ok guys, i apologize in advance for the long post, if you dont want to read it then dont, just ignore it... if you do want to read it the reason its so long is because i wanted to give the full picture so you could get all the history on the problem(s) and maybe have a better solution with everything in mid.
i have been running 2000 Pro for several years on the pc i built with no problems but had ben wanting to upgrade the os. The other day while i was at work and my boyfriend was home he sent me several instant messages throughout the day saying my pc had crashed to a blue screen, but since he is not as technically inclined as i am (which isnt saying much, lol) i told him to turn it off and i would mess with it later. so upon investigating i couldnt exactly figure out the problem. it had done 3 memory dumps, all 3 different errors... one seemed to be my nic, another involved my video card, etc. so i thought my mb may be on its last leg. so i figured this would be as good a time as ever to upgrade and do some 'work' on it.
so i wiped my hd, setup new partitions & reformatted and did a clean install of xp pro. had to install 3 times b/c i kept getting errors saying it couldnt copy the files from the disk, press enter to retry, etc and after pressing enter about 5 times (lol) it would crash to blue screen, but again each time the message pointed towards a different problem.
so after reading up on the install problems i ended up physically disconnecting/uninstalling my sound card, nic, 2nd hd, and 2nd cd drive so all i had was video, main hd and 1 cd drive then the installation went beautifally.
then after xp was installed the pc started crashing again and i determined this time it was xp and my video card driver not getting along and simply reinstalling it (and modifying the registry in one attempt) did not help, so i reinstalled xp AGAIN. this time it was perfect, no 'problems' so i reinstalled sound and network card, etc, did all my updates, reinstalled WoW =) HOWEVER, i did notice it was acting 'funny' while booting. I would see the POST messages, no beep though, then it would go to a black screen with flashing cursor in top left corner for a 'long' time.
then it would go BACK to the post info, as if it were rebooting?, then i heard the lovely 1 beep, then back to the cursor screen again, then continue to boot normally... not a big deal as it would eventually boot, but something obviously wasnt right.
i shut down the pc to disconnect the cables (power, mouse, keyboard, etc) so i could move it back into place, since i had it out in the middle of the room to work on it, and when i booted it back up my hd was making a terrible squealing/grinding noise and i see "BOOT FAILURE: SYSTEM HALTED"... wonderful. at this point i merely pressed reset and it booted up fine (well, no noise and it went through the same process as described previously)
i shut it down, opened it back up and basically took everything apart, cleaned it, looked at all the connections and cables, double checked all the jumpers, etc, and put it all back together again. booted up fine again. so i had been using it since then with no problems whatsoever. i rebooted last night and got the BOOT FAILURE: SYSTEM HALTED message, pressed reset, and it booted right back up again.
now im not stupid, i know the terrible noise was not a good thing and the boot failure message is indicitive, among other things, of a bad hd, but could someone maybe elaborate on this a bit? as far as, the booting 'sequence' if you will my pc is performing being odd, the noise i heard, the random boot failure message, etc... but with all of that in mind, i am having absolutely no performance issues while the pc is actually running and in use, so i am curious as to what i should do next... should i just scrap the hd now before i bother filling it with data again (i really just have the basics on there now)? or should i wait and see what happens? does this mean my hd is as good as dead at this point? i ranscan disk last night and it found nothing wrong and i ran checkdisk before i left for work today so i will see what that found when i get home.
i have not yet tried a new IDE cable, i should probably try this, huh?
thanks in advance for any help.... and thanks for reading
i have been running 2000 Pro for several years on the pc i built with no problems but had ben wanting to upgrade the os. The other day while i was at work and my boyfriend was home he sent me several instant messages throughout the day saying my pc had crashed to a blue screen, but since he is not as technically inclined as i am (which isnt saying much, lol) i told him to turn it off and i would mess with it later. so upon investigating i couldnt exactly figure out the problem. it had done 3 memory dumps, all 3 different errors... one seemed to be my nic, another involved my video card, etc. so i thought my mb may be on its last leg. so i figured this would be as good a time as ever to upgrade and do some 'work' on it.
so i wiped my hd, setup new partitions & reformatted and did a clean install of xp pro. had to install 3 times b/c i kept getting errors saying it couldnt copy the files from the disk, press enter to retry, etc and after pressing enter about 5 times (lol) it would crash to blue screen, but again each time the message pointed towards a different problem.
so after reading up on the install problems i ended up physically disconnecting/uninstalling my sound card, nic, 2nd hd, and 2nd cd drive so all i had was video, main hd and 1 cd drive then the installation went beautifally.
then after xp was installed the pc started crashing again and i determined this time it was xp and my video card driver not getting along and simply reinstalling it (and modifying the registry in one attempt) did not help, so i reinstalled xp AGAIN. this time it was perfect, no 'problems' so i reinstalled sound and network card, etc, did all my updates, reinstalled WoW =) HOWEVER, i did notice it was acting 'funny' while booting. I would see the POST messages, no beep though, then it would go to a black screen with flashing cursor in top left corner for a 'long' time.
then it would go BACK to the post info, as if it were rebooting?, then i heard the lovely 1 beep, then back to the cursor screen again, then continue to boot normally... not a big deal as it would eventually boot, but something obviously wasnt right.
i shut down the pc to disconnect the cables (power, mouse, keyboard, etc) so i could move it back into place, since i had it out in the middle of the room to work on it, and when i booted it back up my hd was making a terrible squealing/grinding noise and i see "BOOT FAILURE: SYSTEM HALTED"... wonderful. at this point i merely pressed reset and it booted up fine (well, no noise and it went through the same process as described previously)
i shut it down, opened it back up and basically took everything apart, cleaned it, looked at all the connections and cables, double checked all the jumpers, etc, and put it all back together again. booted up fine again. so i had been using it since then with no problems whatsoever. i rebooted last night and got the BOOT FAILURE: SYSTEM HALTED message, pressed reset, and it booted right back up again.
now im not stupid, i know the terrible noise was not a good thing and the boot failure message is indicitive, among other things, of a bad hd, but could someone maybe elaborate on this a bit? as far as, the booting 'sequence' if you will my pc is performing being odd, the noise i heard, the random boot failure message, etc... but with all of that in mind, i am having absolutely no performance issues while the pc is actually running and in use, so i am curious as to what i should do next... should i just scrap the hd now before i bother filling it with data again (i really just have the basics on there now)? or should i wait and see what happens? does this mean my hd is as good as dead at this point? i ranscan disk last night and it found nothing wrong and i ran checkdisk before i left for work today so i will see what that found when i get home.
i have not yet tried a new IDE cable, i should probably try this, huh?
thanks in advance for any help.... and thanks for reading
