PC wont boot properly

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JimmyLizar

321 posts

Ultimate Geek

#48900 17-Nov-2009 15:42

Irony hit me with a huge bat today.

The games I ordered (refer other thread here ) arrived this morning...yay. I turned the PC on only to be greeted by the Safe Mode option screen.

Doesnt matter what option I choose, all that happens is a blue screen for a fraction of a second followed by a reboot, then back to Safe Mode option screen.

I have a RAID1 setup. On one of the screens that displays during intial stages of bootup it shows the individual hardrives and these both appear ok, however above the list of individual drives is a line (I cant remember what it says exactly) but this line states that RAID1 is "verifying" and the word "verfiying" is yellow.

I am picking it is a hardware failure as opposed to software (but thats just my guess). The PC was working fine last night and shut down fine as far as I am aware.

Can only think of two things I did/that happened yesterday could possibly be an issue.

1) had a powercut. I have an UPS & surgeprotector. So I honestly dont think this could be a problem.
2) I installed a piece of software called Coyote video converter. It installed a toolbar called 'Dealio'. I turned off the toolbar in IE8 and uninstalled it from FF3.

FYI:
Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz
4GB RAM
Asus P5QPro Mobo
Nvidia GeForce 8800GT
Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit

Anybody got any ideas as to the issue?

.....c'mon sucker lick my battery........
binary solo...0000110000110000111...

1 | 2

321 posts

Ultimate Geek

#274324 18-Nov-2009 21:00

and you call yourselves geeks...pah

.....c'mon sucker lick my battery........
binary solo...0000110000110000111...

tardtasticx

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#274337 18-Nov-2009 22:05

Seriously, I dont understand whats wrong here... jk but I dont know, have you tried reinstalling the OS? maybe a corrupt driver or something? I'm not to sure but if you have everything backed up, it couldnt really hurt to give it a shot. With my good friend google, I managed to find this http://forums.hexus.net/help-technical-advisory/136971-bsod-startup-matrix-raid-related.html
That sounds like your problem, its with a laptop and I'm not sure if yours is a tower or what not, but I assume it would be similar anyway. Good luck man.

JimmyLizar

321 posts

Ultimate Geek

#274353 18-Nov-2009 23:02

mine is a tower. yep that is the same. will try that solution and see where I get

Thanks for your help

.....c'mon sucker lick my battery........
binary solo...0000110000110000111...

tardtasticx

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#274358 18-Nov-2009 23:12

No problem, hope it works out for you. Did you get everything back up? because raid errors are related to HD's

JimmyLizar

321 posts

Ultimate Geek

#274388 19-Nov-2009 07:43

yeah my last backup was about 3-4 days prior to the failure so wont have lost much

.....c'mon sucker lick my battery........
binary solo...0000110000110000111...

JimmyLizar

321 posts

Ultimate Geek

#274529 19-Nov-2009 16:39

PC in shop now. they managed to get it to boot once and re-build the broken RAID1 but it failed again after several reboots. We both (PC repair shop & me) think that Windows is corrupt. They are doing a fresh install now.

.....c'mon sucker lick my battery........
binary solo...0000110000110000111...

tardtasticx

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#274537 19-Nov-2009 17:02

Glad its getting sorted out for you. Too much porn I think. lol

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JimmyLizar

321 posts

Ultimate Geek

#274545 19-Nov-2009 17:35

tardtasticx: Too much porn I think. lol

no doubt

.....c'mon sucker lick my battery........
binary solo...0000110000110000111...

tardtasticx

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#274586 19-Nov-2009 20:53

Make sure you post here what the end result was, I'm eager to see what the problem really was. How much was this going to cost to repair btw?

JimmyLizar

321 posts

Ultimate Geek

#274663 20-Nov-2009 09:37

I talked to the boss at the PC shop last night.

Both RAID drives have been tested and are ok with no errors/bad sectors (except the fact that they wont boot!)

They have added an extra fan to the case as it appears there was an overheating issue. The existing fan was clogged with dust and wasn't spinning at all.......oops!

They recommended getting a dedicated RAID controller card (instead of relying on the RAID controller on the mobo). This is the second time that I have had issues with the RAID setup on this PC.

To be honest I don't think we will ever know exactly what the issue is/was. Its now a matter of educated guesswork and trying to provide solutions to what be perceive to be the problem(s).

Cost won't be known until the end...am picking it will be somewhere between $300-$500.

.....c'mon sucker lick my battery........
binary solo...0000110000110000111...

tardtasticx

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#274797 20-Nov-2009 18:25

Well it could have been worse I guess. You could have lost your HD's, and if the cpu fan had been clogged with dust then the CPU would have melted and those cost an arm and a leg. So are you going to go for the separate RAID controller?

JimmyLizar

321 posts

Ultimate Geek

#275757 24-Nov-2009 11:29

cost $299 to fix which is their standard pc rebuild fee. They gave me a hefty discount as they spent many hours on it.

Decided against the dedicated raid controller card for the moment.

.....c'mon sucker lick my battery........
binary solo...0000110000110000111...

tardtasticx

3075 posts

Uber Geek

#275893 24-Nov-2009 18:04

Atleast its fixed though. How much would that dedicated card cost you inc. install?

jaymz

1133 posts

Uber Geek

#276165 25-Nov-2009 12:28

Interesting, even if your RAID had failed (assuming that you have a mirrored set) you should still be able to boot (thats the whole point of a mirrored RAID set)

I am guessing that your motherboard may have had some issues, first thing I would have tried would have been to update the bios and any other firmware on your machine and go from there.

Did you try booting with any ERD type CD's to see if you could connect to the OS?

JimmyLizar

321 posts

Ultimate Geek

#276194 25-Nov-2009 13:57

jaymz: Interesting, even if your RAID had failed (assuming that you have a mirrored set) you should still be able to boot (thats the whole point of a mirrored RAID set).

Yep. That was why I went with RAID1 setup. In the end I believ we narrowed the cause of the problem to be a corrupt OS.

jaymz: I am guessing that your motherboard may have had some issues, first thing I would have tried would have been to update the bios and any other firmware on your machine and go from there.

Did you try booting with any ERD type CD's to see if you could connect to the OS?

Have no idea what ERD type CD's are.

.....c'mon sucker lick my battery........
binary solo...0000110000110000111...

1 | 2