ext hdd problems

Hi all,
I bought an ext hdd (hitachi 120gb usb) and tried to install. Packaging states "driverless hard drive" yet it installed two drivers without prompting. Although hdd appeared in device manager and was noted as "device working correctly" a new drive did not appear in My Computer. I tried two restarts but no use.
I went to BIOS to check out potential problems but found none. On restarting pc i get as far as the "Windows failed to load correctly" dialogue and chose the "start windows normally" option. The pc went to the memory test and then the windows splash screen. At this point everything restarted and cycled through to the splash screen again and continues to do so continually. I chose the "safe Mode" and that stops @ windows~/system32/driver/mup.sys and then returns to the splash screen before restarting again. "command prompt" does absolutely nothing.
I disconnected the new ext hdd and tried again but same results.
Fearing i had accidently changed a bios setting i checked it out but everything the same. I chose "failsafe defaults" but the system remained the same confirming i had not changed any settings.
I am not sure what has gone wrong here so does anyone have any advice.
I am using a shop built pc on windows xp.
I am not concerned with getting the new hdd working but just getting pc going.
Man thanks in advance

i don't know how to fix your windows boot except to say have you tried 'last know good configuration' on the F8 screen?

as for the hard drive, it might not have been formatted, hence not showing up in My Computer. try partition magic or another program (i don't know any different ones, i'm sure theres loads)

not much help, but it's something you can try when your comps working again.

hang on just remembered something, microsoft released a update either yesterday or day before for win xp, i think it was a security one, these tend to do a load on startup program i think its a spyware checker, if its not getting past splash screen it might not be loading this program properly hence it auto rebooting.

as for removing things from startup, i have absolutely no idea, but atleast the above might be a cause.

The packaging 'driverless installation' means that no external drivers are required - the two drivers it installed were built in ones - one for the drives USB interface and one for the drive itself. The drive then needs partitioning/formatting (as for any other hard drive) using the compute administration tools.

As for the other problem...

These are only theories but it could be that the registry is corrupted (actually one of the files that contributes to the registry hive, or the boot record on the internal drive is corrupted. Whether that is linked to the external drive installation is hard to determine.

However the freezes at mup.sys appears to be a common problem - Google windows xp mup.sys - althouigh that seems to be a symptom - not a cause.

From one of the threads that the google search pulled up, if you have a recovery disk, try booting to that and running fixboot

More info here Microsoft Corporation

Hi thanks for your reply.

I tried "last known good config" but as with "command prompt" nothing happens.

Does anyone know if re-setting the cmos would help. I have seen it suggested elsewhere for similar problems.

Is it possible that the hdd has changed settings somewhere or that the drivers installed (that it didn't need) are preventing start up?

I wont be tryig the hdd again and with hindsight i shouldn't have attempted it as there were no instructions not even on the disk

Thanks again stevie lee.

Hi peterb,
I see what you mean about drivers.
Unfortunately i have no restoration disks for this pc.
I know this might be a broad question but what could have corrupted the registry
It seems from what is said here that these are two separate problems whereas i thought the hd instalation caused the problem.

Difficult to say - it could have been the hdd install (you were just unlucky) or some other event. I doubt that clearing the CMOS will help - the internal drive is being recognised.

The shop that sold the computer should have supplied some form of recovery or system disk - or some method for 'disaster' recovery. You might also want to look at the results of the Google search I suggested - although some of the fixes included a re-install - and that would solve the problem - it is a bit drastic and is probably fixable without doing that, although you may feel that in the long riun that is simpler. It also meas that you will lose all data on the disk unless you can get it off first (there are ways using a Linux live CD and your external hard drive - but I suspect that you might find the prospect of that a bit daunting. :)

So - get hold of a recovery disk (preferably from the shop that sold you the system) and try running fixboot.

One other thought - one of the Google searches suggested that unplugging all USB devices (including the mouse if you have a USB mouse) might help - indicating that there is a problem with the USB driver. The solution suggested was to boot with a PS" mouse installed, then once it was booted, remove the PS2 mouse (while the system is running) and plug in the USB mouse - I think the theory being that it re-installs the USB mouse driver.

Thanks again peterb.
The shop that sold the pc is no longer trading but a friend bought one from the same company around the same time and is bringing his disks over on saturday to try them.
I did the google but there are so many options it its going to take some time i think and it seems very few people resolve this issue permanently.
So again thanks to you both for your help and i will report back whether or not i get anywhere. Cheers

Hi all.

UPDATE

Friends disc did the job though not without a struggle. The mup.sys problem seemed tobe acting ike a virus in that all avenues were blocked in one way or another ( one example; getting system to boot from disc just wasn't happening even though bios set to boot from cdrom. it just would not do it) but persistance and repetition saw us through. System up and running and no data loss.

Many thanks to you all.