• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Serious boot problem, please help!

W

WhiteKnight

Platinum Member
I am running a 1.4 GHz T-Bird on an IWill KK266R with WinXP. I also have a Promise SX4000 RAID card that supports a 3x100GB RAID5 array. Two weeks ago, I developed a boot problem where XP would freeze about 20s after loaded, either at the login screen or once it started (assuming I logged in before it froze). I initially thought that this was a software problem and systematically removed programs from my startup. After several boot attempts with the same problem, CHKDSK started running with XP startup on each boot. Even if it would complete successfully, it would appear again on the next boot, even if I managed to shut down properly. Finally, one of my HDs on the RAID array went offline, followed by a second a few boots later. I ran the appropriate utilities to check the drives and all three passed with no errors from the extended test. I was also able to use the recovery console to run chkdsk on the partitions of the array, again with no errors. The array was not damaged and I was able to restore it simply by deleting the array and then recreating it in the config utility.

Using a second machine, I was able to boot normally off of the array, and there did not seem to be any problems. However, once I returned the RAID card to my original PC, it freezes while booting, usually right before the black and white XP startup bar appears. I also cannot boot into safe mode. I've removed all of my card besides my vid card and the RAID controller, but the problem is the same.

What am I looking at here? I tested the machine with different RAM and that had no effect. Did my mobo bite it or something? Thanks very much for any advice you have.
 
Well I guess I'm just one lucky SOB because I got it to work again. This is pretty much all I've been doing for the last two weeks. I came home from work at 5, worked on this thing until midnight, and went to sleep. The funny thing is, I don't even know what was wrong. I cleaned my old arctic silver off of my HS and cpu and put on a fresh coat. When I reassembled the system, everything was fine. Go figure.
 
I don't know the answer, but hopefully someone will see my wrong answer and correct me 😉. Since you have another computer, swap PSUs and test that. Might also be a CPU problem, how long ago was it mounted to the HSF? LOL, gl bump,
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top