Power/Icemage. . .

[Descendency]

Ok, you two seem to know a ton about technology (although I usually can fix PCs, this one is out of my hands mostly and I can't figure out why it's doing what it is).

Here's the story. My dad tried to fix a computer from work(Just for the record, not that it matters - my dad works with PC illiterates that probably are responsible for whatever damage has been done). We replaced everything except the motherboard and got the same error message. It's a fairly modern pre-fabricated PC. I forgot the specs, but it was DDR2 ram, 2x SATA HDD (RAID-0), pci-e graphics, etc. Well, finally we gave up (his boss didn't want him wasting anymore time with it - after 5 hours - and just told him to take it to [an idiot for] a technician he knows). Nothing we did seemed to make a difference. It would boot up to the Windows loading screen (The one that says Windows on it with a black background and ever scrolling horizontal scroll-bar at the bottom 1/3 of the screen, all centered) and then crash once that screened finished. You'd see a BSOD flash and then it'd restart.

Tried safe mode. Nothing different.

Tried to install a fresh copy of windows but it got to where it would say "Windows is now starting" (after it unpacks everything off the disk) and would crash (same kind of crash).

The technician said one of the drives failed. At first I said, "meh. maybe" but when he failed to fix this problem in a day or two, I said "bull..."

Anyways, clearly, I doubt the problem is as simple as a screwed HDD. I do realize that if the RAID failed, then they could easily just say that they couldn't fix the RAID and just replace the array with a new one or just replace it with a new HDD, however it takes like an hour or two to do that. . . They could probably even repair the RAID array (I have zero experience with RAID although it can't be much more complex than non-RAID'd HDDs). I don't really know the extent of the damage.

However, it gets more interesting. His boss's home PC has the SAME problem. Identical symptons, but a different setup. No Raid, AGP Graphics, etc. It's about 3 year old Walmart PC.

I told my dad that it would be pointless to try replacing the parts but he did anyways. It did no good.

It basically is keeping you from installing a new OS, so it almost seems as if the problem is beyond something installed on the HDD. I don't know enough about what you can "install" outside of the HDD and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts (not just power666 or icemage, but I wanted their attention because they are technology gods, to be blunt)

[Nirvana09]

Could it be a virus in their network?

[Descendency]

Originally Posted by Nirvana09

Could it be a virus in their network?

Not networked together. One is a home PC the other is a work PC.

Although, as I said it was a kind of virus/problem that could not be remedied by trying to load a new OS onto it.

[Nirvana09]

Originally Posted by Descendency

Not networked together. One is a home PC the other is a work PC.

Although, as I said it was a kind of virus/problem that could not be remedied by trying to load a new OS onto it.

It could have been left on the HDD. Do you two have different OS?

[Descendency]

Originally Posted by Nirvana09

It could have been left on the HDD. Do you two have different OS?

Both Windows XP.

[Nirvana09]

Originally Posted by Descendency

Both Windows XP.

Share any Emails with attachments?

[chedabob]

You tried running it with "Do not restart on error" enabled?

[E6600]

You are saying a new installation on a new HD didn't work?! That's odd! Or is it the same HD?

I had what you described happen to me, the file system got corrupted, I just had to reinstall Windows xp, there was nothing to it.

Try installing another OS and see if it'll boot up or not.

[Power666]

Originally Posted by Descendency

The technician said one of the drives failed. At first I said, "meh. maybe" but when he failed to fix this problem in a day or two, I said "bull..."

Anyways, clearly, I doubt the problem is as simple as a screwed HDD. I do realize that if the RAID failed, then they could easily just say that they couldn't fix the RAID and just replace the array with a new one or just replace it with a new HDD, however it takes like an hour or two to do that. . . They could probably even repair the RAID array (I have zero experience with RAID although it can't be much more complex than non-RAID'd HDDs). I don't really know the extent of the damage.

It entirely depends on how the RAID was configured. RAID 0 literally splits data between multiple hard drives. So if one drive goes down in the array, all the data is lost on all the drives. Any sort of data recovery has to be done off of back ups. To boot off of a RAID 0 array, there is a secret partition that contains the boot loader a few other files. I'm not sure if booting from this partition would get you to that loading screen or not. I would not discard the possibility of a broken RAID array at this point, but it could be another scenario as well.

I should point out that RAID 1 and RAID 5 are different and feature data redundancy. So if a drive goes down in RAID 1 or RAID 5, data can be recovered. Data recovery does require a lengthy restoration process, but it works.

Originally Posted by Descendency

However, it gets more interesting. His boss's home PC has the SAME problem. Identical symptons, but a different setup. No Raid, AGP Graphics, etc. It's about 3 year old Walmart PC.

It basically is keeping you from installing a new OS, so it almost seems as if the problem is beyond something installed on the HDD. I don't know enough about what you can "install" outside of the HDD and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts

If you can't reinstall the OS, I'd be more inclined to say that it is hardware problem. Overheating is a possibility from the description but that typically hard locks a machine. Recent AMD and Intel machines will throttle the processor speed way back when they reach a point that could over heat them. On that note that how long did you leave it to try and load up the operating system?

I'd also like to point out that there should be a way to load up Windows and have it display what system files it is loading so you can see where it hangs in the process.

[willay]

sounds like a case for dr. house.

"this antivirus program isn't making it better... it's killing it"
















I'll bet it's lupus