HDD hanging system on shutdown....BSOD's

[oosik]

i mentioned the BSODs in another thread.....

my 100gig'r is hanging the system on shutdown and may or may not be the root to the IRQL_?????? BSODs. The thing that happens is upon shutdown or reboot, right when you think the screen is going to go black, the WD hdd light goes on steady, no flicker. It flickers slightly before it happens, but when it does it's on steady.

Now one of two things will happen:
1) I hit the 'reset' button because i get sick of waiting
2) I wait it out until:
a.)the system eventually reboots (or)
b.)I get the BSOD

This has only happened as of yesterday.

Other than this it seems to be working fine.

any ideas?

[Alfie]

What's your OS?

[oosik]

Originally posted by Alfie What's your OS?

oops.....xp pro

[cuffs007]

Hey oosik

check out http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q307274 and see if that helps a little...

*Sean*

[oosik]

Originally posted by cuffs007 Hey oosik check out http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q307274 and see if that helps a little... *Sean*

My system is about as updated as it's going to get right now.

Thanks for the reply Sean.

[oosik]

i can't think of anything significant or otherwise I have done in the past couple of days that would interfere with system drivers and such..........

...thinking of trying a restore point.....hell I got like 24 of them. What do you guys think?

[cuffs007]

aha... well, have you tried the system restore to the last know good configuration?...
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...temrestore.asp

[Alfie]

You may want to run a dioagnostic on the drive(available from WD's website),just to make sure the drive is good.
I asked about OS,as Win98 had a problem with fast shutdown and hard drives cache,whether there's an issue with XP,check the knowledge base.
Is the drive a standalone device and how is it jumpered and what type of ribbon are you using(40 wire or 80 wire udma)?
You may want to try system restore or you can also use the repair option found on XP's cd.
If you boot from cd,you would skip the first repair option(that's the console) and instead click on install,XP will ask if you wish to install or repair an existing copy,click on repair and away you go,XP will leave your programs and settings alone,but it's adviseable to have such programs and drivers for devices handy,just in case.
If you've installed the service pack,you may have to reinstall it,etc.

[mike breck]

Also check here for some other culprits

http://www.aumha.org/a/shtdwnxp.htm

[oosik]

Once again, all of you are a wealth of information, thanks for the help.

The hang up is not XP related, at least I don't think so and here's why.

XP is loaded on my 18GB scsi drive which has worked like a champ for years now. The HDD light is that of the WD 100GB drive, which, never fails, comes on steady right when the screen would normally go black on shutdown.

I have tried a restore point from quite a while ago to no avail, which also tells me it's not an OS issue.

You may want to run a dioagnostic on the drive(available from WD's website),just to make sure the drive is good.

Here in is where the problem lies, I think it's a hdd issue. Unfortunately, the infinite wisdom, or lack-there-of, at Western Digital does not properly address utilizing their tools under WinXP with a 100GB drive. In order to use the proper tools, I have to locate a machine with Win95/98/ME to create the proper boot disk with the provided tools. Yet, WD has found the time, while kicking out a 200GB hard drive, to provide the diagnostic tools for HDDs larger than 137GB on WinXP!!! So what percentage of the consumer population has a WD HDD>137GB and WinXP? My guess, less than 1-tenth of 1%!

So now I have to locate someone close with the proper machine or drive 30 inutes to a friends house to make a boot disk then 30 minutes back home.

In any case I have attempted to use the tools intended for HDD greater than 137GB and received and error right from the start. So until I get home after work and call WD,I don't know whether it's because my hdd is going bad or that it is an error from the program indicating that I don't have the hdd the software is intended to test.

This is where I stand right now, until I get home, I'll post with results.

oosik

[oosik]

Originally posted by mike breck Also check here for some other culprits http://www.aumha.org/a/shtdwnxp.htm

Hey I may have found something in here of interest, talking about the page file. Article saying that moving could cause or resolve shutdown problems. I moved mine a while back, before it all started, from the scsi to the ide. And also I think I had TweakXP set to clear the page file on shutdowns......hmm, maybe that's why it's hanging, though it doesn't address the IRQL BSODs I received!!!!

dang, I need ot get out of work..................

[Alfie]

Go here
http://bootdisk.com/
and download a bootable floppy,there's one down the line that's for flashing bios,basic boot and that's the one to use,download it,unzip to floppy and put the diagnostic software on it.

[oosik]

Originally posted by Alfie Go here http://bootdisk.com/ and download a bootable floppy,there's one down the line that's for flashing bios,basic boot and that's the one to use,download it,unzip to floppy and put the diagnostic software on it.

I'm a step ahead of you on that Alfie. Tried that last night, didn't work because the utilities from WD actually makes the boot disk. I tried loading the utilities on the boot disk but ran out of room..........

But here is where I stand now:
1) Put the page file back to the C:\ drive
2) disabled the LS-120 since it's ide

Unfortunately I did both at the same time, now when shutting down, I no longer get the light but there is still a hang time, though much shorter. So I went and re-enabled the LS-120 in BIOS and a shutdown no restart, slight hang time but not as long as before and no light, but on boot up got beep codes and a BIOS error saying Secondary Master not ATAPI=aka LS-120. After redetecting I rebooted and restarted, still a little slow but not as bad. So I'm not 100% positive if its the ls-120 or the pagefile on the different had drive. I'm going to have to tweak some more to find out what's up........

Until then, thanks for hangin wit me on dis!

[Alfie]

How are the drives jumpered? and what type ide cable are you using(40 or 80 wire)?

[oosik]

anyway, IDE has no jumper, has 80 wire cable. that should be irrelevant seeing as though it was working fine.

it's still hanging on shutdown/reboots. one thing that made me realize something was wrong is that Partition Magic gives an error when trying to creat a new partition. Following the suggested fix for the error does no good. Partition magic works just fine on my SCSI drive.

What I may try:
Since partition magic is giving the error 1611, which is having something to do with the file system on the WD 100gb, I may create a partition on the 18GB, "image" my d: drive to that partition, then refromat the d: drive. May low-level format or something.

Even tho i'm not getting the hdd light during the hang........
hell I don't know, I'm at work right now and can't do anything about it anyway.

I may go through one of the previously mentioned links again.

oosik

[Alfie]

If you're using an 80 wire cable set the jumper on the hard drive to CS(cable select) connect the drive to the black end to denote master and the center gray one is for a slave device also set to CS.
You may want to start with this setup,as it's the proper way for udma devices when a 80 wire ribbon is used.

[oosik]

Even so, it was working fine so I dn't see how this would make diffenernce over time. It should have affected it from the start, if it were to affect it at all.

In any case there are other problems such as PartitinoMagic not being able to create a partition and giving errors, of which can't be cleared according to PowerQuest's website. PLUS, Drive image cant creat an image of that drive, again, PQ's website didn't help so I don't know what the hell is going on.