Is it the HDD or the BIOS?

[Smartncube]

I've been re-imaging an XP box. The problem is with the hard drive & Bios. I put in a new HDD 20GB, and the Bios autodetects it. Set the Boot priority to A C SCSI.

I when I drop the image onto the HDD I get an error message saying ''There's no HDD''. I go into the BIOS then discover that the hard drive is no longer detected.

I managed to get the XP image on the HDD. But after installing a few applications I kept getting BSOD(blue screens)
Kernel_data....(etc etc).

Please assist what should I do?

 

[Dreamland]

Were you able to run autodetect again - after it forgot - and have it recognize the drive at all? Anything else on the same IDE channed (cable)? What model of drive and mobo?

 

[Smartncube]

Thanks for the response - I was able to finally run auto detect when it forgot. And it recognised the drive, I dropped the XP imaged, but it keeps crashing and giving me bluescreens. I only have one HDD attached to the IDE cable. The motherboard is for a Hewlett Packard VL400.

Thanks in advance for the response

 

[Dreamland]

Smartncube - was the image originally from the same box and the hard drive the only thing that changed? The reason I'm asking is that XP builds several machine-specific files on install. If you move the image to another machine with different hardware, it pretty much chokes on everything when starting up. If the image was originally from an NTFS partition of a different cluster or partition size, then lots of other hardware and systems services go bonkers when they become aware of the 'unexpected' change in disk characteristics. FAT32 - FAT32 moves are only *slightly* less painful.

Need to know more to give you some direction: How did you originally build the image/move it? Same or different hardware? What file system? Do you have a way to image the current drive again if needed? Do you have a bootable XP install CD?

Stop loading other programs for now - it's pointless until you get the basic stability issues worked out.

 

[Smartncube]

Thanks a lot for the reply

The images are stored on a network drive and works on other HDD. I use Symantec Ghost for re-imaging. The program presents you with a list of computer names - from here I selected mine (Hewlett Packard VL400).It's only for that particular drive that it's kept crashing. I do have a Bootable XP install CD.

Thanks again for your response

 

[Dreamland]

Smartncube -

Sounds like this is more like a hardware-related stability issue then. The drive itself sounds suspicious, but some motherboard power problems could also cause your symptoms.

First, check and see if any of the capacitors on your motherboard are visibly bad (See *Note below). There was a specific, known problem that affected many motherboards a while back (deatiled on Carey Holtzman's link below), but even the best capacitors of this type in *any* motherboard are subject to failure - just not as frequently.

http://www.careyholzman.com/

Some things to note about this information:

1) Electrolytic capacitors do not have to be visibly leaking or puffed out to be fried. This is only a quick and cheap inspection to see if any are *visibly* bad. Nice-looking ones may be shot as well, but testing requires special knowledge and equipment.

2) Nothing should ever be leaking out of a good capacitor. They put pictures of obviously leaking ones on the web page for illustration. If you have the tiniest dot of dried brown liquid anywhere on the silver top of a capacitor, it's already fried.

3) The lines that intersect on the silver top are meant to crack first in the event of an overheating, ready-to-explode cap. Most don't ever get to this point - they only develop a little pressure inside before they fail and may never leak. A new cap will be perfectly flat or maybe almost look a little concave on the top. If there's *any* detectable 'doming' or puffing out of the cap, it's bad.

*Note: Don't stress out too much if you're not sure about any of this. The point is to not waste time on other troubleshooting if there's an *obvious* problem with the motherboard. If you're not sure, don't worry about it for now and press on.


Next, it probably makes sense to check the drive itself out for problems.

If it's an IBM DTLA drive (DeskStar, but might have some kind of HP label on it), check if you need the firmware upgrade with this HP utility (creates boot diskette):

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/ccd/soar2sdd/vc1498/vc1498en/vdg510en.exe

It won't hurt anything if it's *not* an IBM drive or it doesn't need the upgrade - the utility just checks the firmware revision number. Do it if you're not sure, but don't bother if it's obviously not an IBM drive. After that (IBM drive only) run IBM's diagnostics. Info at:

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Also creates a boot diskette. Actual file to download:

http://www.hgst.com/downloads/DFT32-V340.EXE

(Anybody reading this with the problematic drives from the DeskStar line can/should use this utility regularly)

If it's a Maxtor drive instead, you can use:

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

to crate a boot diskette with diagnostics. Most of these "make a boot" floppy utilities have to be run in Windows. Convenient when you can't load Windows and want to diagnose a problem, right?

If it's not either of those brands, then respond with the manufacturer or model/part number. I just suggested IBM and Maxtor first because HP used a lot of them in that line and both had lots of problems.

You generally want to use the manufacturer's utility to do the diagnostics. HP has some capability in their diagnostic utility, but (like most other OEM tools) it's kind of a dumbed-down version.

Let us know what you find.

 

[Smartncube]

Thanks ! It finally worked I used the powermax, ran it and it seemed to fix the problem. Case closed. The PC is now very stable no crashes after software installation.