Problem with BSOD and slow boot past BIOS.

[Gingermadman]

Hi,

A couple weeks ago I bought a new CPU cooler, which, the fan didn't work, but my system was able to still run safely without the fan working for short periods of time. As far as I can tell the CPU has suffered no damage.

One boot up, it took along time to get past the initial boot up sequence and would not boot into windows or take a long time to repair.

After I reset the CMOS, it would refuse to boot into the BIOS. Nothing I could do could force it past either an eternal boot up sequence with all fans spinning up full speed, or a blinking line in the top left of the screen.

I sent back the Cooler and Motherboard. The retailer did not find any faults with the motherboard but installed newest version of the bios and were able to get it to boot up fine. Once I received both items back I got everything set up, first thing, cpu cooler is working fine. Second thing, it would advance past the error page before BIOS and give me the option to either start up window or repair.

starting it up takes it 5 minutes to blue screen into something along the lines of unbootable boot volume. With that I decided to go into startup repair, and it found a hard drive error. It said it would take over an hour, it is now sitting on 4 hours.

I found it strange that it would record a hard drive error, as it was not booting past bios or past current stage with hard drive unplugged.

The thing that's getting me is how sluggish the machine is running, I guess there is always the possibility the CPU was fried somewhat, but then would it continue to run the way it is?

had the machine for 6 months now, plenty of BSODS problems that I never resolved before but I'm 99% they are not connected. Operating system has been running fine for that time too, apart from those problems that I'm sure are Ram related.

Help would be appreciated, and if there is anything else you need to know please ask as I will be checking this thread fairly often.

 

[theog]

Check your ram.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/715-memory-diagnostics-tool.html?ltr=M
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

Check your HD.
1) Boot DVD, & Press Shift+F10 (for command prompt)
2) Boot DVD, & http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/682-command-prompt-startup.html (for command prompt)

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html?ltr=D
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/96938-check-disk-chkdsk-read-event-viewer-log.html

Check with a hard drive diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

 

[Gingermadman]

Alright I'll check that soon, thanks.

Another thing I Noticed, is that on the "error" page (not sure what else to call it) it mentions S.M.A.R.T for the hard drive isn't active, or something similar, if that makes any difference.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Make sure SMART is enabled in the BIOS for your hard drive.

If you misread the message a bit, it could say that your drive is failing. Be especially sure to do the hard drive test theog recommended above.

 

[Gingermadman]

I don't have a boot disc, just have the windows 7 installation disc if that counts. I tried using an ubuntu disc but it would not boot from the disc.

It still seems to be running extremely slow and not booting at a normal speed.

disabling smart gets it past the error page instantly. How strange having a cpu cooler not work can cause these kind of problems.

Tried doing chkdsk c: /f

doesn't seem to recognize the drive, trying d, and it gets stuck on 54 percent complete.

It's weird as the computer won't even boot ubuntu, without a hard drive in the first place

 

[theog]

Check your ram.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/715-memory-diagnostics-tool.html?ltr=M
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

Check your HD.
1) Boot DVD, & Press Shift+F10 (for command prompt)
2) Boot DVD, & http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/682-command-prompt-startup.html (for command prompt)

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html?ltr=D
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/96938-check-disk-chkdsk-read-event-viewer-log.html

Check with a hard drive diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

Have done all the checks?

 

[Gingermadman]

Check your ram.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/715-memory-diagnostics-tool.html?ltr=M
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

Check your HD.
1) Boot DVD, & Press Shift+F10 (for command prompt)
2) Boot DVD, & http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/682-command-prompt-startup.html (for command prompt)

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html?ltr=D
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/96938-check-disk-chkdsk-read-event-viewer-log.html

Check with a hard drive diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

Have done all the checks?

yep, still taking ages to do anything and still bluescreening with unmountable boot drive.

tried chkdsk d: /r , froze up at 10% on 2/5 , hrmph...

when i try to use ubuntu boot up cd, getting /bin/sh : can't access tty; job control turned off

I was given hirens recovery tools disc a while back, does that include any good programs for testing HD? Hiren's BootCD 10.6 - www.hiren.info

in fact, going into the repair my installation on windows 7 disc, It doesn't seem to recognize any hard drives or partitions. Or if it does, it takes it's sweet time about doing it. I try doing /r /f after chkdsk and c: and d: but it doesn't seem to want to do it because it's locked, or it will freeze up.

It's strange, because the hard drive was working perfectly before I changed the cpu fan, it really is bizarre.

edit. actually the ram placement has changed from 1-3 to 2-4, because the cpu cooler prevents me putting it 1-3, I don't think that would make such a difference as boot volume?

 

[Gingermadman]

chkdsk /r /f all completed fine in a second (i think ,it said event error log 50)

I tried the fixboot command and that completed "succesfully" instantly too.

no dice.

disabling smart allows it to progress through the initial boot up screen faster, and I don't see much advantage to smart in all honesty, unless it's needed for chkdsk or other commands.

What about the hirens disc again, anything useful I can use on that?

 

[tezlewis]

Sounds like your message would have read "Smart Drive Failure Imminent". I would forget running chkdsk as this wont give you the full picture. Its giving you signs such as freezing at a certain percent.

You know when you have SMART enabled and it comes up with the error, do you have to press F1 before the system will continue to boot? You need to test the HDD using a bootable hard drive testing cd/software and reckon this will point to bad sectors.

http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...el_cd=507&dType=G&mType=SW&tab=down&ppmi=1219 Thats the link to your hard drive support page and there is a diagnostic tool for download on there. Could be worth a shot.

PS, where i say to forget about the chkdsk, this isnt meant to offend anyones suggestions as i would have suggested the same thing but as the POST screen is saying SMART and is an error and preventing POST, a chkdsk may not give the info needed!

***It's strange, because the hard drive was working perfectly before I changed the cpu fan, it really is bizarre.***

I totally agree there! It is fully random if this has happened and in my experience, will be the first time ive heard for that to happen!

 

[theog]

Have you run the Samsung Diagnostics Tool?

 

[Gingermadman]

Sounds like your message would have read "Smart Drive Failure Imminent". I would forget running chkdsk as this wont give you the full picture. Its giving you signs such as freezing at a certain percent.

You know when you have SMART enabled and it comes up with the error, do you have to press F1 before the system will continue to boot? You need to test the HDD using a bootable hard drive testing cd/software and reckon this will point to bad sectors.

http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...el_cd=507&dType=G&mType=SW&tab=down&ppmi=1219 Thats the link to your hard drive support page and there is a diagnostic tool for download on there. Could be worth a shot.

PS, where i say to forget about the chkdsk, this isnt meant to offend anyones suggestions as i would have suggested the same thing but as the POST screen is saying SMART and is an error and preventing POST, a chkdsk may not give the info needed!

***It's strange, because the hard drive was working perfectly before I changed the cpu fan, it really is bizarre.***

I totally agree there! It is fully random if this has happened and in my experience, will be the first time ive heard for that to happen!

It says SMART has failed or something, which is strange since I'm not sure why it would be affected by a faulty CPU fan. If I don't disable it I have to press F1 to progress past this.

Will run the samsung diagnostic tommorow, going to try and run knoppix off a disc to see if the hard drive data is still intact.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Sounds good, keep us posted.

 

[Gingermadman]

Even though this is likely to work, I still don't see how it accounts for the slower booting into CD, slower booting past bios and the showing of an error page at boot up because of SMART.

Computers really are bizarre at times.

 

[Gingermadman]

Won't recognize the hard drives in either knoppix or ubuntu.

 

[Jonathan_King]

The hard drive or cable appears to be faulty. Do you have another SATA cable you can use?

They are cheap, about $5 including shipping.

You can also try a new hard drive. With storage prices these days, you can pick up a 1TB hard drive for $60.

 

[Gingermadman]

Running samsung utility tools, SMART failed with an OEM error code = E76 : SMART ERROR

Surely that isn't causing all the problems :/ , I plan on taking it to a friends house sometime soon and seeing if Windows can recognize it there,


edit. more errors popping up from surface scan LBA 50865965
50865966
50865967
--------8
... etc going past 6 now.

the scan seems stuck at 2.603% , but is still noticing errors in LBA 5966 all the way to 6141 now.

It's strange, as ALL I did was change the CPU Cooler, True I restarted about 5 times checking to make sure if it worked or not, but I don't see why that would have such an awful effect as to Linux and Windows 7 not reading the disc despite it appearing in the BIOS, and the diagnostic discs noticing it.

I've also tried 2 different SATA wires, no luck.

Extremely bizzare, but it does seem like I've lost the drive for the mean time.

 

[Jonathan_King]

I recommend purchasing a new hard drive. If you need recommendations, don't hesitate to ask us.

 

[Gingermadman]

well this one is still under warranty I believe, so I can send it back for a direct replacement.

I'll need to stop shopping at ebuyer though, that's a headset, 2 hard drives, ram, power supply and CPU cooler in the space a year that have became faulty almost instantly or on arrival.

I'll need to learn to start backing up more readily now.

Thanks for your help, I'll make a guide up once I get my main computer up and running on checks to do to make sure if your drive really is FUBAR, as I think I've tried just about everything today.

 

[Gingermadman]

Samsung Diagnostics was actually able to complete, but there is no repair option like with windows or anything like that. It seems there is an error on half the drive, or a fair portion, that makes a full scan unable to complete or fix, well, I say unable but it would take hours upon hours ad I'm not entirely sure it would work.

I was hoping the samsung diagnostics would have a repair option but it seems not

 

[theog]

Looks like new HD.