Drive unbootable and completely inaccessible

[Pat]

I'm not entirely sure what happened. One day it seemed to be working
perfectly, the next day the compter gets about halfway through boot up and
then completely stalls. The last thing I did before shutting down was to run
Kapernsky Virus scanner. Everything was clean.

I've thought of a hard drive crash, but DIAG's program says the drive is
working just fine.

Possibly a virus or some other type of corruption. The odd thing is though -
the computer still wont boot from a set of start-up floppies. It gets to
disk 4, says it's starting the computer, the caps and num-lock flash and
then the computer stalls. Wont go into safe mode either...

Another forum suggested a memory checker, but that comes back clean too.
Most of the other hardware has also been verified that it is working
correctly. (everything passes DIAG's)

Any ideas where to start?

 

[Dave Patrick]

What errors do you receive? What happens when you try?

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Pat]

I receive no errors at all. The computer simply stalls. The little bar that
shows the system is loading stops moving. (left it for over an hour last
night) There is no response from the keyboard, so I cannot even ctrl-alt-del
to reboot.

I am able to access the drive using NTFS-4-DOS and other 3rd party utils.
The drive check-disc's OK using NTFS-4-DOS. All the data seems to be intact.
I'm strongly suspecting corruption of some kind. Very odd though that it
wont boot from the start up set though, very puzzling indeed...

What errors do you receive? What happens when you try?

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

I'm not entirely sure what happened. One day it seemed to be working
perfectly, the next day the compter gets about halfway through boot up
and then completely stalls. The last thing I did before shutting down was
to run Kapernsky Virus scanner. Everything was clean.

I've thought of a hard drive crash, but DIAG's program says the drive is
working just fine.

Possibly a virus or some other type of corruption. The odd thing is
though - the computer still wont boot from a set of start-up floppies. It
gets to disk 4, says it's starting the computer, the caps and num-lock
flash and then the computer stalls. Wont go into safe mode either...

Another forum suggested a memory checker, but that comes back clean too.
Most of the other hardware has also been verified that it is working
correctly. (everything passes DIAG's)

Any ideas where to start?

 

[Dave Patrick]

So are you saying Windows starts? Try a safe mode boot. (F8 for startup
options)

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

I receive no errors at all. The computer simply stalls. The little bar that
shows the system is loading stops moving. (left it for over an hour last
night) There is no response from the keyboard, so I cannot even
ctrl-alt-del to reboot.

I am able to access the drive using NTFS-4-DOS and other 3rd party utils.
The drive check-disc's OK using NTFS-4-DOS. All the data seems to be
intact. I'm strongly suspecting corruption of some kind. Very odd though
that it wont boot from the start up set though, very puzzling indeed...

What errors do you receive? What happens when you try?

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

I'm not entirely sure what happened. One day it seemed to be working
perfectly, the next day the compter gets about halfway through boot up
and then completely stalls. The last thing I did before shutting down
was to run Kapernsky Virus scanner. Everything was clean.

I've thought of a hard drive crash, but DIAG's program says the drive
is working just fine.

Possibly a virus or some other type of corruption. The odd thing is
though - the computer still wont boot from a set of start-up floppies.
It gets to disk 4, says it's starting the computer, the caps and
num-lock flash and then the computer stalls. Wont go into safe mode
either...

Another forum suggested a memory checker, but that comes back clean too.
Most of the other hardware has also been verified that it is working
correctly. (everything passes DIAG's)

Any ideas where to start?

 

[Pat]

Well, it starts, but it wont finish starting. It gets about half way through
and then the bar stops moving and completely stalls. It will not go into
safe mode and I can't get it to start from the setup disks either. I'm
baffled...

So are you saying Windows starts? Try a safe mode boot. (F8 for startup
options)

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

I receive no errors at all. The computer simply stalls. The little bar
that shows the system is loading stops moving. (left it for over an hour
last night) There is no response from the keyboard, so I cannot even
ctrl-alt-del to reboot.

I am able to access the drive using NTFS-4-DOS and other 3rd party utils.
The drive check-disc's OK using NTFS-4-DOS. All the data seems to be
intact. I'm strongly suspecting corruption of some kind. Very odd though
that it wont boot from the start up set though, very puzzling indeed...

What errors do you receive? What happens when you try?

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
I'm not entirely sure what happened. One day it seemed to be working
perfectly, the next day the compter gets about halfway through boot up
and then completely stalls. The last thing I did before shutting down
was to run Kapernsky Virus scanner. Everything was clean.

I've thought of a hard drive crash, but DIAG's program says the drive
is working just fine.

Possibly a virus or some other type of corruption. The odd thing is
though - the computer still wont boot from a set of start-up floppies.
It gets to disk 4, says it's starting the computer, the caps and
num-lock flash and then the computer stalls. Wont go into safe mode
either...

Another forum suggested a memory checker, but that comes back clean
too. Most of the other hardware has also been verified that it is
working correctly. (everything passes DIAG's)

Any ideas where to start?

 

[Dave Patrick]

This is like pullin' teeth. What happens when you try? Try booting the
CD-Rom

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:

 

[Pat]

Hmmmm... That could be interesting. I have to find the CD first. The house
is in renovation mode. This could take a while....

This is like pullin' teeth. What happens when you try? Try booting the
CD-Rom

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:

baffled...

 

[Dave Patrick]

Definitely, with the information you're letting out about the problem.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:

 

[Pat]

Yup, looks like it's gonna be a tricky one...

Is there a DOS registry editor for W2K available? (One used to be able to do
this with '95)

I kind of have a feeling there was something in that virus scanner update
that triggered this problem. I'm hoping that if I can get into the registry
and edit the antivirus out manually, I can at least gain access to the
drive. I can always tackle the AV problem later, but right now I'm sunk.

Definitely, with the information you're letting out about the problem.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:

Hmmmm... This could take a while....

 

[Dave Patrick]

You should start a new thread for separate questions. You can copy the hives
to another NT'ish machine and use regedt32.exe to load the hive and edit. Is
this issue closed?

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Olof Lagerkvist]

Yup, looks like it's gonna be a tricky one...

Is there a DOS registry editor for W2K available? (One used to be able to do
this with '95)

Not that I am aware of, but...

I kind of have a feeling there was something in that virus scanner update
that triggered this problem. I'm hoping that if I can get into the registry
and edit the antivirus out manually, I can at least gain access to the
drive. I can always tackle the AV problem later, but right now I'm sunk.

....you should be able to start on the installation CD and select to
repair your Windows installation with Recovery Console. In there you get
a command prompt where you can list drivers and services ('listsvc') and
activate or deactivate them ('enable' or 'disable'). You can also rename
files you suspect fails the boot, such as files or directories that
belong to the virus scanner you are talking about. You can also copy
installation files from the CD and replace files on the harddrive if you
need.

If all that fails and you want to edit something in the registry you can
try to mount the drive in another computer and use the registry editor
there to load and edit the registry hives of the failing drive.

 

[Jay Somerset]

Definitely, with the information you're letting out about the problem.

You definitely have more patience than I.

I don;t think "Pat" even read your suggestion to start in safe mode.
However, it does sound a lot like the dreaded "mup.sys boot hang" (which
isn't mup.sys related, by the way). I wonder if his XP activation is still
valid?

 

[Pat]

I don't think "Pat" even read your suggestion to start in safe mode.

Actually, I DID read everything.Currently, one of the problems is that I
can't even get into safe mode! (speaking of reading - check post 1 of the
thread..) The system hangs.

However, it does sound a lot like the dreaded "mup.sys boot hang" (which
isn't mup.sys related, by the way). I wonder if his XP activation is
still
valid?

It should be - unless updating your anti-virus invalidates your windows
installation somehow... BTW, found my CD. (It was in about box 77 of over
200) And it still wont boot.

 

[Dave Patrick]

Still leaves us with nothing but speculation.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:

 

[Pat]

True enough. I think I'll have to spend a couple evenings going over the
hardware with a fine tooth comb.

Thanks a bunch guys.

Still leaves us with nothing but speculation.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:

 

[Olof Lagerkvist]

BTW, found my CD. (It was in about box 77 of over
200) And it still wont boot.

It should boot into the setup program from the CD. Are you sure the BIOS
is set to boot on CD before HD? Did you press a key when asked "Boot
from CD..." or similar?