Checkdisk kiss of death

[jpmiguel2]

When I rebooted my PC today Checkdisk started scanning my drive and in
the process got frozen before ending. After another restart it appears
a message saying that Windows didn't start successfully, and it gives
me five options: three safe modes, last known good configuration, and
start windows xp normally.

In safe mode it begins listing files under
MULTI(0)DISK(0)RDISK(0)PARTITION(1)\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\... and it always
stops at GIVEIO.SYS. Bellow that shows the following message: "press
ESC to hold loading A347BUS.SYS". Pressing ESC or any other key starts
the system all over again.
Starting normally or last known good configuration it gets to the
Windows XP logo and then reboots by itself. I also tried booting with
the XP CD and pressing the repair option, but the setup says it didn't
find any hard disk drives installed on the computer. Next changed the
SATA cable but with no better results. Some hints on what to do next?
Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[News Reader]

Sometimes CHKDSK can take inordinate amounts of time if the disk has errors
or has a lot of files. My advice, run it with the /F option after work and
let it run until its done. It will reboot when it fixes all the problems if
any. Then defrag the disk.

 

[neil]

When you start with the XP CD you will need to press F6 (I think it is) to
load drivers for your SATA drive. XP doesn't have drivers for SATA. Then you
should be able to access the repair console and use chkdsk. Hopefully that
will correct the errors on the drive. Unless the drive is failing which
means you should try to access the drive and retrieve your important data. I
assume you have the retail version of XP or you may not get the option to
use the repair console.

Do access the hard drive you could try a Linux live boot disk or Bartpe.

Hope that helps
Neil

 

[Big Al]

When I rebooted my PC today Checkdisk started scanning my drive and in
the process got frozen before ending. After another restart it appears
a message saying that Windows didn't start successfully, and it gives
me five options: three safe modes, last known good configuration, and
start windows xp normally.

In safe mode it begins listing files under
MULTI(0)DISK(0)RDISK(0)PARTITION(1)\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\... and it always
stops at GIVEIO.SYS. Bellow that shows the following message: "press
ESC to hold loading A347BUS.SYS". Pressing ESC or any other key starts
the system all over again.
Starting normally or last known good configuration it gets to the
Windows XP logo and then reboots by itself. I also tried booting with
the XP CD and pressing the repair option, but the setup says it didn't
find any hard disk drives installed on the computer. Next changed the
SATA cable but with no better results. Some hints on what to do next?
Any help would be much appreciated.

The bad part of chkdsk is that if it finds problems, it has to fix them.
I mean, why did you run it to begin with right? But the fix may be
to fix a directory issue and part of that may be to remove an entry that
can't be resolved in the directory. So Bingo you lose a file. I've
lost entire folders with chkdsk.
Not much help, I know, but knowledge is a good thing, make backups, and
if this continues, find out why you have to chkdsk. I've had my laptop
3 years and have NEVER done a chkdsk.

 

[neil]

Strange, I was under the impression XP didn't have SATA drivers as SATA came
out after XP was released. Did you use XP with SP2 perhaps SP introduced
SATA support.

Neil

 

[R. McCarty]

Using motherboards with SATA capability the BIOS handles the
operation of the SATA devices. Unless the controller mode is set
to AHCI then drivers won't be necessary. XP doesn't have native
support for Advanced Host Controller Interface technology where
Native Command Queuing and Hot docking is available.

 

[jpmiguel2]

I hadn't thought of that, because on bootup it shows the version of
the SATA Raid etc. Thanks. Now this was a long chkdsk with the R
switch...
More than 3 hours but it seemed to work.

I backed up My documents folder immediatelly, only to notice that my
most important Word file is blank!
When opening it asks me to convert from a lot of options but it
always gets the same result. And that's a blank page. In properties it
shows that it was created in 2005 but it has 0 bytes. I do have a
backup but that's from 3 months ago. if anyone has any ideas to share
on how to recover this file would be pretty welcome.

The open and repair option in word doesn't work. Such bad luck, it had
to be right this file. ARGH.

 

[neil]

Good I'm glad it gave you some positive results. But pity about the Word
doc.
Neil