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View Full Version : HELP? Can Not Start windows , harware or configuration problem ~



Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 1:48 PM
I have a question for all you PC teckies out here ~
My friend has a PC desktop , running windows XP and everything has been working fine- then last night , he gets this error -

"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.

Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.

Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information."


He can't even run the PC in safe mode, restore- any of the other options that come up on the screen?


He is just getting into the PC world and the WWW - so I am thinking he may have done something without realizing possibly, but I don't know. What could be the problem here- I was thinking his read arm on the hard drive landed on the disk and crashed the system? usually the LED indicators for the hard drive are yellow when operating ,he told me they were red in color sporadically when starting and then go back to yellow, it also changes the power button on the PC from the usual blue to yellow which tells me that it went into hibernation mode- I can't seem to narrow this one down and usually I am pretty good at solving certain PC issues.

Any help would be greatly appreciated- he's very frustrated, been there , done that- no fun-:mad:
thank you
Brian

Joe Pelonio
12-07-2007, 2:10 PM
If he can find it, he should be able to boot from the original system disc or restore disc. Then the system will tell him if the hard drive is not available.

I have had this happen where somehow the drive was corrupted but not dead, and was able to reformat and reinstall windows. Unfortunately all data is lost and hopefully he would have backups, and original discs for all program software.

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 2:24 PM
Joe,
the red dot comes up on the led indicator for the hard drive and yellow- usually goes yellow back and forth - there are 2 led indicators.
any suggestions~

Chuck Wintle
12-07-2007, 2:27 PM
Brian,

Can your friend boot from the Windows XP cd? Can he go through to the repair console? To me it sounds like the hard drive has failed. But as you say he may have done something inadvertently and messed things up.

If it was me I would run a diagnostic on the hard drive and if if it came up clean then wipe the drive and reinstall windows. :)

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 2:38 PM
over the phone I directed him to do just that- insert the windows XP disk and press R after all the set up files have gone through- not even responding to that- it's as if it doesn't recognize the disk- all this is telling me between the Red dot on the hard drive indicator and not booting from the CD drive is that we have a crash on our hands- unfortunately. this was my old SONY Pentium III 1000 - great machine and it is 9 years old - with a TV card /DVD burner - 2 bays - I just sold it to him 2 weeks ago for 200 and I feel bad that this happened to him- but ka-ka happens - then again he had no virus protection at all- nothing ~ and he was going all over the place on the net- and he called me and told me that he was having some funny things happening to his computer. I told him from the beginning to get some ant virus/spam - the hole nine yards-. So I went with him and got "Spy doctor" the full suite and it found 149 infections and several "Trojans" labeled severe- now it removed them - but I was told that these viruses or "Trojans" can even cause hard drive failure- is this true?
Brian

patrick anderson
12-07-2007, 2:51 PM
This may be a fix for you as I've had it happen before. It was a corrupt ini file

If you have a spare hard drive with a windows installation on it, fit it to the computer and use connect the one that's not booting on the next cable connector.

Fire it up and see if it boots from the disk and if does you can then have windows repair the ini files on the other one.

Dave Sinkus
12-07-2007, 2:56 PM
Isn't there a "hit F8 before..." routine that gets you into the BIOS settings for the PC? You want to make sure it is checked to boot from CD.....the boot sequence is usually hard drive then CD-ROM. It sounds like something changed the bios, virus, Trojan, etc.......A hard drive failure might have been noticable before the last shutdown. You may want to visit the Sony website for a copy of the BIOS for the MB and try to refresh it.

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 3:06 PM
How would I lead it to boot from CD- I am going over there shortly- any help would be greatly appreciated. usually when you hit any key during start up and the windows xp disk is in- it will boot from that - but it is not doing that -?

Dave Sinkus
12-07-2007, 3:17 PM
or F2 as you power up. Apparently from a web site I was searching, those are the Sony keys to enter BIOS setup or diagnostics.

Typically you have a section in the BIOS/setup/configuration program for the motherboard on boot up sequence......once you have installed, in this case XP, you will have it check the hard drive first for a boot file, then CD.

Something may have screwed up the BIOS or changed/corrupted that file and it is not recognizing any of the peripherals. This is a good routine to check if the basics of the motherboard are working......if you can get into BIOS setup, at least that part is working.

HTH. I'll Google on that model, but as old as it is, one of the vacuum tubes may have failed :)

Dave Sinkus
12-07-2007, 3:21 PM
During the initial boot of a computer the BIOS supplier will be displayed. If OEM logo splash screen is displayed, press ESC key to see the boot up information. Press the Pause/Break key if text displays too fast.

When it first starts to boot up, try hitting F3, or F2. If you get a logo screen, hit ESC, then F3. I say F2 because that was listed for a different Sony model.

From this web site:http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt-2000-xp/449901-sony-pc-bios.html

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 3:22 PM
vacue tubes--- what was i thinking- maybe ne of those went-LOL
thanks dave,-what am I looking for if and when I get to that screen dave.

Dave Sinkus
12-07-2007, 3:25 PM
Do you have a model # for the Sony .. . . .1000 . . . . .?

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 3:27 PM
Where there- know where to we go from here?

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 3:28 PM
Pcv Rx 280ds-

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 3:30 PM
i am on the phone with him write now

Chuck Wintle
12-07-2007, 3:32 PM
over the phone I directed him to do just that- insert the windows XP disk and press R after all the set up files have gone through- not even responding to that- it's as if it doesn't recognize the disk- all this is telling me between the Red dot on the hard drive indicator and not booting from the CD drive is that we have a crash on our hands- unfortunately. this was my old SONY Pentium III 1000 - great machine and it is 9 years old - with a TV card /DVD burner - 2 bays - I just sold it to him 2 weeks ago for 200 and I feel bad that this happened to him- but ka-ka happens - then again he had no virus protection at all- nothing ~ and he was going all over the place on the net- and he called me and told me that he was having some funny things happening to his computer. I told him from the beginning to get some ant virus/spam - the hole nine yards-. So I went with him and got "Spy doctor" the full suite and it found 149 infections and several "Trojans" labeled severe- now it removed them - but I was told that these viruses or "Trojans" can even cause hard drive failure- is this true?
Brian

The trojans/viruses can mess up windows to the point that it will no longer boot but not to the point of ruining the drive, in my experience. If the drive is still good then it can be zero filled, formatted and reinstalled with windows.

Its more likely the drive has failed or the BIOS is messed up. It could also be a motherboard failure or even the CPU. Can your friend access the BIOS at all? What kind of drive is it?

Dave Sinkus
12-07-2007, 3:33 PM
So you at least have a somewhat working BIOS on the MotherBoard.

There are usually categories like Diagnostics....basic is this device talking or not. You could check the hard drive that way.

A category for boot sequence.....if you are going to have to boot from CD, I would change the sequence to check the CD-ROM drive first. save, then power off/on.

If you get to where it can boot from the CD, you can start the repair process.
Hope this helps.

David Epperson
12-07-2007, 3:35 PM
Almost sounds familiar. If he's running Panda as a firewall, My bet would be that he allowed Microsoft to install updates to XP. I unfortunatly found out that this can do some serious FAT corruption. I also had to get another hard drive and reinstall Windows on it. Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing physically wrong with the original drive. Other that it will not boot and there are some sectors "Access Denied", but all the data is still there - I've recovered some of it. And as soon as I can find an inexpensive way (recovery program) to drag the "above 640Meg" files off of it I'll reformat to run windows as the primary again.
Panda as a firewall and XP have issues.

Now if I could only find the original program discs for my wifes Family Tree Maker....

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 3:39 PM
what is he looking for - is there a place for restore default values

Chuck Wintle
12-07-2007, 3:41 PM
Almost sounds familiar. If he's running Panda as a firewall, My bet would be that he allowed Microsoft to install updates to XP. I unfortunatly found out that this can do some serious FAT corruption. I also had to get another hard drive and reinstall Windows on it. Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing physically wrong with the original drive. Other that it will not boot and there are some sectors "Access Denied", but all the data is still there - I've recovered some of it. And as soon as I can find an inexpensive way (recovery program) to drag the "above 640Meg" files off of it I'll reformat to run windows as the primary again.
Panda as a firewall and XP have issues.

Now if I could only find the original program discs for my wifes Family Tree Maker....

David,
Try the free program "Test Disk"(google that). I have used it in the past and it bailed me out. Its easy to use to.

Chuck Wintle
12-07-2007, 3:43 PM
what is he looking for - is there a place for restore default values

Brian,
In the BIOS there should be a selection to set the boot order so that he can boot from the Windows CD. also there is a place that can be checked to to find out if the computer BIOS recognizes the hard drive. At the same time, in the BIOS, he can verify the voltages from the power supply( a good idea).

Dave Sinkus
12-07-2007, 3:44 PM
Is there anything referencing the sequence it will boot from Hard Drive, CD, Floppy?

Overall there is typically a restore to defaults in there somewhere.

Also try diagnostics. There may be a quick test to see if the hard drive is alive.


P.S. This is exciting......it's like doing an apendectomy over a cell phone :)

I'm still betting that it is a vacuum tube or flux capacitor failure

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 3:44 PM
do you know

Chuck Wintle
12-07-2007, 3:46 PM
do you know

There is no diagnostics section in the BIOS.

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 3:50 PM
of items he has disabled in the bios set up utility, ???

Dave Sinkus
12-07-2007, 3:55 PM
disabled items......the key items to check are for hard drives/storage devices, cd-rom, etc.....make sure they are enabled.

Cliff Rohrabacher
12-07-2007, 4:14 PM
Put a DOS bootable floppy in the A drive and take a look at the system files.

Maybe the MBR is kerflooey.

David G Baker
12-07-2007, 4:38 PM
Brian,
I had the same thing happen to me one month to the day after I upgraded to Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 7. I spent several days on another computer researching the Internet for a fix for the problem and I tried everything to access my other computer and did not have any luck. I formated my hard drive, installed all of my software and re-installed IE7 not knowing that it caused the problem. One week later the same thing happened. This started me thinking, what was the last thing I had added or changed on my computer, it turned out that IE7 was the last change I had made. Formated my hard drive again installed all of my software and installed an older version or Internet Explorer and haven't had any problem since.
I don't know if this is your friends problem but the symptoms you described were the same as mine.

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 4:45 PM
for errors if I can't get to windows- write now it tries for a breif moment but then loops back to the options fo rsafe mode- I want to run checkdisk how do I do that- i am here with his pc write now- thanks guys- waiting your feedback - somthing is corrupted on his hard drive.- it is working by the way
Brian

Dave Sinkus
12-07-2007, 4:54 PM
chkdsk.....

Also, if you can bring it up in Safe mode.......you should be able to put the CD in and try to run the setup exec on that CD.

so far so good.....it does not appear to be hardware

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 6:33 PM
Hard drive problem- re-installed old hard drive that came with it - works! going to try and install dysfunctional drive as a slave and run check disk to try and retrieve the information and correct sectors- any opinions

patrick anderson
12-07-2007, 8:15 PM
well I was close ;)

Dave Sinkus
12-07-2007, 8:48 PM
Good news is you have successfully discovered the problem.....bad news...you may have a bad HD.

Brian Weick
12-07-2007, 11:52 PM
I installed the original hard drive that came with the computer that warned me that It was on it's way out. Now that worked - although it did tell me that I should back up my drive because the HD had some serious damage - bad sectors corrupted I would guess. So it's not the mother board, it's not the Bios - I even tried to hook the newer drive(the one that keeps looping the F8 setup) as a slave and the old one that works , made the jumper settings for slave and master , I have the master on the end of the ID tape where it's supposed to be and with both identical operating systems on there - it goes from one drive that works then to the bad drive which loops the F8 setup. I also tried to get access to the C section of the drive through an a:/> prompt - tells me invalid path- so what else could it be- I'm at a loss- when you can't even get to the drive- somethings gone haywire - somethings wrong and it is not good news. I even checked goggle for this problem - similar situations but , not exactly the same. Any suggestions at this point - i have no where else to go at this point. I checked though the f2 setup to see if it recognized the drive and it does - this is what baffles me?