the integrated video, which makes sense because the monitor only comes on when connected to the VGA port that had a plate/cover screwed on over it. Also, the passive chipset cooler on the motherboard (would that be a Southbridge or Northbridge?) is getting extremely hot. I checked it with an infrared temperature gun I have and it shows that it is around 170*F. I'm guessing that it shouldn't be that hot and that it controls the PCI-e data as well as the HD functions.

What I can't figure out is why the onboard video is working fine. Perhaps it isn't controlled by the chipset and instead has its own chip. At this point I'm considering finding a cheap ITX motherboard and reusing everything else. My main concerns are that I'd be throwing more money into this system (Core 2 Duo E4700, 3 GB (1 x 2 GB, 1 x 1 GB) DDR2 PC2-6400, 200GB Sata HD, Sata DVD RW optical drive, and I can't remember what video card). Of course, I'm not sure that the power supply would work with a different motherboard. I saw some similar slimline models that people said they have swapped motherboards on that would not work with the PSU.

My other choice would be a replacement motherboard that is the same 'Foxconn Irvine GL6E' as the one in the machine. I've found them for around $75 online.

Hmmm... Not sure what way I'll go at this point.

crcdisk hangs are usually associated with missing, corrupted, or incompatible SATA/RAID drivers - are you using either of those configurations?

The HD + Optical drives are both SATA. But no RAID being used. I just left the default Windows drivers and whatever the updates put in. (more details posted above)

If something like this happens you dont want to be giving this machine to anybody who will be calling you when it breaks.

Agreed! That is why I said "I really don't want to give them a machine that will be problematic". Frankly, if I didn't get it from a guy who is entirely anal about his PC's, I would have been worried. An occasional reboot during a system start up is okay for most of us. What is happening now, is not acceptable.