Strange Hard Disk Issue

[paulstorey]

Hi all. I need a little help with an issue on my home PC.

Have currently just built an Athlon X4600 X2 system running on an Asus SLi Premium S939 Mobo. (runs Nvidia chipset). I have configured on there 2 Western Digital Raptor 74Gb drives as a striped raid on the NVIDIA sata raid controller. I also have two 120Gb IBM Hard Drives running off the standard IDE controller. I have completly installed XP Professional with the latest SPs and updates. Whenever I shutdown the machine the next time i power it up I get the message Boot Disk Failure, Insert Sys disk and press enter.

At this point I load the recovery console, run Fixboot C: and the issue is resolved. (however by default Fixboot wants to use D: (if I just type fixboot)).

I have checked both hard disks and they are fine (and were running fine in my last machine). The Raid array shows healthy and the other drives all appear fine. The motherboard is working fine and I have checked the RAM. I have also ran the machine with just 1 stick of 512Mb (which I tried several sticks just incase) This is the only issue with the machine. Once into windows the machine runs flawlessly (even under heavy load on games). I have also completly formatted all drives in the system and reinstalled XP (twice now) as well as install Norton and check for Viruses.

Anyone any ideas??

 

[ski]

Check for viruses with your antivirus program's emergency boot disk.
If none are found, then the HD may be bad.

 

[paulstorey]

Have run a full virus check already and found nothing. Have checked all drives in the system and they all run fine. I should have also pointed out the drives worked fine in another machine and I have also dropped them into another machine since building the new machine and they worked fine in that.

I believe its something XP is doing in that it appears to change the MBR to D: (as when I type fixboot it defaults to D.

 

[Freestone]

Is the D: drive one of the 120GB IDE drives? If so, did it ever have XP installed? And again, if so, perhaps it is still marked as active, confusing XP?

Lots of is so's here...

 

[paulstorey]

Yes the drive is one of the 120Gb IDE drives but are used for data and games rather than OS. All drives have been formatted since installation in the new system. All drives have also been put back in the old machine and tested and are all fine (full surface scans etc) (and formatted before going in the new system again).


One drive did have XP on but that was a long time ago and has since been formatted.

 

[wolluf]

Did it have XP on when you first set up this machine? If it did, XP will have just used its boot sector for new install. So if you later formatted the drive, you'd remove the boot sector - so getting Disk boot failure message.

If I were setting this up, I'd leave the data drives completely disconnected while I installed XP - then connect them when that's all complete.

 

[paulstorey]

No, there was no OS on the drives as before going into this machine they were running individually and not as a raid so when I created the Raid it started blank. During XP install I also choose to do a full format. The other drives are installed after install. I am going to disconnect the other drives tomorrow evening (except the CDRom which I will move to l: (or higher) and update on if this fixed the problem (I suspect I wont get the error as no other drive will be issued the MBR leaving the original C: MBR intact)

 

[garebo]

Im just wondering if there is a bios setting that is causing this.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[paulstorey]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Have just verified all the bios settings and all appear correct. Have checked IDE and SATA configs, boot priority and drive priority and all appear correct so doesnt appear to be that but just in case I am going to check for any BIOS updates later

 

[garebo]

This is a total guess here, so you can ignore it if you want. I just wonder if there is some command in your autoexec or config files causing this. Its way out, but there doesnt seem to be an answer so far, so maybe have a look at them.

Its been mentioned, but i dont know if its been totally resolved yet. Have you made sure the second, slave hard drive is not set as active?

Finally, check in computer management, most especially event viewer, to see if there are any messages that might point you in the right direction.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[paulstorey]

I have been investigating this over the weekend and could do with some further help!

I removed all non essential drives and left the DVDR, the Raid Drive (OS) and the Floppy and still get the fault. What i did by accident though on one reboot I forgot to press the key to start XP install to get to the recovery console. When i misssed it the machine boots fine. If the xp cd is not in the drive it wont boot!

Have checked the autoexec.bat and config.sys which are both empty (and at this point i presume the problem is happening before then anyway).

The system logs and application logs are both free from any relevant error (and I have got rid of the other minor errors just in case)

I have also changed the CDRom drive letter assignment to verify and if the XP cd is not in the drive the machine doesnt boot (but it only appears to use the cd when waiting for a key to be pressed to start install, after that the drive is quiet and I can take the cd out halfway through boot without a problem)

Now I am getting used to putting the XP CD in my machine to boot it but would prefer it if I didnt have to!

Anyone any further ideas??

 

[mainegeek]

paulstorey,
Try running msconfig,click on Boot.Ini tab, click on Check All Boot Paths.

Also, check the boot sequence from with in the bios.

 

[paulstorey]

Right, have checked msconfig and there was no boot.ini (which could well be a major part of the problem!!!). Have created a boot.ini from memory & a bit of net research which reads:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

However when checking boot paths in msconfig I get the message:
It appears the following line in the BOOT.ini does not refer to a valid o/s. "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows="MS Windows XP Pro""

Would you like to remove it?

Can anyone confirm what the problem is with this before I reboot as the line follows the same path as the one above which doesnt highlight an error.

Thanks all

 

[paulstorey]

I should add, the hard drives are configured as follows:

Main C Drive contains the \Windows OS. This is a Raid Striped Drive running on an NVidia Raid controller built into the mainboard.

There are 2 IDE hard disks (D, E) running on the IDE controller as Master and Slave on the primary (both used for storage / Games)

A DVDRW on the Secondary channel configured as a Master

 

[firewolfrl]

with just the raid setup and one optical drive (DVD or CD) and floppy (NO zip)

boot to the recovery console (do you load drivers for the raid?)

try FIXMBR

in the recovery console does the drive read as C:\ ???
then install the other drives and see if the drive reads as c:\ still.
in the BIOS do you have an option of booting HD0,HD1,HD2...etc... as first boot ...try booting the other drives.

you may have a MBR for another drive that is booting your windows.

I saw this error a while back with and IBM server with win 2003 loaded and a SCSI system.... I have to find my notes on the fix. but I do remember it is the way windows was loaded and the existing boot order.

 

[paulstorey]

tried the fixmbr option on first signs of the problem. The correct OS drive is always C: (raid drive) and yes I do need to load the drivers during the cd bootup (both drivers stored on floppy (and have 2 copies of driver just in case))

Have checked the disk management util and nothing seems abnormal there. Is there a command to run on all other drives that makes sure it has no MBR?


If you have any info on how you resolved the issue it would be great as I think its something to do with the way the BIOS sees the drives / raid and the way windows sees it. (I have a suspision that XP might look at the other HDs which may get some form of priority on the IDE channel (this is only a theory!)

 

[Freestone]

Is the first partition on the RAID drive a PRIMARY partition and is it marked as ACTIVE?

 

[firewolfrl]

here is an idea...if you have a spare drive... load windows on it....then load the drives for the raid and make sure that test drive is the first boot drive.

run this drive for the time frame that it takes to lose the raid.

then if the raid is still intact . and running fine then and the computer boots without the errors . I kinda suspect that you have a MBR/MFT that may be hitting a corrupt bit in only one drive. that is located in the MBR at the beginning of the hard drive. The way the RAID works it can hide the fault when you check the drive with the manufacture utility.

in the RAID BIOS does the HD raid read as HD0 or HD1???

if HD0 is what it reads then your BIOS should read HD0 as first boot in the BIOS


you sound knowledgable so I know you set the raid master

this may work ....you will have to reload everything
dissolve the RAID...reverse the SATA plugins on the drives.

Zero both drives

remake the RAID (now the secondary drive will be master) make sure you DO NOT make the previous RAID master as RAID master again

On the reload of windows.... make sure there are no other drives other than the DVD and floppy.

did the drive have issues before on load of windows??? (reboot portion of the xp install)

MBR may not be the issue but maybe in what order the drives read and what the MBR wants as the active setup.


try the reload/ZERO option after you have exhausted everything else.


Good Luck

 

[paulstorey]

Ok, thanks for the advice, will pick up a spare drive from work this week and test it at the weekend and let you know

 

[pcbuilderman]

I had this similar situation happening to one of my customers, except after doing the fix a few times, it would finally not come back at all. He had multiple drives as well, but I noticed they were installed right next to each other in the system. I felt the drives and they burning hot. It turns out he was burning up the drives and losing his operating system.