dmi pool data

[vah234]

not sure if this is right place to ask but my system---home built-- everyonce in a while will start to boot up at locks on screen with verifying dmi pool data on the bottom. normally i can reboot and bring up win 98 se but every so often nothing will work except to try disconnectinting drives and rebooting. any suggestions would be helpfull
xp 1900
shuttle ak35gtr mobo
512 ram 2100
cdrw
cd
4 40gig hdd
sblive plat sc
ati vc

[GaryRouth]

Disconnecting drives? --> Are you booting from drives on the HighPoint Raid controller?

Have you had trouble from the very start? (off and on) - Seems like something that early in the boot would point to board setup. Do you hear a post beep just before it hangs? (which would indicate that the post was Ok, but the Windows load is hanging).

I have little experience with onboard raid in the PC world (though I see it a lot on the DEC, HP, and Tandem mainframes], so hopefully a tech with more experience can jump in. But if I had to guess, I'd start by making sure my motherboard bios, my HighPoint Raid driver & bios, and my Via 4-in-1s were all recent versions. And perhaps going through the Bios Settings a few times with the manual in hand.

Might help while troubleshooting to switch off the Quick Boot option [if it's Enabled] in your mainboard Bios.

I suppose you could test the Ram, too: http://www.simmtester.com

What brand/wattage power supply?

I'm mostly guessing: but at least it gives you things to try until someone more familiar with your setup drops by.
. . . Gary

[Cricket]

Try booting up the system without the CD-ROM and CD-RW connected a few times. If the system always boots up fine, connect one of the drives and try again. If it still boots up fine, switch the optical drives (disconnect the first one and connect the other one) and see if it still boots up fine.

Sometimes the system will hang if one of the optical drives is going bad.

Cricket