Disk Boot Error and System Freezing

[BarnabasB]

I have
Amd Athlon 3200+
2 GB of Ram
Windows XP sp2 (recently updated to SP3)
SeaGate 320gb SATA harddrive (brand new)


**note...the most recent update is highlighted with bold

Hey Guys.
Ever since my system was built about a year ago, I've had problems with random freezing and other problems.
I recently had a fresh format of my hard-drive and bought new memory (because the old memory went bad). The problems started again, so I bought a new SeaGate HDD thinking it might the problem. All this has happened in the past few months and usually the system runs fine for a few weeks after I replace something and then it suddenly starts freezing again.

It usually happens when I'm on the internet or a IM program, but I don't think it's limited to those. When it freezes, I can usually still move my mouse cursor around, but I can't click on anything. However, sometimes it also freezes and I hear a system beep...and then everything is locked out.

Most recently, I can hardly get it booted up I always get the "DISK BOOT FAILURE" and "Invalid System Disk". I actually got it to run fine for a day and a half after I finally got it booted to Windows without encountering of those errors or freezing when it boots up. I think the bootup process might be my main obstacle right now.

Sometimes after it freezes (like every other day) it resumes running for about 1/4 of a second then crashes with a blue screen.

It's usually one of the following.

Dump of Phyiscal Memory Stop 0x000000F4 (0x00000003, 0x8968C020, 0x8968C194, 0x805C773E).

or

Kernel _Data_inpage_error along with the following
Stop 0x0000007a (0xEIES2BF88, 0xC000d85, 0xBF968086, 0x41FDA860)
win32.sys address BF968086 base at BF8000000
Date Stamp 48025F2A.



I ran ChkDSK /r and it said it fixed one more problems...but I'm still getting problems with the DISK Boot error. I also tried to recconnect the Sata connector cable....it seemed to help, but the problems return.

 

[raybay]

What motherboard do you have? We have seen this identical problem in severak of low-end Gigabyte motherboards on which AMD cpu's were installed. We had to change boards to get rid fo the problem... don't know if it was the hardware or the driver set... but never did go away.

 

[skaas]

Stop: 0x000000F4 has a reference value of CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION. This means that some process or thread critical to OS function terminated unexpectedly (probably a second-chance exception), which in turn caused the operating system to become unstable and bugcheck.

MSDN supplies an article which gives more information on that particular bugcheck value.

I suggest you read, as it gives you some more insight as to what is actually happening when you get this error:

msdn.microsoft.com/library/default....6b95c57.xml.asp

 

[BarnabasB]

Update**!

I just rebooted and went into Bios settings (after it went back to the Boot Disk Failure).

I noticed on the main page that my Primary IDE Master is my Sony DVD drive. Is that correct? The Hard-drive is under SATA 1 and the IDE slave is blank. I don't know much about computers...so this is just a hunch...but I thought the Hard-drive should be the primary IDE. Is this possibley why I get boot errors?


@RayBay; I have a M2N4-SLI motherboard. According to my friend who built my PC, it's one of the better ones. The first motherboard he got for me had problems so he replaced it with this one and supposedely it's a really good High-end one.

@ I plugged that link into my browser and it couldn't seem to find it. I also plugged it into google and the MSDN site and I basically got more stuff telling me about the Critical Object Termination in some forums...but I couldn't seem to find an article on it. Can you tell me breifly what this means? Does it mean that I have a hardware problem..even after I just replaced the RAM and Hard-drive!

 

[raybay]

Sounds as if it could be as simple as resetting the BIOS... usually by a clean boot, then pressing the <Del> key. You get a series of four to 10 screens depending on who designed your BIOS (Phoenix, Award, HP, Intel).
You then find the screen set for changing Boot Order, and fix it, then reboot.

But you may require SATA drives or SATA II drivers from the motherboard manufacturer if it is not giving the proper ID to the hard drives.

 

[BarnabasB]

Sounds as if it could be as simple as resetting the BIOS... usually by a clean boot, then pressing the <Del> key. You get a series of four to 10 screens depending on who designed your BIOS (Phoenix, Award, HP, Intel).
You then find the screen set for changing Boot Order, and fix it, then reboot.

But you may require SATA drives or SATA II drivers from the motherboard manufacturer if it is not giving the proper ID to the hard drives.

Hey RayBay,

Okay, I actually thought of that right after posting that reply. I was in my Bios (which is Pheonix, btw) and I just hit restore default Bios settings. I noticed that the Primary IDE is still listed as the Sony DVD drive. However, it booted up just fine and I was able to play around for an hour or so with no problems.
Hopefully, if I leave my computer turned on, it will continue to function properly. I haven't had too many problems with blue screens within the past few days and it seems to stay up once I get it up and running for at least 30 min.

However, I do want to confirm that my primary IDE should be my SATA hard-drive. Yes or No?

If it is...how do I set it to such? I selected the Primary IDE and hit Enter to see it's options...as far as I can tell it only gives options for Manual and Automatic something. Strangely, the only thing I recall changing was the Boot order...and I set it so the Hard-drive was first (before restoring defaults...but after the problems started). If I have problems again I think I will start searching for the Sata Drivers.

 

[raybay]

If it is a motherboard designed for SATA drives, it should report it as a SATA or Serial ATA drive, not IDE. Run a free outside inventory such as Belarc Advisor, Everest, CPU ID, or one of the other four... to see how they report all your drives and devices... print out the list and ruminate...

 

[BarnabasB]

Hey guys,

I think I solved my problem here. I finally decided to just replace the SATA cable with a spare. The Sata cables are 2 that came with the Motherboard. I'm not sure what could've happened to the old one, but it seemed to have problems after 2 wks or so. Maybe they're cheap or something, so I may have to go out and buy new ones soon.

 

[gi_ferg]

IDE question, possible answer

Your IDE question, most likely what your seeing is your CD drive they are on a flat IDE cable so it'll show up on your bios settings page but thats not your first boot priority unless you set it so. So you PC most likely shows your sony CD on IDE and then your HD on your SATA.