[Verifying DMI Pool Data message when booting]

I have a strange behavior over the last couple of days, I either have a slow boot up mind you not all the time and on 2 occasions it would not boot into Win XP Pro it hang on: "Verifying DMI Pool Data" after some time then it will display "Disk Boot Failure,Insert System Disk And Press Enter.
Powering off and unplugging the power on the wall for 5 -10 minutes will result in a successful boot. When in Windows nothing appears to be wrong with Windows all runs well as usual.
But I have discovered now by sheer coincidence that one of my Optical drives I have 2 installed when loaded with a CD or DVD it will not eject the CD by pressing the eject button it will start reading the CD again yet if I click on Eject from within Explorer it will eject and also when there is no disk loaded it will as normal open and close as many times as I like.
Could there be a link to it slowing or hanging at verifying DMI pool data????
At the time when the problem was occurring I did have my Nero InCD in the drive it normally lives in there, there is no problem reading or writing to the CD. I have removed it now and it has not happened again yet, but it was intermittent before as well.
Any ideas on this

 

Sorry about the not meaningful subject, best that came to mind at the time.
When my system started to hang more often almost every time on boot up with "Verifying DMI Pool Data" and after a few minutes by "Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter" but nothing would happen when I did I thought that I had a isolated problem with this machine. Well I could not have been more wrong after searching and reading up this problem that has been around since Windows 95 I realized that it is about as common as the Common Cold with about as many recommendations to cure.
I have spend more than 6 hr. reading on possible fixes from suggestions by a Systems Administrator that it could be a new type of Virus or Malware as 3 PC's in his pool suddenly had this problem numerous people just dump their motherboard in pure frustration many re-partition and Format the HDD but the big Finger points at the BIOS and general hardware problems.
The symptoms are very varied as well some will not boot at all others like mine would boot after 1 or two reboots. When the message on my PC would come up with CD Boot couldn't find NTLDR I thought that I would need a System Disk and re-load the MBR.
But the lazy bugger that I am I thought I start with the easy one first and that was loading the BIOS, Paper and Pen in hand to write down the settings before I changed anything. I changed the Boot sequence to the old fashioned way of
1.floppy
2.cd-rom
3.hard drive
than I changed back to "Fail Safe Default" and re-booted and it flew through the sequence of verifying Pool Data.
I have turned the the system on and off many times now without faulting.
I don't know witch change fixed it, but I still have my suspicions about the Optical Drive that I mentioned at the beginning of the thread and when I can lay my hands on a new one will replace it and go back to Optimal settings in the BIOS.
I made a long Story out of this I know but after reading the things people do when faced with this problem it pays not to jump to the extreme measures to start off with especially Formatting and re-installing Windows as it is most likely not Windows related because it occurs before Windows is loaded.
Hope this will help someone not knowing where to start.

 

Hawk, this may be related to your other thread about Defrag:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=72080

The problem may be...filling up your drive or filling it with fragmented files.

Learn the maximum of the size and number of the recording files you can make for the freespace on your drive.

If you get any error messages from the recording program, then you have overloaded the drive.

If you record a 1 hour TV program, expect at least 1GB of drive space to be used (running High Definition settings will be the crux I expect).

I am not sure, but you may be able to record at lower settings (lower definition) to stop fragmenting and overfilling your drive.

Don't record to the limits of your drive.

Matt
Last edited by mattman...Edit: see what happens if you do not edit the ads. Editing chews ups lots of resources.

 

Hi Matt, no these are 2 different PC's, and no I don't overload the drive well I don't think I do.
But I have to do a lot of deleting in order not to, as a general rule I don't go below 30% free.
I do record in HD and you might be surprised a 1 hr show recorded off the TV in AC3 audio takes a hefty 4.4 to 4.8 Gig. Minus the Ads 2 to 3 Gig. The quality is very good both on the TV and the Monitor 22" LCD.

 

Oops, my bad

 

Just things that come to mind.

During a period when you may not need the optical drive, disconnect it for as many startups as you can.

You don't mention it, but you should run the HDD manufacturer's utilities on the (boot) drive. You mentioned the MBR, most manufacturer's utilities have the ability to make a backup of the MBR. If there are signs of any impending disasters, I make a backup. Some have an "Update MBR" option which has saved the data on a few HDDs for me, but I always backup first.

If I see those sorts of errors, I might suspect the partitioning (MBR) and if I decide to rebuild the partitions I use the HDD manufacturer's drive setup utilities, not third party utilities (like Partition Magic) or even the Windows (diskpart) system. I also ensure there is only one HDD in the computer during setup and Windows installation.

If you again find the problem using Optimal settings in the BIOS, go through the settings in the motherboard manual and find the setting Quick Boot or Quick Start (it should have the word Quick) and disable it. That will make the system do a full POST and give the one beep "OK ".

Matt