Computer won't boot: "A problem has been detected...."

Major problem here. I'm having to write this on my wife's laptop because my desktop won't boot. I've been away for most of the past month, on a European Christmas Markets tour (Austria, Germany and Switzerland) and then to visit various friends and family within a 200-mile radius for Christmas and New Years. That's kept me from getting some changes made for problems I'd reported here before I left and making an SP2 streamlined startup disk.

Here's what's been happening. I have my desktop set up to run a NAV scan early each Friday morning before I get up. The last time it worked right was in late November. After I got back from Europe I found my computer frozen the first Friday morning and a Windows Error Report telling me the problem was with IdeChnDr.sys (Intel Storage Driver). Rebooted, everything fine. For the next week the few times I was home all was OK until the next Friday the same thing happened, system stuck during a NAV scan. I decided to delete that one file, then ran a C:\ drive only scan. Stalled at some other points, C:\I386\DRMKAUD.SYS and C:\I386\DRVMAIN.SDB. Deleted them, and the next week went OK. Yesterday the NAV scan freeze reoccurred and that Windows Error messsage reappeared and I decided to delete that Intel file. Rebooted, and instead of the Desktop coming up, there was a BSOD saying, "A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer."

All attempts to reboot since then have produced that same BSOD message.

I've tried restarting with every one of the options in F2 and F12. Nothing works, all resulting in that same BSOD message. I have the original Dell Windows XP reinstallation disk as well as the Dell Drivers and Utilities disk which contains a system diagnostic test. Ran the latter and got some results I'm not sure how to interpret. Most tests passed, including the IDE Disk 0 - Device Self Test. But the IDE Disk 0 - Read Test and IDE Disk 0 - Verify Test both failed, reporting Result Code: 0F00-1A44 and some Msg: Block xxxxx numbers along with "Uncorrectable date error or media is write protected." Would that indicate a toasted hard drive? Or a problem with corrupted files? Since my HDD is partitioned into C,D,E and F drives, can I assume the problem is with only the C: drive and try to fix it?

I eventually found a way to get to a C:\ prompt. A chkdsk /r scan finds and fixes "one or more problems." If I run that scan repeatedly, will it fix additional problems each time or is it fixing the same one(s) over and over again?

Since none of the above worked, in desparation I attempted a WinXP reinstall. Everything seemed to go OK, and when it finished and rebooted I expected the Desktop to appear. Nope. Same BSOD message again.

I've learned how to get to a C:\WINDOWS prompt, and I can cd to a C:\ prompt. Any difference?

The specs for my system are in my signature, below. Windows XP and all malware programs are up to date, although ZA is an older version, the latest not getting along with Spybot. Since I can't properly boot up, I can't post an HJT log or get on-line to run a TrendMicro Housecall scan or anything else. I have the system at a C:\ prompt now, and the only commands it knows are the most basic ones. I tried a sfc /scannow, but it wasn't recognized. I'll check for your replies, using this laptop. Hope somebody has some ideas and that the news isn't too bad.

 

I don't think you have a toasted HDD but you could have hosed your operating system. Maybe you've heard it before but, "deleting" critical system files can render your machine "hopeless ". Try starting up while continually tapping the F8 key and see if you can get to startup options. If you eventually get there, select last known good configuration and pray.

If no go, you'll have to do a repair install when you can get your hands on slipstreamed SP2 CD. Running chkdsk at this point probably isn't going to do you much good and you need to start thinking about whats on your machine and how important it is to you. If you know the exact name of every file you "deleted ", you might still be salvageable.

Lets sit tight until you can get some other knowledgeable opinions, comments or suggestions. Take a break and pour yourself a little filtered potato juice.



Not a real good situation.

 

You are throwing a STOP 0x7B error:

This is going to prove to be a hard disk issue in your case. This does not necessarily mean the drive itself. I would be at this point just as suspect of your controller, and the cables between the motherboard edge connectors and the drive.

Prescription

• Go to the website of the hard drive manufacturer and download their diagnostic/setup disk. Most create a bootable floppy or CD image.
• Open the case. Carefully trace the wide cable that goes from your drive to the motherboard (and not the power supply). Carefully remove the cable end from the drive. Carefully reinsert it. Similarly, follow the cable to its motherboard end. Carefully remove the cable end from the motherboard. Carefully reinsert it. The cables only work in one orientation, so be sure you reinsert the cable just as you originally found it.
• Now run the drive manufacturer's utility. Start with the diagnostic test. Write down any error messages or numbers it may show. This is very important. Run the Non Destructive diagnostic testing, and if available, repair utilities. There usually are destructive tests as well. Please do not use them.
  
• If the diagnostic utility will not pass the drive, call the drive manufacturer Tech Support or Dell. They can interpret the codes to see if it is a drive issue, a drive controller issue, or the motherboard controller interface to the drive controller.
• Discuss with them your options.

You will not get enough information back from NTLDR at startup for you to distinguish between a bad drive, a bad controller, or a bad driver set. The information from the drive manufacturer diagnostic will tell the Tech Support folks which issue is causing the problem.

While waiting for some resolution of your issue, boot with your XP CD and enter Recovery Console.

Recovery Console has a version of chkdsk that differs importantly from that of the OS version.

Inside recovery console type:
chkdsk /r

Chkdsk will not "fix" something that a previous chkdsk already fixed. It might however show new failing areas, and repair them.

See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

You can safely run chkdsk /r several times. If you pull a clean run after one of these attempts, type:

attrib -r -s -h c:\boot.ini
bootcfg /Rebuild
fixmbr
fixboot
exit

Now remove the CD and try a normal start.

 

Thanks for the replies.

Rockster2U: I think I know the names of the files I deleted. Before dumping them I Googled each of them and saw that they're either Outlook Express files (which I never use and may have deleted long ago) or files that are not Windows core files, so I thought it was safe to get rid of them.

F8's Last known good configuration is one of the many I've tried that only gets me that BSOD message.

I have CD's backing up most the important data files but not all of them are right up to date. Most such files are in drives D and E, which right now I can't get access to.

Bill Castner: I think getting to the Recovery Console is one of the things that didn't work, just returning me to the BSOD message. (I've tried so many different things, I'm not sure I correctly remember now which option I selected that did enable me to get to a C:\ prompt. Whichever one it is, the chkdsk run doesn't produce a final fix.)

The script you wrote (attrib -r -s -h c:\boot.ini., etc.) didn't work -- "The parameter is not valid." Attrib is one of the commands available. I thought maybe the parameters should be preceded by a "\" or a "/" rather than a "-" and tried them, too, but they both resulted in the same reaction.

I haven't opened the computer case yet to check the cables or to see what brand my HDD is. I think it's a Maxtor but not sure, and the invoice that came with the computer says everything but who made it.

LATER: I checked your MS Support link regarding the Recovery Console, went to my desktop and exited the C:\ prompt to find out what happens when clicking on the Recovery Console option. What happens is the screen goes blank with a dash or hyphen blinking rapidly in the upper left-hand corner. Can't do anything with it. What does enable me to get to a C:\ prompt is Boot device menu Option #4: IDE CD-ROM Device. With the Win XP reinstallation disk in place, it runs a long set-up operation that ends in a DOS-like screen with a C:\WINDOWS prompt.

LATER YET: Checking more carefully, it turns out that the C:\ prompt I've been getting to is in the Recovery Console after all. That's where I ran the chkdsk /r scans. The /cmdcons idea sounds promising, but how do it run it? And is there supposed to be a space after the "/ "?

 

You do not need to worry about /CMDCOMS now. Get the drive to boot normally first. You cannot throw a 0x7B error trying to run Recovery Console unless the CD you are using is scratched or otherwise unreadable.

But the answer is yes, there is a space before /CMDCOMS

See my earlier notes about how to proceed with Recovery Console to attempt a repair.

 

No really good news here.

I opened the computer case and checked the cable connections. They seem OK. I had to remove the HDD to see what brand it is, and it's a Maxtor as I suspected. Put things back together and closed the case, then tried a bootup just hoping there'd been only a bad cable connection. Same old BSOD message.

Used my wife's laptop to get to Maxtor's Web site, found and downloaded the file I think is the right one and burned a CD. Don't have Roxio's Easy CD Creator on this laptop, although it is on my defunct desktop. Lot of good that does me. Started up with the CD in, and had a choice of "strike F1 to retry boot," which didn't do anything at all, or "F2 for setup utility." That brought up a screen that looks to me like a BIOS setup utility but doesn't allow me to do anything I think will be helpful.

The Maxtor utility file has an .iso extension, and this laptop is unfamiliar with it so I found a WinImage80 program that's supposed to be helpful. I downloaded it but there doesn't seem to be any text file that explains how to use it.

The Maxtor site visit produced a concern. If this CD I've burned is the right one, and if I do figure out how to use it correctly, is it going to enable me to do some specific repair tasks or is it going to in effect reformat my entire HDD, zapping everything presently on it and then requiring a reinstall of Win XP and everything else? I'm hoping to be able to work on just the C:\ drive. If not, I might as well forget trying to fix this HDD and just get myself a larger new one.

And that raises another question. If I can't fix this HDD, if I did get a new one and installed it, could I also install this old one as a slave drive and use the new one to somehow do the fixing and get at the programs and files in the D, E and F drives? And maybe even in the C:\ drive?

Mentioning my currect F:\ drive reminds me of something. In the past I put copies of several downloaded programs and data files in that drive, and 2 or 3 months ago I copied the Windows, System, and System32 folders and maybe also the I386 folder from the C:\ drive as a sort of backup. If I could ever boot up, I could access those folders and the files in them to replace any that are now missing or corrupted in the C:\ drive. I tried doing that yesterday. When I was working in the Recovery Console, one step I took found 2 copies of Windows on the HDD, the one in C and the one in F. I tried to copy the one in F to C, but COPY isn't one of the available commands. So close, yet so far.

Today I tried again to run that "attrib -r -s -h c:\boot.ini" script. Same "peramater is not valid" result. I wondered if maybe I wasn't supposed to enter all that in one line and tried entering the parts sequentially. It didn't backfire, but it caused some later lines to appear as bootup options. I removed the Dell CD and rebooted. Yep. BSOD.

Right now I'm stumped. I've tried a lot of things, some of them I knew what I was doing, others I didn't. I see two possibilities left. You'll see where I didn't do something right or will suggest something new, or I'll have to admit defeat and will take the computer to a local tech shop I've gone to with previous machines and been satisfied with. Any hope?

 

First things first.

• There is no way a copy from \i386 or any backup folder will resolve this issue. So put that possibility out of your mind.
• The Maxtor utility ISO:
  See these small freeware utilities to burn from an .ISO image to a bootable CD: http://www.petri.co.il/how_to_write_iso_files_to_cd.htm
• Please follow the instructions earlier exactly as written. If you have a problem at any point in the steps, Stop, and advise me. Jumping ahead when you are stopped at an earlier point is not going to help me help you.
• While I admire user initiative and creativity, hard drive issues such as yours are not one I particularly welcome. Please, you can color outside-the-lines once we get you a bootable computer. But not before.
• Remember that your issue can just as easily be a motherboard problem as the actual hard disk drive. I am attempting to isolate where the problem lies. Please be patient.

 

I appreciate your patience and tolerance and staying with me on this problem.

I made some progress this time. I downloaded and installed the ISO Recorder program and burned a CD for the Maxtor bootable CD utility. Ran it with these results:

Installation Confirmation: OK

Basic Quick Test: All 6 tests passed.

Advanced Test (Full Read Scan): !!!WARNING!!!
Errors have been detected on your drive. PowerMax can attempt to repair these errors. The data on these sectors may be lost by running the repair. In most cases the date is already unreadable and unrecoverable. PLEASE BACKUP ALL YOUR DATA BEFORE RUNNING THE REPAIR.
Continue? Yes No

Do we know more now than we did before? What's the next move?

 

Yes, we have learned quite a bit.

. your motherboard IDE controller for this drive is fine
. your cabling is fine
. the controller on the hard drive itself is fine
. there are surface errors on the disk.

Suggestion:

• These "hard" errors are not worth recovering. What matters most is that we can skip around them, and the the hard errors are not on XP System files;
• Let the Maxtor "fix" the errors.
• Write down the general error messages as you have done. Continue to record any error # and general message. We want these if we have to use a Warranty RMA of the drive;
• When the Maxtor utility finishes, remove its CD. Replace it with the XP CD. Reboot and go to Recovery Console.
• Now follow my earlier steps, beginning with: "While waiting for some resolution of your issue, boot with your XP CD and enter Recovery Console. "

 

I clicked on Yes and the repair took a fraction of a second. Present Advanced Test (Full Read Scan) result: Passed

Next in line are:
Burn In Test
Low Level Format (Full)
Low Level Format (Quick)
Select Another Drive
Contact Maxtor

Do I proceed with any of them or do I remove the Maxtor CD, replace it with the XP CD, reboot and go to Recovery Console "?

 

Bumping this thread up in case my post last night has been overlooked, mostly wondering what step(s) I should take next to get my computer working again.

 

No, don't do any more of those items! They'll hose your data. Follow Bill's directions in his other posts now:

and then:

Do all that to the letter and you may get lucky. Report back your results.

 

OK, removed the Maxtor bootable CD, put in the XP CD and rebooted, got to the Recovery Console and ran a chkdsk /r scan. It came up clean, so I entered the attrib -r -s -h c:\boot.ini command exactly as the instructions show, all on one line. As before, it results in a "The parameter is not valid" reply. That was from the C:\Windows prompt, so I did a cd c:\ and ran the same command from the C:\ prompt. Same result. What is it about the instructions I'm doing wrong, and what's the right way to follow them?

 

Skip the step and continue with the next.
It is just saying it cannot find c:\boot.ini

The next steps rebuild the file.

 

That command caused a scan for Windows installations and it found 2, as it should (in C:\ and F:\). Here's what it said:

The Windows installation scan was successful.

Note: These results are stored statistically for this session. If the disk configuration changes during this session, in order to get an updated scan, you must first reboot the machine and then rescan the disks.

Total identified Windows installs: 2

[1]: C:\WINDOWS
Add installation to boot list? (Yes/No/All):

That's where it is now. Everything OK with that? What should I do next?

 

Answer Yes. (type "yes'" and press enter)

Refuse the same question (say NO)for F: for the time being.

Close out, remove CD and reboot.

 

I did that (answered Y), and now it says:

Enter Load Identifier:

What's that? Is there an answer I should enter, or do I type "exit "?

 

Type Windows XP and press enter. Then exit the RC by typing exit and pressing enter.

 

Did that, but it keeps throwing surprises at me. Now it says:

Enter OS Load Options:

Is there something I should enter, or should I exit?

 

Please do not exit.
Just hit return