need to reinstall XP???

[wh427]

I'm having problems and I'm hoping that someone here can help like (like you all have so many times before! )

I'm running XP Pro and can't get it to load. It gets as far as the splash sceen and hangs there (I've let it sit for 75 min). I've also tried to start with "Last known good conifguration"...no go. When I try to boot into safe mode it lists a whole bunch of files but hangs on the mup.sys file (I've let it sit over 60 min here). I've done a lot of reading on the web and tried many things. Reseating the RAM, Disconnecting all optical drives, disconnecting the mouse, letting the system cool down. When I boot from the XP CD I can't get the recovery console to load. I hit F6 upon entry (I have an SATA HDD) and load the SATA drivers (just like when I installed XP). When I get to the screen where I can either recover or do a new install (I've tried both), it says it's "examining" the HDD but hangs there. The HDD light flickers faintly most of the time and lights solidly for about 1 second in length about every 10 seconds. I've waited about an hour for this to un-hang but, no dice (that's long enough to "examine" a 160GB HDD, right). Anyway, I'm to the point where I think I'm just going to format my drive and reinstall (unless someone else here has an idea). Anyway, I don't really know what I need to do to do this. My HDD has several partitions, one for Win XP & related programs, one for Games & other programs, one for pics/videos, etc. All of these partitions are NTFS so, they can't been seen in DOS. What do I need to do to make this as painless as possible? I figure if I just wipe the drive with XP and reinstall it, I'm going to have problems w/ the programs on the other partitions b/c they won't be in the registry. Also, how do I go about formatting the HDD if it can't be seen in DOS? Anything else I should be asking?

Oh yeah, I have Partition Magic 8 but, unfortuantely never installed it (not like that would matter now b/c I can't get into Windows). Anyway, thanks for any help!

*EDIT*
Oh yeah, incase you guys ask, my system:
AMD XP2500+
Soyo Dragon Plus v1.0
Seagate SATA 160GB HDD
Powercolor Radeon 9800
1 stick Kingston 512MB PC3200
Enermax 350W PSU

[ghost2003]

I had something like that happen, ended up the HDD died. But I had a cheap samsung, you have a high quality drive, get diognostic tools from seagate.

[wh427]

Yeah, I thought about that but non of this stuff is over 1 month old. Also, I found a program that will allow me to read NTFS drives from DOS (to move files). When I used it, I could access all of my files so, they're there, I just can't get into windows to use them....

[wh427]

OK, I got a diagnostic tool from Seagate and ran it on my HDD. It said that there WERE errors BUT that these errors could have been caused by windows not shutting down properly. Given that I've had to resort to a hard reboot when XP hangs at the splash screen and that my HDD is only one month old, I'm going to chalk it up to that. Anyone else have ideas? If not, any info on how to reinstall WinXP w/o loosing data if I can't get the XP CD to stop "examining" my HDD?

[DragonNOA1]

Can you just do a repair install? That should keep your settings and repair your install.

[wh427]

When I try to do that, that's then I get the "examining" note I mentioned above (which I've now let sit for over 2 hours).

[wh427]

OK, I just got off the phone with Microsoft Help and even they didn't know what to do. The guy tried to get me to the recovery console via booting from the CD... result- hanging at "examining" HDD. Then he tried to repair an installation from the CD... result- hanging at "examining" the HDD. His suggestion was to disconnect the HDD and "reconfigure the hardware"... trouble is, I'VE ALREADY DONE THAT! C'mon guys, proove you're smarter than the MS help!

[trulad]

If the Seagate software say's it has errors I would RMA it to rule out a bad drive. Wouldn't be the first time one was bad right out of the box.
trulad

[Panama Red]

If you have another XP machine available, install the suspect hard drive in it. Jumper both drives to Cable Select. Copy the files you want to save to the main hard drive (master). Then run the Seagate software on the Slave positioned drive. If it comes up with errors, RMA it. If it gives you the same error message as before, try correcting it by going to Disk Management and running Chkdsk on the faulty drive. You may be able to reformat the drive from Disk Management also and do a fresh install of XP.

[glc]

You also may have a bad ram stick.

[wh427]

Hmmm.... my only other PC is running Win2k. Even if I upgraded that I'd still have to get a SATA-IDE converter b/c the motherboard in my Win2k machine can't handle SATA HDDs. Is there anyway to transfer data between a machine running Win2k and one that's running DOS (using a serial cable or something).

Also, glc, I thought it might be the memory but, it passes the test when the PC boots up (does that mean the RAM is good or, could there still be problems?). I'll try to swap it out for one of the sticks in my Win2k PC tonight.

thanks all. If anyone else has suggestions, please pass them on. I'm getting desperate

[Panama Red]

Sorry, forgot about the SATA issue. If you want to confirm the memory as good, you can make a boot disk from www.memtest86.com. Hopefully, your system will still boot from a floppy. Another thought, PM8 is a bootable disk. Try booting with it and see if you can effect any reformatting of the hard drive from there. Not sure how that would work with SATA but it's worth a try.

[wh427]

Yes, I can still boot from a floppy so I will try the memory test tonight (I'm at work now)

I discovered that the PM CD was bootable last night and, when I went in, I was able to get into PM8. I was able to see all of my partitions, which made me feel a little better. I'll also mess around with that a little bit more tonight.

I had a thought, let me know if this is a bad idea or not... I found a program that will allow me to access my NTFS partitions from DOS for the purpose of moving files from one partition to another. Since, when I try to start my system in safe mode, it hangs at mup.sys, if I *moved* that file to another partition, do you think it would skip it and keep loading or will it get angry and tell me that it's missing? I figure, if it gets angry, I could always just move it back to my partition with XP.

[Panama Red]

Don't know if what you describe would work or not. I suspect it won't like the missing file. If you have access to the files, I'd just save all the data to a data only partition and use PM to reformat the primary partition. Once it's cleared, you hopefully should be able to reinstall XP. It sure seems like a corrupted XP install or bad SATA driver that is causing the problem.

[wh427]

Well, I'll give the moving a file method a shot. If nothing works, I'll move things as you described and format the drive. This raises another question, though (since I have no experience in RE-installing XP). If I format the partition with XP and then re-install it, will it have problems with the programs that I've installed on other partitions (ie, if they changed the registry when they were installed). If so, is there an easy way I can fix this? Is there anything else that I should do before I wipe the drive? Thanks!

[glc]

Programs will have to be reinstalled over the top of where they are to reregister them in the registry.

[Panama Red]

No need to reformat with XP after you do the format with PM8. Just be sure to use NTFS and I believe you want to partition as a Primary Partition and set it to active. Just DON'T interrupt PM8 once you tell it to make the changes.

[wh427]

OK! Thanks a lot for your help! If I think of anymore questions, I'll let you guys know! Thanks again!

[wh427]

OK, time for another update....
I ran the memory test and everything looked OK. How many "passes" is that thing supposed to take? I let it take about 47 before I stopped it (23 hours later). Like I said, everything checked out OK. I found a program that would allow me to run a chkdsk on my partitions even though DOS couldn't see them. I ran it on each partition and, the only thing it found was 8 bad sectors on a partition where I store pics only. I fixed it (by using the /f switch) and everything else looked fine. I tried to repair XP and it still hung while "examining".

I then called Microsoft again as one last ditch effort before formatting the partition with XP.... yeah, they didn't help so, off I go into Partition Magic and format my partition. After that I decided to re-install XP so I put in the CD and let it do is thing, once again, it hangs at the "examining" stage of the install (at the very beginning). ARGH!

I began to think that my HDD is no good so I ran out and bought a SATA to IDE converter (hard to find... most everything is IDE to SATA). Anyway, I hook it up to my other PC and run scandisk and chkdsk on each partition. Everything looks OK. ARGH! Any ideas as to why I can install XP? Anything else I can check for?

I bought the HDD from newegg about 6 weeks ago. It was OEM and I was wondering if you guys think they'll RMA it or, is this an issue I'm going to have to take up with Seagate (if the drive IS bad). The 8 bad sectors thing has me a little worried. I mean, if it's only 6 weeks old it shouldn't be getting errors, right? On the flip side, though, for a 160GB HDD, 8 sectors isn't much...

[Statica]

Check for any SATA driver revisions or even any BIOS upgrades to your board that might give you a clue.

[wh427]

When I built the PC 6 weeks ago, I installed the latest drivers & updated the BIOS. Everything worked fine...until last Saturday.

[Panama Red]

I'm just grabbing at straws here but did you once have XP totally loaded or has this problem been there since day 1?
Is your XP Pro a new copy? Have you tried a different SATA cable?

[wh427]

Yes, XP was totally installed and everything worked fine before this. I did NOT try a different cable (b/c I didn't have one) but, everything worked fine when I used the cable to connect to my other PC last night. I could run the tests and transfer data w/o any problem.

[wh427]

OK, the white flag has been raised.... I just got off the phone with Newegg. I'm returning the HDD and am ordering a new one. Thanks to everyone for trying to help!