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Topic Moved (Old title: Still not fixed, vista problem.)

F

foodfightr

Golden Member
So I've been reformatting and installing everything from scratch today. Hours among hours have been flying by while I set everything up. I powered the computer off and installed the soundcard and the tv capture card, as well as plug in two additional fans. Now, when I turn my computer on I get to the vista loading screen and it freezes, then restarts.

I unplugged the hardware and I'm still having the same problem.

I can get into safe mode, but not safe mode with networking. (It hanges at crcdisk.sys)

What should I do?

Edit: Memtest Pass, CHKDSK /F Pass, System Restore Didn't Work... I event booted to the install disc and ran the startup fix utility... it ran for a very long time and then locked up.
 
Originally posted by: foodfightr
So I've been reformatting and installing everything from scratch today. Hours among hours have been flying by while I set everything up. I powered the computer off and installed the soundcard and the tv capture card, as well as plug in two additional fans. Now, when I turn my computer on I get to the vista loading screen and it freezes, then restarts.

I unplugged the hardware and I'm still having the same problem.

I can get into safe mode, but not safe mode with networking. (It hanges at crcdisk.sys)

What should I do?
Click to expand...

What we always do Pinky.....

Run a memtest on your memory, return any OC to default values, make sure everthing is seated properly. Is your NIC on board or off? Any difference if you remove or disable it?
 
Currently nothing is overclocked. (Hasn't been all day during the installations) Everything seems to be secure. The NIC is built in to the motherboard.
 
Running memtest now!

Its just finishing the first pass through all of the tests... I'll probably let it run a second pass. I know someone will reccomend letting it run for 15 million hours, but if it passes all the tests twice I'm sure that this wouldn't be the reason I can't start up 100% of the time.

Vista doesn't have a repair utility like windows xp, or does it? Like how you can boot from the disc and it will restore crucial files, etc and generally fix most boot/os related problems.
 
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ok I'm pissed. I decided to scrap all the work I put in today and start from scratch. I reformatted and tried to install vista again and twice in a row its restarted before "starting for the first time" then it comes up saying. "The computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error. Windows installation cannot proceed. To install Windows, click "OK" to restart the computer, and then restart the installation."


AHHHHHHHHHHH
 
Vista doesn't have a repair utility like windows xp, or does it? Like how you can boot from the disc and it will restore crucial files, etc and generally fix most boot/os related problems.
Click to expand...
It does. You must've seen it at least twice by now 😀 it looks like this :camera:

Could you post a spec list of your rig, including drives, cards, power supply brand/model and whatever else might be pertinent?

 
Opteron 165
DFI Lan Party Ultra-D
2x1GB G.Skill Extreme DDR500
2x150GB Raptor (Raid 0)
OCZ PowerStream 600W SLI
Geforce 7950 GT
XFI Xtreme Music
Hauppague TV Tuner
DVD Burner
Floppy/Card Reader Combo Drive

Water cooling.....
 
It installs all the way up to the normal reboot.... after the normal reboot it goes to the black screen to prepare windows to start for the first time. Then it pops back to step two "completing installation."

When it goes to start up I get a black screen that shows some little gibberish looking music note characters and it reboots. When it powers up again it says how the installation was interrupted.
 
I just cleared the CMOS and setup the raid array again from scratch. I attempted to install it again and had the same problem. One strange thing is that during the installation it jumps from 0->100% for copying the files even though I formatted the hard drives on the previous step. There is no other drive that could have the files.

This time instead of rebooting when it tried to intialize windows for the first time, the system got stuck on a black screen. When I rebooted it myself (after a loooong time of waiting) I got the same error message telling me to reinstall.

BTW, I did all of this with the xfi and the tuner uninstalled to rule them out.
 
Originally posted by: foodfightr
I just cleared the CMOS and setup the raid array again from scratch. I attempted to install it again and had the same problem. One strange thing is that during the installation it jumps from 0->100% for copying the files even though I formatted the hard drives on the previous step. There is no other drive that could have the files.

This time instead of rebooting when it tried to intialize windows for the first time, the system got stuck on a black screen. When I rebooted it myself (after a loooong time of waiting) I got the same error message telling me to reinstall.

BTW, I did all of this with the xfi and the tuner uninstalled to rule them out.
Click to expand...

The new Windows PE uses a ram drive to extract the Windows files to. I too had my fair share of Vista install headaches.... since you formatted your array anyway, have you tried going RAIDless and just trying to install using one drive? When Vista was trying to install to my primary drive (which it hates), all sorts of things would get buggered up. I got weird ASCII chars on my POST and a disk read error while trying to boot off the HD after copying files.
 
Sounds more like a hardware problem!

How long did you run memtest?
What frequency are you running the RAM at?
How about the CPU?
What is the CPU temperature (you can check in the BIOS)?
 
Originally posted by: Navid
Sounds more like a hardware problem!

How long did you run memtest?
What frequency are you running the RAM at?
How about the CPU?
What is the CPU temperature (you can check in he BIOS)?
Click to expand...

I vote for hardware and/or your install media is corrupt.
 
I'm running everything at stock settings.

Its weird, I tried running Arconis True Image in "FULL" mode and that crashed too-- seemingly just before it launched the graphical interface. Its now working fine in safe mode. I wonder if it could be the graphics card? I doubt it though, I just recieved this new card as an RMA replacement literally within two weeks. Its been working fine.


How long did you run memtest? 2 completed passes of all tests
What frequency are you running the RAM at? 250
How about the CPU? 1800
What is the CPU temperature (you can check in the BIOS)? (software says about 18^C, im water cooled)
 
Originally posted by: foodfightr
I'm running everything at stock settings.

Its weird, I tried running Arconis True Image in "FULL" mode and that crashed too-- seemingly just before it launched the graphical interface. Its now working fine in safe mode. I wonder if it could be the graphics card? I doubt it though, I just recieved this new card as an RMA replacement literally within two weeks. Its been working fine.
Click to expand...

That doesn't mean anything. There's a term called DOA (Dead on Arrival) for hardware such as these.
 
I understand that, but it worked fine for two weeks.

I just broke up the array into two seperate drives. I went back and installed XP.... Same thing happened that happened in vista. It goes to the black screen with the loading bar and eventually freezes.
 
Originally posted by: foodfightr
I understand that, but it worked fine for two weeks.

I just broke up the array into two seperate drives. I went back and installed XP.... Same thing happened that happened in vista. It goes to the black screen with the loading bar and eventually freezes.
Click to expand...

Not a Vista problem then,so maybe you should change your title,sounds like hardware problem to me,personally I would run a minimum setup ie one HD only and try installing the OS and see if that works,if not start ruling out hardware parts and even cables.
 
Originally posted by: foodfightr
How long did you run memtest? 2 completed passes of all tests
Click to expand...
That is not enough!

It sounds like you can get into Windows now (safe mode).
Can you run Orthos, for 20 minutes with nothing else running, and report your CPU temperature?
 
Originally posted by: Navid
Originally posted by: foodfightr
How long did you run memtest? 2 completed passes of all tests
Click to expand...
That is not enough!

It sounds like you can get into Windows now (safe mode).
Can you run Orthos, for 20 minutes with nothing else running, and report your CPU temperature?
Click to expand...

There is no way it is temperature related. I just got done spending $1000 on a high end water cooling system. Before all of these problems (about 3-4 days ago) I ran SP2004 on each core for 8 hours while it was overclocked, it got to 30^C. Now its at stock settings.
 
I've ruled out the graphics card. I just picked up a new card from Best Buy to test it out. I'm having the same problem, where I can get into safe mode but I can't boot normally.
 
GOD DAMN IT.. ITS THE *%$%*^ MEMORY.........

I've RMA'd this memory twice already. I'm never buying G.Skill again.

Popped in a stick of OCZ... working fine.


EDIT: OK THIS IS RIDICULOUS.... So I wanted to see which stick of G.Skill was bad so I booted with each stick individually and it booted fine....... then I booted with both sticks and it booted fine. (I even tried swapping the sticks to the other slot and it booted fine.)

What is going on..... lol
 
Originally posted by: foodfightr
GOD DAMN IT.. ITS THE *%$%*^ MEMORY.........

I've RMA'd this memory twice already. I'm never buying G.Skill again.

Popped in a stick of OCZ... working fine.


EDIT: OK THIS IS RIDICULOUS.... So I wanted to see which stick of G.Skill was bad so I booted with each stick individually and it booted fine....... then I booted with both sticks and it booted fine. (I even tried swapping the sticks to the other slot and it booted fine.)

What is going on..... lol
Click to expand...

Sounds like the memory is marginal. This can happen, timings are close and it generally works, but screws up eventually and you see the bizarre symptoms you've been chasing (that or it was misseated / dirty and moving it fixed it by blind luck...)
 
Originally posted by: bsobel
Originally posted by: foodfightr
GOD DAMN IT.. ITS THE *%$%*^ MEMORY.........

I've RMA'd this memory twice already. I'm never buying G.Skill again.

Popped in a stick of OCZ... working fine.


EDIT: OK THIS IS RIDICULOUS.... So I wanted to see which stick of G.Skill was bad so I booted with each stick individually and it booted fine....... then I booted with both sticks and it booted fine. (I even tried swapping the sticks to the other slot and it booted fine.)

What is going on..... lol
Click to expand...

Sounds like the memory is marginal. This can happen, timings are close and it generally works, but screws up eventually and you see the bizarre symptoms you've been chasing (that or it was misseated / dirty and moving it fixed it by blind luck...)
Click to expand...

Yep... I'm hoping that I fixed it by luck (loose? idk).... It couldn't have been dirty imo because everything from my old case got sprayed with some compressed air and cleaned very well before being transfered into my new water cooling case.

I'm trying to reinstall vista now. Tonight I'm going to run a lot of passes of memtest to see what happens. Strange though, just a few days ago it passed 8 hours of SP2004 and yesterday 2 full passes of memtest.
 
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