Windows 7 x64 RC Crash - Can't Start Windows

So my computer is down, not 100% sure what it is still, but figured one of you could help me. Here’s the way it went down:
OS: Windows 7 RC 64-bit, System Specs below.

1) Computer was in “sleep” mode. I hit a key to wake it up just so I could see if there were any CDs in the drives. There were none, but before I could even close them back up, I get a BSOD: “IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL” … 0x0000000A(,,,,) [didn’t write down the rest of the #s].

2) So I did a Reboot -> My RAID 0 Boot array all the sudden shows as degraded, so I turned the comp off, gave it a sec to stop misbehaving.

3) Cold Boot -> Disc array now shows healthy again. I opened the Nvidia RAID after POST to examine the array, and both discs look fine in the array, doesn’t look desync’d or anything. Exited this menu. Now, it proceeds thru POST fine, attempts to load from both CD drives, none there, then one line below the “Boot from CD:” line, there’s a permanent blinking cursor for about 5min.

4) Reboot a couple times. Same thing. I went into BIOS to check that RAID settings were still intact, and also took CDs out of Boot Sequence just in case. (All usb storage devices are unplugged by the way).

5) Reboot. No more “boot from CD” line (expected), just a blinking cursor after “Verifying DMI etcetc” line. Each time this happens, the HD is still spinning furiously, almost like it’s trying to find what/where to boot from. So this time I left it on for a while. Come back 1/2hr later to a blank screen, but HD still workin hard. So I left it overnight.

6) In the morning: Blank Screen still, so I rebooted again -> This time, I get the “Windows did not shut down properly” screen, giving me startup options: Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, or Normal.

7) I selected safe mode. It loaded through files, like normal, but stopped at “\disk.sys”. HD is still spinning, left it for 10min -> BSOD quick flash, then instant automatic reboot. I couldn’t make out the BSOD code, it was too fast.

8) Windows Startup selection screen again, so I picked “Normal”. The windows 7 logo comes up, and is “flowing” or moving, showing that it’s not frozen. Left it for like 10min -> BSOD quick flash again, auto reboot.

That was my last attempt. All of this is over the course of 24hrs or so, had to go to work in between and such. I had no warning signs to this failure, and have never experienced anything like this with this setup.

I figure my next line of attack is to pop the Windows7 CD in and try to do a repair installation. If that doesn’t work, then I’m totally stuck and don’t really know where to go from there.

Any ideas, diagnosis, or suggestions? I would’ve tried to assess the dump file, but I can’t get into windows to access it.


System Specs:
OS: Windows7 RC 64-bit
Processor:Intel C2Q Q6600 G0 2.4GHz
Motherboard:eVGA 680i SLI 122-CK-NF68-A1
Cooling:Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme (Push+Pull: Silverstone 120mm), (2) Thermalright HR-09 IFX/SLI NB&SB
Memory:4GB Crucial Ballistix 1066MHz
Video Card:eVGA 8800GTX 768MB
Harddisk:(2) WD Raptor 150GB SATA BOOT[RAID 0], (4) Seagate Barracuda 320GB SATA [RAID 0+1]
CD/DVD Drive:(2) Lite-On 20X DVD±RW IDE
CRT/LCD Model:Acer 20" - AL2017, Acer 22"W - AL2216WBD
Case:Thermaltake Armor w/ 25cm Fan & Extra Front iCage
Sound Card:OnBoard PSU:Silverstone 1000W - ST1000

Exemplary problem description. Have rep :)

Unfortunately, I can't give you what you'd probably prefer - a way to resolve the issue. My gut feeling is that your drive array is pooched on a hardware level, despite the fact that it reads as "healthy" now. My reasoning:

- The (temporary) inability to get past the POST is absolutely hardware-ish. Software hasn't loaded yet, so it can't be causing that symptom.
- The (temporary) "degraded" array status means that there was a hardware-level problem at some point. A hardware array controller is not bothered by software issues like Windows BSODs. It happily keeps on duplicating from one disk to another - unless it's got problems of its own to deal with.
- The last driver which loads successfully in safe mode is disk.sys. After that, things go blue again.

You might want to go ahead with that Windows repair install. If that also bombs out, at least you can be reasonably certain that there's a hardware problem.

Just as an update, by the recommendations of some other forums, and from some of my techie friends, I loaded the Windows7 DVD on startup, clicked "repair my computer," went to command prompt, and did a "chkdsk /f /r" . It went for about an hour, fixed some bad files/sectors. I restarted, it did the "Windows did not shut down properly" screen again, i picked "Start Windows Normally" just for the heck of it, and windows started up good as new, perfect! No errors, no missing files, everything back to normal, perfect. I couldn't believe my eyes.

Thanks for your assessment and help. Problem Solved.

surfsk8snow said:

Just as an update, by the recommendations of some other forums, and from some of my techie friends, I loaded the Windows7 DVD on startup, clicked "repair my computer," went to command prompt, and did a "chkdsk /f /r" . It went for about an hour, fixed some bad files/sectors. I restarted, it did the "Windows did not shut down properly" screen again, i picked "Start Windows Normally" just for the heck of it, and windows started up good as new, perfect! No errors, no missing files, everything back to normal, perfect. I couldn't believe my eyes.

Thanks for your assessment and help. Problem Solved.

Glad to hear it!

A word of caution though - if chkdsk really did discover "bad" sectors, then the drive in question is on the way out. I'm guessing you probably don't have data on it, since it's a RAID 0 stripe, but you still might want to prepare for more of these types of events, or even outright failure.

A "bad sector" is one which is unreliable to the point where chkdsk notices that data it just wrote to that location is not the same when read back. It tags the sector as "bad" in its own (NTFS) metadata structures, and hence avoids it in the future, but the condition is degenerative - once sectors start to go bad, others soon join them.

Modern drives generally have a certain percentage of their capacity held in reserve (unreported), so that they can perform remapping of this nature even before the software notices. If in this instance NTFS/chkdsk did notice, that may mean the drive(s) internal remapping ability is already exhausted.

Or perhaps you just used the word "bad" to describe logical errors and not "bad sectors".

I'm having a simuliar problem. I think evertime Windows 7 comes out of sleep mode it somehow throws my Raid 5 into a degraded state. Dropping the same disk out of the Array that says the drive is healthy but dropped out of the array. I've had this setup for almost a year now running find with no problems on Windows XP but After I installed Windows 7 it does this. I think it has does this since I installed it 4 days ago. I just recently rebooted my system for the updates and noticed that my Raid was in a degraded state. So I download the latest nForce 590 SLI drivers "15.51_nforce_win7_64bit_whql" and it will let me add the drive back in and I can rebuild the array, but when it goes it comes out of sleep mode it comes out degraded and I have to start all over again. I'm going to disable sleep since my WinXP didn't use sleep mode anyway to see if that stops the problem of Windows 7 degraded my Raid 5. Any help or input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Running Windows 7 Pro 64bit (Clean install)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+ (2.81 GHz)
Motherboard: Asus m2n32-sli deluxe (nForce 590 SLI) Drivers 15.51_nforce_win7_64bit_whql
Memory: 2 GB Crucial Memory
Graphics Card(s): ATI Radeon 3850
Sound Card: Sound Blaster Extreme
Hard Drives: 3 x 320gig WD RE Raid 5 configuration - 596GB space
PSU: Antec 750 Watt ps
Case: Cooler Master