Strange Error - Help please!!

[atomicjeep]

Can anyone figure this one out:

When I startup the PC from cold everything is OK i.e windows loads etc.
If I restart the PC from within windows the PC gets just past the bios stage and sits for a while at a blank screen before reporting that it cannot find an importatnt windows file which it needs to continue loading etc.

These files range from NTLDR , Hal etc but pretty much it is never the same file that is missing.

If I turn the power of for a short time then start the PC windows loads as normal.

Strange!!

I have looked in numerous forums/sites and cant find any similar problems.

Thanks
AJ

[Bindibadgi]

probably ur harddisk isnt liking a cold start. How old is it? Tried another?

[Trickle]

Originally posted by atomicjeep
I have looked in numerous forums/sites and cant find any similar problems.

Thats because your problem isnt a normal run of the mill one

To solve the problem you will need to find out more information and diagnose it in more depth... unfortunately this means doing things like running memtests, updating bios's, reinstalling the OS with less stuff installed (no TV cards, raid and whatnot), testing different versions of windows and as Bindi said - testing different individual core components such as the HD:

[PriestJPN]

I'd go with the HD as the problem, whether its cable, controller or jumpers...

[Roker]

I've found that most of the time these errors occurr due to memory issues. Try clocking back your RAM a little.

Roker.

[SHARKMEAT]

ROKER is correct take out your memory,and if you have more than one stick use one,untill the the problem goes away,then you found the bad memory chip.The reason it is ok when you restart after shut down the computer the memory is flushed and any flaws that was detected with the bad memory is not in memory when you boot back up.If it,s a HD probem and what you explained there is more to it than what you reported. Do the memory thing and I beleave you will find your problem.Good Luck.

[SilentDeath]

the lazyer way to do the above is to just clock ur ram back quite a bit, c if its stoped happening, then ull know its ur ram, then u can test each stick on its own etc... try memtest86 before u try anything though

its likely ur ram is only getting fux0red when u warm boot, touch the ram to c how hot its getting, and leave memtest86 on overnight, should catch any mem errors

[Austin]

RAM would be my prime suspect, bad RAM would also corrupt your HD and make things hard for Windows. Take the advice offered. I take it you aren't o/c'ing anything? My next suspect would be your PSU, how are the voltage rails? What brand and rating is it, plus what's your system spec? It could be a PnP issue, try toggling the 'PnP OS' option in your BIOS and also enable 'Reset PnP data' (or equivilent) for one boot. You could also try reseating all your cards, RAM and leads ... perhaps swapping PCI slots around would help? You could also remove all PCI cards and disable all onboard stuff just to see if it helps. Be sure you have all the latest updates (inc ServPacks) for your OS & sw and that you have the latest official drivers and ideally mobo BIOS too.

If you are certain the RAM is fine then you could try a fresh OS intall or reinstall. Be sure to scandisk, defrag and enable SMART for your HD too. If you still have no joy it's really a matter of testing each part in another PC (or vice versa) in order to find your culprit(s).

[catattack]

I had the EXACT same problem man, but for me I had to start from scratch and thankfully had another hard drive. Just popped that in and installed a fresh windows and it worked fine.

[pmk24]

the problem as suggested above could be memory related, running a memory testing program like memtest86 could be usefull in testing the chips for errors

[Trickle]

The dude hasnt posted back, so I think we can assume it went from bad to worse and got sent down to the shop

[fraggie]

i had that exact problem too, i selected the wrong hdd in the autodetect IDE thing in the bios, i chose the wrong one out of a list of 3, i changed that to the one it recommended and then it was fine , just my experience