Bsd

[Brucelles]

I got home last night to find that the home PC has gone BSD on me.

I re-booted, as usual, and it went to an ASUS screen (the mobo is a P5B Deluxe) offering continue or run setup. I continued a few times until it became obvious that the thing is pretty buggered. Ran setup and changed boot sequence to DVD first and tried to boot from the XP disk. No luck, it just goes straight to the restart options screen so I can start in safe mode and then it's back to BSD again.

I managed to get a sort of boot from the ASUS disk but it has a cut down FDOS on it only with no chkdsk (wtf?).

Anyway, I gave up as it was late and my wife was getting a bit shirty. So, when I go home I have to try again, however I have a conference call for an hour, I have to cook as my wife had an accident yesterday (leaving the International Clinic, how ironic is that?) and can't be trusted. To keep it short, I have limited time and I am wondering if anyone has any recommendations for good websites guides for this sort of process, or even better, if anyone "knows" what is bust.

I haven't changed any hardware since summer and I haven't loaded any new software for a couple of weeks. I suspect a faulty memory module, and that's the first thing I'll look at, taking them out in turns.

If not, I guess it will take a while. Unless the Hexus Heroes have a handy hint.

[Sema4]

Can you post the actual error you get on the blue screen please ? This can some times give a hint as to what the problem is...

Regarding a 'quick fix', as I'm sure you already know... it's going to be one of 9 or so things... in no particular order, they range from...

1.Corrupt hard disk/corrupt file on the hard disk (can be caused by any number of things, few but not all of which can be terminal)
2.Faulty hard disk (hardware fault - generally non-recoverable)
3.Faulty motherboard (hardware fault - generally non-recoverable)
4.Corrupt BIOS (usually recoverable)
5.Faulty cable to disk drive/DVD drive
6.Fauly RAM module (which you have already guessed upon)
7.Faulty graphic card (less likely than the others, but not impossible)
8.Faulty sound card (as 7)
9.Faulty power supply (the fact it tries to start up, this is unlikely, but as with 7, not impossible)

If your lucky, and you pick the right one first time, it shouldn't take to long to fix, but the odd's are against you and chances are there is no quick fix without a lot of luck, it's usually trial and error without the ability to swap the hard disk in to another computer and examine it there.

Assuming you have tried to start in 'safe mode' and it still reboots on you ?

Have you tried clearing the CMOS ?

Do you have another computer you can hook the hard drive up to ?

If I found my self in your position and I didn't have another computer to test the disk on, I would remove ALL non-essential hardware for the purpose of diagnostic testing, you don't need a DVD drive to boot, so remove it (not physically from the case of course, just the cables to it), same with a sound card if you have one (physically remove it), and as you mentioned your self, RAM, if you have more than one stick, remove all but one.

Second hard drives ? USB drives ? Pen Drives ? Remove the lot, leave just one stick of RAM, graphic card and 1 hard disk.

If you have the manual, look up how to clear the CMOS, it's usually something along the lines of 'unplug from mains and remove battery on motherboard - some have a jumper you can change to clear it, each board varies, look up how to do it for your board and follow it to the letter, it's not hard to do, but getting it wrong can kill a motherboard.

Once you clear the CMOS, on first boot, enter the BIOS screen (usually the DEL key during POST) and look for the option that says 'load BIOS defaults', select that and then 'save and reboot', see if it comes up.

If it still blue screen's, change the stick of RAM for one you took out, and try again.

If your lucky enough to have it boot, run chkdsk and make sure the disk is ok. You can then shut down and start adding hardware back, one bit at a time, reboot, you will soon know when you add the bit that's causing the problem...

Please post the actual blue screen error before resorting to major surgery, there may be a clue there that can narrow it down a little more...

Good luck!

[Brucelles]

Can you post the actual error you get on the blue screen please ? This can some times give a hint as to what the problem is...

I can do that, but it's the pretty generic blue screen with very little information. I will have to do it tonight.

Assuming you have tried to start in 'safe mode' and it still reboots on you ?

Absolutely.

Have you tried clearing the CMOS ?

No I didn't. I have read your advice, though, so I will.

Do you have another computer you can hook the hard drive up to ?

Actually I do. I have a really nice little toy, a USB / IDE adapter so I can pull the drive and plug it into my laptop. It's not a perfect diagnostic, but if the drive is cooked it will tell me.

Thanks very much for the advice, I would probably have worked my way through most of this sooner or later, but much sooner is much better. I reallt appreciate it and I will post the blue screen message as soon as I can. Probably this pm.

[Sema4]

Sadly, I suspect your right, blue screen messages more often than not, are so generic that I wonder why they even bothered to code them in the first place, a simple screen saying "your computer has crashed, have a guess at whats wrong with it, there is a prize if you guess right, good luck and thanks for playing" would do just as well...

But the information can't do any harm, it can sometimes point in the general area of where to look

As you have another computer, you can either :-

hook the drive up to it and run chkdsk against it to rule out corrupt files or a faulty drive, or as suggested in my first post, try disconnecting hardware and clearing the BIOS, it's up to you which order you try that in, sorry I can't give you a more direct answer, it's the nature of the beast I'm afraid.

Hope you get lucky !

I'll await your post, thanks !

[Brucelles]

OK. Blue screen.

A problem has been detected and windows has shut down etc.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x00000024 (0x00190203, 0x89BA10C0, 0xC0000102, 0x00000000)

That's it. Informative eh?

Now I'm going in.

[Sema4]

Stop 0x00000024 or NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM

This Stop message, also known as Stop 0x24, indicates that a problem occurred
within Ntfs.sys, which is the driver file that allows the system to read
and write to NTFS volumes.

And now we know where to look first

Forget the other hardware and BIOS, get the disk out and connect it to your other computer, run a chkdsk on it....

[directhex]

eek! bsd!

[Brucelles]

Yaaaay!

Sema4 I took your advice and stuck the disk on the USB thing to my laptop and was able to run chkdsk on it. It was pretty buggered, but got back to bootable status. I reinstalled it and fixed up Windows and Bob's your cousin's dad. It took about 2 hours to get everything that was screwed reinstalled, did a virus scan, just in case, and it looks normal.

Thanks very much for the time you took to help me out. I really appreciate it and I hope that Santa hears about this and brings you something great for Christmas.

[Sema4]

Happy to help, just glad you got it sorted ! and in record time too !!!!

Hope your wife gets well soon too...

[ikonia]

eek! bsd!

predictable, I almost did it too ! but tried to rise above it. Made me chuckle. Nicely done.