Hi everyone,

I am trying to resolve an issue on my brother's machine. Whenever he starts up his computer, it will stop responding at the Windows loading screen.The progress bar that scrolls along the bottom will stop moving after a while and the process stops there. Right now, the only way it will start is in safe mode. Occasionally, the computer will fail to detect the hard drive and requests that I boot from the CD/DVD drive.

The only changes he made that I'm aware of are a new graphics card and power supply. The system was working fine for a few weeks well since then.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

The hard drive may be dieing. Next time the PC boots, run a Disk check

Hi Tmagic650. Thanks for the response.

I tried running chkdsk /r before. It reported that one or more bad sectors had been found and repaired. The problem still happens though.

Then the drive should be replaced...

My bad about the chkdsk report. Here is the log from the event viewer

Checking file system on \DosDevices\C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 872 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 872 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 872 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.

199141708 KB total disk space.
187843860 KB in 155331 files.
62928 KB in 12312 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
294016 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
10940904 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
49785427 total allocation units on disk.
2735226 allocation units available on disk.



Also, are there any other checks or utilities I can run on this system before I replace the drive? Thanks.

If you can get the name of the hard drive, you can download the diagnostic software to check the hard drive. Along with what CHKDSK reports, there is a SMART status check, that if it is "tripped" the drive will need to be replaced even if CHKDSK reported no errors. If the SMART test is good, we need to look for another cause to your computers problem

The drive is a Maxtor 6L200MO 200GB SATA. I ran the diagnostic tool and the results are as follows:

SeaTools for DOS v2.23

Device 0 is ATA Device Maxtor 6L200MO L4J5A1H on nVidia nForce 4 SATA
Max Native Addressed - Number of LBAs 398297087 (203.928 GB)
This drive supports Security Features
SMART is Supported but is DISABLED
Logging Feature Set is Supported
Started Long Test 4/24/2011 @ 15:05.48
NOT ABLE TO GET SMART DATA
Short DST PASSED 4/24/2011 @ 16:11.39
Long Test PASSED 4/24/2011 @ 16:11.39

You'll need to enable SMART status in the computers bios and run the Seagate diagnostic once more

Okay. SMART enabled. Results as follows:


SeaTools for DOS v2.23

Device 0 is ATA Device Maxtor 6L200MO L4J5A1H on nVidia nForce 4 SATA
Device is 48 bit Addressed Max Native Addressed - Number of LBAs 398297087 (203.928 GB)
This drive supports Security Features
SMART is Supported and ENABLED
SMART has not been Tripped
DST is Supported
Logging Feature Set is Supported
POH 39197

Started Long Test 4/24/2011 @ 19:02.07
Short DST PASSED 4/24/2011 @ 20:07.59
Long Test PASSED 4/24/2011 @ 20:07.59

Hey Tmagic650, are you still there?

Okay, the hard drive is fine. Windows may be corrupt. Can you get into Safe Mode by pressing F8 repeatedly when the computer is first started? If not, the hard drive may need to be formatted and Windows installed fresh

Yes, I can get into safe mode.

Okay it's a driver issue... most likely video, since a new graphics card was installed recently

Alright. I have a GeForce 9500GT. I removed the drivers, restarted in safe mode, inserted the installation CD and let Windows install the drivers automatically. When I rebooted the problem still occurred. I removed the drivers again to reinstall, this time using the application on the driver CD. Now the computer won't boot a all, even in safe mode. Now I get a BSOD with he STOP error 0x0000007E.

Right now, I'm working off of a Linux live CD. I'm at a loss as to how to continue to fix this problem.

If you can, go to Nvidia's support website and download the latest driver for the 9500. The card itself may be bad

Do you have on board graphics that you can temporarily connect to and remove the card?

If so will it boot with the card removed?

Do you have the OS disc?

"What OS are you using?"...
It's listed in the title of this thread Mark56

Oh yes, so it is, just skimmed through the problem and missed it. (edited)

Anyway, I'd like to help so the other questions still stand.

Hi Mark56. Thanks for the additional assistance. This computer does't have any on board graphics. I do have the Windows CD.

I've made some progress. I tried starting it again, and luckily, it booted. It asked me for a bunch of drivers, which I installed. I then installed the latest driver for graphics card. It seems to be starting normally now. Will run it some more and see if any further problems still occur.