Cannot boot into XP Pro SP-1

[Kersman]

My problem seems similar to others, yet something is wrong and nothing seems to be working. My problem is this: the other day I got a blue screen of death and the computer rebooted, when it did it went into the chkdsk utility and never came out. When I rebooted the machine, I started experiencing problems - the machine would begin to boot, then reboot...when I brought up the boot selection menu to try and access safe mode or last known good configuration, the machine would attempt to boot and then reboot. The cycle is neverending until I turn it off completely. I tried using a WinXP CD, however I am unable to boot to the CD, even when I change the settings in my BIOS - the computer just keeps rebooting. Everything appears correct in my system BIOS so I don't think the problem is there. I tried using a DOS boot disk, but the drive that showed up was C:\DISE_Backup which was previously my D:\ partition set up by the RAID configuration that I'm running. I am running a RAID controller card with two Maxtor 120 gig harddrives. I believe I am set up on RAID0, but then I could be wrong. I do know that the controller card is a Highpoint Technologies RocketRAID133 card. When I accessed the RAID BIOS, it showed that my primary master drive was hidden while my secondary master drive was the boot drive. I don't know what to do. Someone please help

 

[kol_indian]

Hello and welcome techspot :wave: :wave:

ok try using MEmetest86, it will tell us if ur problem source. if this is not working out then get back here then let us know we will get back u.

 

[Kersman]

Okay, what is MEmetest86? And, where do I find it? Is it something that runs through dos that can be loaded to a floppy? Otherwise, I won't be able to run it...I can't access Windows at all.

 

[Kersman]

Okay, I found MEmetest86...but I won't be able to run it as it's a windows based application. I can't access windows at all; the computer just keeps rebooting as it tries to load.

 

[kol_indian]

memtest will run through floppy go to www.memtest86.com
they a version which runs on floppy and another from a bootable cd try those

 

[Kersman]

Alright, I was able to run Memetest86 under DOS. This is what I got:

Pentium 4 (0.13) 3073 Mhz
L1 Cache: 8 25190 MB/s
L2 Cache: 512K 21491 MB/s
Memory: 1024M 1559MB/s
Chipset: Intel i850 (ECCisabled)/FSB:133 Mhz

WallTime: 1:26:00
Cached: 1024M
RsvdMem: 1672K
MemMap: e820-Std
Cache: on
ECC: off
Test: std
Pass: 2
Errors: 0
ECC Errs:

It seemed to be running the tests over and over again...how many times should it go through this? And does any of this help? What next?

 

[IronDuke]

7 passes will be good.

 

[Kersman]

Okay, I ran Memetest86 through DOS, through 7+ passes and it said there were no errors. None at all. Windows boot disks don't work, nothing else I seem to do works either. If the Windows Boot disk doesn't work, is it possible that Microsoft's 6 disk XP reinstall disks won't work either? I ran a program called PR, which is supposed to be a lost partition recovery tool - it was able to read the drive but not recover it as it wasn't lost...and none of my work has been lost, either, yet I can't boot. What do I do? I'm going crazy, here...

 

[IronDuke]

Try running fdisk to check if C: is marked as active.

 

[Kersman]

Problem: whenever I boot to DOS through a disk, it cannot recognize/find my C:\ drive...the one that has windows and everything else on it. It only recognizes the partition that had the RAID image (I'm guessing) on it. And for some reason now, it won't even let me access that drive. It stays locked in A:\. So fdisk won't work and won't run. I did manage to boot with a Windows XP CD to try and repair, but running chkdsk said that the drive had "one or more unrecoverable errors" and it wouldn't do anything else. I tried rebuilding boot.ini, that didn't work because it said it couldn't find a boot file. I thought maybe I'd reinstall windows, but the CD couldn't do that because it couldn't detect a harddrive. I'm lost here.

 

[IronDuke]

It seems like it is a problem with the raid. Check out the bios settings again. Try reinstalling the raid drivers.

 

[Kersman]

I was wondering that, too. So, I checked the manual for the RAID card and everything appears to be normal. I checked another setting under the RAID BIOS and it shows that everything is operating normally and the drives are healthy. I discussed the issue with the lead hardware tech at the company I work for and he seems to think that I have another piece of hardware that is going bad. He suggested that I take out essentially all of the hardware in the computer, minus the graphics card since I don't have onboard graphics, and try to boot that way to see if any of the peripherals were going out...still the same problem. So, that leaves either the graphics card or the motherboard that would be going out. I've managed to find an older graphics card that I'm going to try out later today, so we'll see what happens. What do you think?

 

[IronDuke]

Go to mobo makers website and look for updates and also see if there are any similar problems on the FAQ page.

 

[Kersman]

Checked there...nothing in the FAQ or technical issues (it was rather uninformative, actually). I checked their forum and it seems that a few other people, who had the same motherboard as I do (ASUS P4T533-C), and their boards have fried after around two years...seems there were faulty capacitors or something along those lines. I examined my mobo and everything seems fine. I took out the heatsink and processor fan and cleaned out the dust, I used compressed air to clean as much of the other dust out of the computer as possible...just in case...but still no change. Any chance something different might happen if I swap the position/ATA cable positions? Just an idea, but is it a bad one? Any other ideas anyone?

 

[IronDuke]

It looks like you are probably set up as Raid 1 (mirror). This is the reason you can't see C:\. This gave the thougt that you may disconnect one of the drives and see how it runs on the single disk.

 

[Kersman]

I just checked the RAID configuration, it says I'm running RAID 0 (striping), not RAID 1. I think I'm going to disconnect the drives and try putting them in a different machine to see if I can access the data.

 

[IronDuke]

I wish you success.

 

[Kersman]

Okay, new problem...I took the harddrives out and plugged them into a different machine. The RAID card they're on took over and attempted to boot from those drives. So, I disabled the boot from those drives in the BIOS and tried to boot. No luck. Now I'm having the same booting problem on the other machine, even after I removed my two drives. I'm wondering, did I happen to get a Boot Sector or even an MBR Virus? Does this sound right? If I did, how in the world can I go about removing them. Microsoft's website/knowledge database has no useful suggestions.

Separate question...if the two drives are configured on RAID 0, if I took them off of the RAID card and plugged them into another machine as slaves, would I be able to access the data or would everything be fragmented? If I could access the data that way, would it be possible to save what I need and wipe the rest?

Also, no offense to anyone who's helping me here, but are there not administrators or Tech professionals that read posts on the forums? I just find it interesting that I've only gotten responses from two people.

 

[IronDuke]

Taking the last point first. You post and whoever chooses to answers. It can be that nobody answers if you're unlucky. Bear in mind this site is just a gathering of people rather than a commercial service.

If it was a boot sectoer virus the AV should pick it up.

The two discs have to be read as a raid if they are looked at seperately they will be incoherent.

Hope you solve the problem.

Un-offended and non-professional.

 

[Kersman]

Well, glad to know that I didn't offend you. I appreciate the insight from your reply...it just seemed to me that some moderator/administrator/professional tech support guru would be on staff patrolling the boards, looking for those of us who need help. No such luck....c'est la vie. Regardless, I appreciate your help.

On another note, I'm not sure how or why...but I managed to fix my computer. Ran fixboot, fixmbr, and chkdsk on the drive through the recovery console, did a repair install of windows, and now all seems fine. Not sure why it worked this time, but I'll take it. The only drawback it seems is that the second partition, the D: drive, appears to be unformatted and just...there. The PQIMAGE file that was on the drive, as far as I know, is gone. But at this point, I don't really care. I was able to back up all of the really important data that I needed...so now I'm going to delete the array, format the drives, and start over with a fresh install of XP Pro and change the RAID array to 0+1. Any suggestions on the best way to go about doing this????

Thanks.