Major Crash

[pcjunkie]

Hi all, am hoping that anyone who reads this maybe able to help me.

MY problem is as follows,

1 month ago, a worm somehow managed to get into the system. Technical support came out, he looked baffled cos he couldnt fix the problem, he took the tower away with him and told me id need another motherboard.
When i got the tower back everything was running fine, at first.
Lately it has been running slower and slower until the other day when it crashed. I have a strong feeling he should have replaced both HDD drives aswell, but he didnt.
The problem is that it isnt recognising the HDD's, even in BIOS , the IDE Master and Slave were they used to be, they are no longer there, the only things that it finds are the Master and Slave DVD drives.
I have tried to re install Windows XP through the Packard Bell Recovery Program , trying to reset it to its factory settings. It will read from the Master DVD, tells me to put in Disk 2, then Disk 1 again. When it has finished, it re starts itselfs but that is as far as it gets. It managed to get upto windows scandisk once, but when it restarted, it wont boot.
Also the Master DVD that i have, has an error on it, but tht only comes up when trying to go back to factory settings, if i re install just windows it doesnt come up. Im lucky enuff to still be under gaurantee so it will get fixed, eventually.
The basic operating systems are as follows,
Windows xp service pack 2, 2 x 250 gig hdd's, amd athlon 64 3800+ 2,41 ghz processor, 1 gig ddr ram, 2 x nvidia gforce gt 6600 graphics cards.
If anyone has any ideas, of how to fix it, please share. If it really is goosed, ill blame the engineer who came out to it first time
Im now using my old system , may be slow, but at least it works, lol.

 

[TheEsoog]

Just one simple thing to try, have you tried using different ide cables on your hdd's?

 

[pcjunkie]

Thanx for that, but the cables are fine.
I think it may just be a proble with bios set up. If i return pc to its default settings it enables raid, but it wont start when turned on it wont even let me in bios. Was told by engineer if that happened to un plug the hdd's , restart it and it would let me into bios to disable raid. Once raid has been disabled it will read the hdd's in ide channel master 2 and 3 slots, they used to be in ide channel 0 master and slave.
The masted DVD will let me do all the basic things, format drives, scandisk, check integrity, it even sets up its own partition then installs windows.Everything seems fina at that point.
When it asks me to remove the disk , press any key to restart, its back to stage one.
The hdds have power and i can hear them working but if i try to boot from them all i get is a black screen and a flashing white _ .
If i enable raid all i get is detecting array,
If i boot from cd it does detect hdd c and goes onto the recovery screen. i really am baffled, maybe its time to take it back, its only 10 months old.

 

[peterdiva]

The hard drives need to be on the primary IDE channel i.e. channel 0 for the boot disk as master and channel 1 for the slave, or you can jumper both drives as cable select.

 

[N3051M]

After figuring out if your jumper settings are correct etc, you may want to consider the MBR of the HDD may be screwed.. use the fixmbr command in recovery console or use a utility to write 0's to return the HDD to factory condition (minus wear & tear)

do note that you may loose data in the process..

 

[pcjunkie]

IT really is confusing me now. I have run the technical support on windows install disk c/ q:ts.
on the hardware detection command it is unable to detect the hdd's.
On the bios set up i have disable the raid set up, but sata 1 and 2 are enabled still.
The hdd were on master 0 and slave 0,with my dvd and dvd-rw drives on secondry master and slave
the hdd are now auto detected on master 2 and master 3.
when i try to install windows ,fdisk will recognise the hdd's and even partiotion thm . its just when it comes to re booting after installing windows that nothing happens.

 

[N3051M]

alright, this is what you do. Take out everything except for:
-Motherboard/CPU
-PSU
-1 stick of RAM
-1 optical drive (master, IDE channel 2 or whatever)
-The (1) HDD you want windows in. If you want raid or SATA, make sure you have those drivers present when you're installing them if your mobo doesnt natively support SATA (maybe the recovery CD has them..)
-if the motherboard doesn't have onboard, then one of your video cards

Now install windows. If all goes well then start adding parts one by one untill you encounter any problems.

 

[pcjunkie]

I'll keep that in mind. thanx for that one.
As it is still under guarantee id rather let them come out and do it for now,
Heres wot the Technical support told me over phone.
Well, basically thy told me that there is a problem with the master recovery dvd. i did scan the disks and there was an error on dvd 1 and as it is more than likely a missing file on the factory default set up, tht is the problem. Currently waiting for it to come in the post. After i re set the whole pc, he told me i need to download the updated bios version for my computer so this problem never happens again. would of been nice if the enginers would have told me this about 5 weeks ago when i had motherboard replaced due to the worm. I'll keep u posted incase anyone else aver has same problem.

 

[pcjunkie]

So far , no good.
I received my new master dvd from packard bell. Was all hyper, thought my pc would be workin again, but it aint. All i get from the recovery screen is, copying files to hard drive, then an error code comes up
Device error code - 7696 ( no ideas on wot it is )
DOS error code - 11 ( which is invalid format )
Read Faut
I spent an hour an the phone typin in commands. cant remember the actual commands, its been along day.
The primary dvd-rom isnt to blame. 1 of the commands he gave me involved copying from a normal music cd onto the hdd, which it did succesfully. He told me the software from packard bell must be too blame. I am being sent a replacement hdd , but if the hdd doesnt have windows already installed, its a bit pointless. Well my comp will now have 750 gig so it aint all bad. My brother is going to bring a copy of windows xp round so i can try that instead of the packard bell software or will the packard bell software have driver information thats needed and if so, could that be the problem, i really m baffled

 

[alidabiri]

try this:
get a windows 98 boot disk from here: www.bootdisk.com
start your pc with this boot disk and select "start with cd-rom support"
do an fdisk
delete partition(s)
create partition
turn pc off
start pc
format the hdd using maximum capacity
turn your pc off.
put xp cd in machine
start pc

 

[alidabiri]

you also need to keeps these in mind as n305 and others explained.
you have 2 ide slots: primary and secondary and each can have a master (end of cable) and a slave (middle of cable).
the os should be on the primary master for things to work. if your jumpers are set wrong, or cables are not in the right slot, it's no good.
if xp sees the hdd and installs it, it should start after install.
what motherboard is this?
what cpu?

 

[pcjunkie]

the hdd's are seagate barracuda sata's , thy have theyre own cable and power supply. the bios has 8 slots for ide channels, primary master and slave, secondary master and slave, then channels 2, 3, 4, 5. i cudnt possibly tell u the make of motherboard, it has just been replaced tho itis still under guarantee.
would it be possible to remove the 20 gig hdd from the pc im using at the moment. use it to at least get my new pc up and running, copy the entire contents of drive to hdd d, move hdd d to other channel so it boots from that hdd, then upgrade back to windows xp if it works. im currently only on my old pc which stills runs on Windows ME.
they are both packard bell, but the older recovery disk is floppy and my new pc doesnt have a floppy drive

 

[alidabiri]

you need to pinpoint the problem. to do that, you have to install minimum devices. no usb, no extra hdd, no cd, nothing except the bare minimum. if you stablize the system, then install them one at a time, until you find out the bad hardware/driver.

 

[pcjunkie]

The problem at the moment is the software. Errors were found on your CD/DVDrom1 is the message now staring at me from the other monitor.
Its still scanning disk 2. As too why it crashed in the first place, im still lost. but hey, if it doesnt work soon, its back to shop 4 a replacement or money back

 

[N3051M]

have you tried using another optical drive? or different ide cables?

My brother is going to bring a copy of windows xp round so i can try that instead of the packard bell software or will the packard bell software have driver information thats needed and if so, could that be the problem, i really m baffled
Reply With Quote

If he has an OEM disc of XP then you can still use the pc's original windows key (green sticker thats stuck on the side of your packard bell). Drivers can be downloaded from the HP's website, otherwise windows will just default to its generic drivers..

 

[pcjunkie]

Ive been busy all morning checking the hardware, everything is ok.
hdds are fine as are the dvd rom drives.
the error code that i get only comes up when it gets to 1 certain file on the recovery disk.
XV1000AH.XX, not entirely sure if that is a 1 or an i, or if they are 000 instead of ooo, but that is the file that wont extract from the disk.

 

[N3051M]

to tell you the truth i could not think of one other thing apart from a dodgy drive/cable or cd that would do this.. and seeing that you've tried a new cd etc. then thats off..

Maybe if you can get your hands on a winxp OEM cd from a friend and install from that?

 

[pcjunkie]

hurray, its finally fixed
after spending 5 hours on phone to packardbell, tryin to create tattoos and sort set up out, it still wudnt work.
i unplugged master dvd rom drive and hdd d. i managed to get it too install the recovery program cd even tho an error code still came up. the error code was for the nvidia drivers , it must have been, i had to download them once i got online.
the enginner has just left, he replaced the motherboard again and its runnin like its brand new again. he thinks the motherboard was at fault, the raid utility was the problem, thats why it was going slower and slower until it crashed. that is the only thing he can think of.
thank you for all the advice, i hope that if anyone has a similar problem, it may help them because it has been stressful time lately.

 

[N3051M]

thanks for letting us know you've got it fixed and all
Have fun with your reborned PC lol..
N30