mup.sys strikes again. Here's what I've gone through so far

[Ant232]

Ok, it's the mup.sys thing again..

System:
Athlon 2500+ Barton core (no overclock)
Asus AV7600
Kingmax ram 512 stick
Radeon 7000 dual monitor card (only runnig one monitor)
WD 80gig SATA partition 40Gig C: 40gig D:
Segate 120gig SATA
XP pro SP2 (all updates)
AVG free updated
Zone alarm free
Standard ATX 300W PSU


For some of you who don't know what I mean I will explain breifly:

My computer freezes when booting in safe mode at mup.sys and when I try to boot in normal mode it gets to the windows splash screen and then reboots again (the cycle begins)..

I'm not an expert by any means but I really want to find out what's causing this to happen, both for me and the countless others that seem to be having this problem. I can also hopefully throw across ideas on what it might not be based on past experience.

This is the third time it's happened. First time was over a year ago. As with the next two times, no new hardware or software were installed prior to it happening. Today I checked email and shut the machine down and went to work. When I came home I powered up the machine and it wouldn't boot.

The first time it happened I tried everything suggested on forums like.
Unplug USB devices
Swap RAM
Disconnect everthing both external and internal but the very basics
Disable mup.sys in recovery console
Replace mup.sys (although I think mup.sys loads and it's the next file thats the problem)
Run all the fixes.. Fixboot, chkdsk, memtest..... everything I could think of
Reinstaling XP again (not a clean install) with the result that XP could not even see my C drive.
And many more which I can't remember.

NOTE: Knoppix could boot from CD and see my Hard drive with no problems which allowed me to burn vital files.

The very first time it happened I contacted Microsoft and the 'nice man' said it was my harddrive after talking me through some options. I bought a new hard drive, reinstalled XP. All was good and then it happened again after a few months. Instead of buying another new hard drive I decided to format the one that went bad and reinstalled XP again. It worked fine again for another few months and now here we are again.

Would I be right in saying that it's not the:
Hard drive because I bought a new one and it happened again
Not the RAM because I swapped it out
Not the video card because I swapped it out
Not my MB because it's happened to people with different MB's
Not my CPU because it's happened to people with different CPU's
Not XP pro alone because it's happened on XP home

It's a usual machine with lots of software on it (to much to go into detail)

I don't tend to mess around with it. I let installs do there own thing.

At this stage I really don't want to have to reformat and just wait for it to happen again. I have tried everything I can think of over the past 3 crashes and reformats..

Sorry about spelling mistakes and any grammar errors..

Any help on what this might be would be very grateful as I really am going to have to kill it and I don't want to (Because when it works I love it)

Many thanks for reading

Anto

 

[N3051M]

your hdd is probably close to death, or already dead.. either that or its a hardware fault (since you said you swapped it) thats close to the HDD..

-inspect your motherboard and other devices to see if there's any weird signs of damage etc
-cables, see if its all connected properly, or try switching the IDE cable with another one that you know works
-try a windows repair as opposed to a reinstall/reformat?
-run a disc diagnostic utility (can be obtained via the HDD manufacturer's website) and run a full scan to see if it picked up anything..
-check your PSU is giving enough juice to power your whole system, you may need to look at the sticker on the side (remember generic PSU give about 60-70% efficiency, proper psu give 70-80%+) on its watt rating and using a calculator such as this http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp to check

when MUP.sys haunted me last time i also refused to think it was my hdd.. it wasn't until i couldn't get it (hdd) to stay picked up in the BIOS hardware monitor that nearly killed me.. its synonymous to it (mup) being HDD related but usually means some sort of major hardware/OS fault..

 

[Ant232]

Hi N3051M

Thanks for the reply. I don't think it's the harddrive becasue the first time it happened I bought a new HD and it happened again.
I seems that window just can't read the HD. I tried using the Windows repair but again it can't read the HD. Saying that, knoppix 6.5 can read the two partitions of the drive with no problem at all.

Does this mean the HD is ok or could it still be the prob?

I talk to someone earlier that builds specialised audio computers and he said that he had this problem before and it turned out to be bad RAM..

He also said that there's a fix on the microsoft site that tells you how to manually copy an old registry to the current one (if you have system restore active) I might try that to see if it gets it back running again and that might give a better idea what's going on..

The PSU I have is a very basic ATX one. I think I might change it for a more stable one as you suggest. Thanks

I'll pass on any updates

 

[Rik]

You could also get Speedfan from the downloads section and use it to check out your hard drives S.M.A.R.T. characteristics, that should tell you if your hard drive has a problem or not!!!!

A new psu is by far the best idea tho!!!!

Also, what antivirus, antispyware, and, firewall software do you use??

 

[N3051M]

You could also get Speedfan from the downloads section and use it to check out your hard drives S.M.A.R.T. characteristics, that should tell you if your hard drive has a problem or not!!!!

If he can get into windows in the first place. Using the manufacturer's diagnostic utility or a bootable HDD diagnostic utility would be more sensible in this situation, since you can create a boot CD and directly boot/run into it.

if you want to test ram, have a read of this: Tutorial: How to use Memtest

being able to load knoppix means that your hardware is ok, so i think its just related to the windows OS, either driver or OS corruption that may have occurred.

unanimous agreement on the psu

Rik's so excited to help out hehe.. gotta love your !!'s