System can't boot. 1

[treddie]

Howdie.

I have a curious XP SP3 boot failure (curious to me, anyway). I was trying to watch a .wmv video file and my system hung up and the sound coming out of my speakers was a loud buzz. I had to shut down via the power switch. After that, my system will get to the splash screen, but never gets passed it to complete the boot process.

So then, I tried the following:

1. Booting into Safe Mode (same problem, after it looked
like all of my drivers loaded OK).

2. Booting from my Windows install disk, to see if maybe I
could restore or re-install Windows, but I got a blue
screen error:
"STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF78B2524, ...........)

3. Tried booting from my SystemSuite 9 Recovery Disk and
got an "Disk I/O error. ECC error during read". That
tells me corrupted data.

4. Tried booting from my Partition Magic 8 floppy and got
a "CRC error in data" message when I tried to check the
partition for errors. That also tells me corrupted
data.

5. Tried booting from my ShadowProtect CD and got a blue
screen with the following error:
"A problem has been detected...blah, blah, blah"
"DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL"
"...STOP: 0x000000D1 (0x000...)
"iastor.sys - Address BBF3A25F... base at...

This error looks like a hard disk driver issue, or at
least a problem reading the drive.

6. Tried booting with my NTFS4DOS floppy and could at
least read the directory structure. Running CHKDSK /F,
the following resulted:
a. Stage 1 (verifying files) finished OK.
b. Stage 2 (verifying indexes) failed at about 55%
with the error, "An unspecified error occured".

I am trying to avoid reformatting and using my ShadowProtect partition image, as once that is started, there is no going back, if in fact there is some way to restore the OS as it stands.

Windows XP SP3
Fujitsu N-Series laptop, dual core 2MHz.
2Gb RAM


Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Best regards.

 

[goombawaho]

Download and burn the Ultimate Boot CD
Step 1. Do a memory test from that CD
Step 2. Run the diagnostic utility from your hard drive manufacturer from that CD.

Do the simple stuff first - determine if memory and hard drive are okay. These should be the very first steps in most troubleshooting "strange" errors. Hardware problem trump all software problems and must be ruled out first. Report back.

But if hard drive has errors, try to get data off ASAP.

 

[treddie]

Thank you very much for your reply, goombawaho. I'll give your suggestion a try.

I'm not TOO worried about the data since I am well backed up. It's just that if my drive image (with MBR) fails to work (I've never had the opportunity to check yet whether ShadowProtect REALLY works when the fat lady sings), then I have to re-install the OS and all of my apps which would be a drag.

I'll report back.

 

[treddie]

The memory tests went OK (MemTest86 v3.3 and DocMem), but I could not check the hardrive,since the Ultimate Boot CD does not support SATA.

 

[goombawaho]

That's not correct - it boots in any system and some (if not all) of the manufacturer's diagnostic tests DO support their SATA hard drives. I've used it before on SATA drives.

How did you go about using the UBCD and trying the diagnostic tests? You also find your manufacturer specific utility and put it on a floppy and use an external USB floppy drive or burn it directly to a CD if they have one that is bootable. What is your brand and model of hard drive???

I've had problems with USB keyboards in some of the tests, but not a SATA issue.

 

[treddie]

Well...kind of, from what I can tell here. The Fujitsu Diagnostic Tool apparently only supports ATA (my corrupted drive is a 160Mb Fujitsu SATA). Salvation Scan can't find either of my 2 SATA drives, MHDD32 says drives not ready, VIVARD, second from the bottom of the list...hm...is testing it now, so out of the list of diag tools, this one seems to be doing a scan OK. I'll report back as this test will take a while to complete.

TestDisk got in OK, but when I tried to copy files to the other harddrive, it wouldn't let me select anything but the floppy (which is WAY too small for big files).

One question for you. Just having been introduced to UBCD, and ASSUMING that I truly DO have CRC errors, can any of the tools patch up CRC errors enough so that a harddrive will boot, or be mounted by the system? My CRC errors are located about 50% through various scans (not from the UBCD disk), which tells me that the errors are not in the boot sector, either copy of the NTFS MBR at start/end of drive, and TestDisk is telling me that not only do the MBRs match, but that the MFT is OK. I am also assuming that some virus has not overwritten BOTH copies of the MBR with identical garbage.

Anyway, I am new to data recovery of this extent, so my knowledge definitely has holes in it.

By the way, I tested my ShadowProtect drive image on another drive and it works great, so my system is up and running, but I DO have some files that I need to get off the second partition of the bad drive. Beyond that, I am having fun with this and learning some great, new stuff!

 

[treddie]

The VIVARD scan verifies what I suspected earlier that I have errors about midway through the drive. 2 errors were detected in the same spot in the scan. Whether these represent actual defects in the media is another question.

Would I be correct in assuming that I will need some program to patch that spot so that at least if that means certain files are completely corrupted, that at least I can probably retrieve what I need from the majority of the drive, and better yet get the drive to mount, if not boot?

 

[treddie]

Just answered my own question....VIVARD offered a remap capability to remove the bad sector from use. So I did that and the drive finally came up and scandisk was able to sort it out. And the drive boots now, too.

I have backed up all my important stuff from the partitions and am going to relegate the old drive to backup duty (with a frequent scandisk and media scan each week to see how it is doing).

Your suggestion to get UBCD was a Godsend, goombawaho! Once I learned my way around the disk, I realized there is a lot there down in the subdirectories. Very much a vital piece for anyone's personal disk toolkit. So thank you very much for the tip.

So I guess my final question is what is it about a .wmv file and Windows Media Player that can corrupt a harddrive that bad simply by playing?! I had this same thing happen to me about 3 years ago with a NASA video (a reputable source and not likely to harbor a virus). A rare occurrence, but still scary. Makes me want to stay away from .wmv's altogether.

 

[goombawaho]

Good deal and great that you got through it by yourself. I use the UBCD all the time as a first step in troubleshooting customer PC problems. If something flaky is going on, I always test memory first and then hard drive. Then I can move on to more "windows" issues.

I wouldn't trust that drive too much if I were you - even for backup duty. But, if it's not your only backup, then I guess you can put data on there.

 

[treddie]

Yah, it's more of a fourth backup actually. At least I can monitor it and watch its behavior to see if it was a Windows issue or a harddrive issue.

But assuming it was Windows related, why would a Windows Media operation cause it? Like I say, this has happened before with the same consequences. I didn't go into the full details, but in both cases, the system lockup and the freeze on the current movie frame, with audio repeating over and over for that frame (the "buzz"), occurred about twice before the final hardrive "coma". Because the previous event years ago was new to me, I didn't think it was any big deal, so I played the video a second time and that time killed my system.

This time, the problem occurred with two different videos over a couple of weeks. When it happened on the first video, I rebooted and through it in the trash. The second video killed me.

 

[goombawaho]

That's tough to say - what happened/why. I'd try to play the same video again on a different system (different hard drive and windows installation) just to put your mind at rest as to whether it's video related (the type of file and/or codec needed).

If it happens again, then it wasn't hard drive related at all. Then I'd try to play it with VideoLAN - VLC media player. It plays just about anything without any drama or errors.

 

[treddie]

I have VLC, too. I'll test it out. Though it seems it could also be an intermittent bug in WMP. If that's the case, that could be near impossible to nail down, waiting for the magic moment. But if I stay with VLC here on out, that perhaps is the best test in the long run.