Interesting Problem

[carlg]

I'm trying to help out a friend of mine with a computer problem and here is what I'm experiencing.

Initial problem:
They would turn computer on and nothing would happen, the screen would stay black, there was power going into the machine because the fan was running and the drives were humming.
I thought it could have been video card, motherboard, or something of that nature.
They took it to computer store and computer store said it was bad power supply and replaced it for $65.
I don't understand how it could have been power supply since the machine did have power.

Well anyway, I guess the computer store never tested the machine when they fixed it. My freind brought it home and said his name was popping up on the screen now (I'm guessing he was getting XP login screens), but he couldn't get it to do anything else.

So I came over and when I got there the machine booted to a blue screen with the following message:

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME
I know there's tons of info on the web about this error, but I guess I'm trying to figure out the sequence of events with the causes.

Could it really have been a bad power supply?
Could the bad power supply somehow have affected something else?

Thanks for the info

Carl

 

[pbunyon]

Initial problem?
Did the system ever give a successful POST beep?
A bad power supply can cause several problems to occur, it could have been a case where enough voltage was not being supplied. Bad power supplies can cause sparatic performance system wide or nothing at all. The fact that hdd's humming and fans working does not rule out power supply, it's generally the cheapest place to start.
Your error message points to the following KB article

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=297185

Paul

 

[carlg]

Thanks for the info

There were no beeps from the initial post test.

Now I'm wondering how the bad power supply caused the next problem.

Carl

 

[edfair]

The processor shuts down if it doesn't get a power good signal from the power supply in time.

The additional problems are not normally related to power supply problems. But any problems with modern OSes tend to get worse so something glitched earlier with the PS may be cascading into other problems.

Sounds like time to do a repair installation.



Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[wahnula]

Since the tech did not test the machine, I would return it for a double-check and possible refund. What quality power supply is $65 INSTALLED? Make sure all the cables (especially HDD) are fully connected. Like Ed suggested, a Repair Installation (second repair screen) would be a good solution to eliminate the OS as a suspect. Just be prepared to update after repair.

 

[wolluf]

Before going to repair I'd run recovery console:-

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307654

In there I would run

chkdsk c: /p (assuming C: is system drive)
fixmbr
fixboot

Then exit - and see if it boots ok.

If not, then assuming you have XP install CD, repair reinstall (preferable with SP2 install disk - you can create one with slipstreaming if necessary) would be my next stop:-

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341