New AGP card crashed computer - now what?

[M Skabialka]

A friend bought a new monitor for his XBox and wanted to also use it for his
computer also but the computer only had a VGA port. He bought a new AGP
video card with DVI-D interface and installed it into his 5 or 6 year old XP
computer. It immediately crashed on boot, BSOD with errors about ntfs.sys,
even when he put the old video card back, or even used the onboard video
card. Set CMOS back to defaults, changed out the memory, CMOS battery, and
other PCI cards. Finally took the hard drive out and put it in an external
USB case and connected that to anothr XP machine which promptly crashed as
soon as it recognized the USB connection. Tried it a couple of times more -
crashed again each time with a generic MS message about possible driver
problems.
Until this point this PC was working great - what are some steps to getting
this drive woking again, and saving data if ast all possible? I am wary
about connecting the drive to a known good machine as I don't want it to
kill it! Anti-virus was up-to-date.
Mich

 

[smlunatick]

A friend bought a new monitor for his XBox and wanted to also use it for his
computer also but the computer only had a VGA port.  He bought a new AGP
video card with DVI-D interface and installed it into his 5 or 6 year oldXP
computer.  It immediately crashed on boot, BSOD with errors about ntfs.sys,
even when he put the old video card back, or even used the onboard video
card.  Set CMOS back to defaults, changed out the memory, CMOS battery,and
other PCI cards.  Finally took the hard drive out and put it in an external
USB case and connected that to anothr XP machine which promptly crashed as
soon as it recognized the USB connection.  Tried it a couple of times more -
crashed again each time with a generic MS message about possible driver
problems.
Until this point this PC was working great - what are some steps to getting
this drive woking again, and saving data if ast all possible?  I am wary
about connecting the drive to a known good machine as I don't want it to
kill it!  Anti-virus was up-to-date.
Mich

It seems to be a coincidence that at the time the new video card was
installed, the hard drive has failed. When you placed the hard drive
into a USB case, make sure that the "other" PC is not set to "boot"
off any type of USB "device" first. Also, boot the XP successfully
and then "try" to connect the USB "enabled" hard drive.

You will possibly need to locate a disk recovery system. TestDisk is
an "open source" recovery system

As soon as you have "saved" all import info from the "defunct" hard
drive, locate the driver's manufacturer hard drive diagnostic tools
and check the drive.

 

[M Skabialka]

The other XP machine was already up and running when I plugged in the USB
cable. It showed Found New Hardware, recognized the drive, then the
computer rebooted suddenly. I removed the USB drive, rebooted, inserted the
USB and it crashed again. I am not booting to the USB drive.

If I cannot connect the drive to another PC, how will I run a disk recovery
system?

A friend bought a new monitor for his XBox and wanted to also use it for
his
computer also but the computer only had a VGA port. He bought a new AGP
video card with DVI-D interface and installed it into his 5 or 6 year old
XP
computer. It immediately crashed on boot, BSOD with errors about ntfs.sys,
even when he put the old video card back, or even used the onboard video
card. Set CMOS back to defaults, changed out the memory, CMOS battery, and
other PCI cards. Finally took the hard drive out and put it in an external
USB case and connected that to anothr XP machine which promptly crashed as
soon as it recognized the USB connection. Tried it a couple of times
more -
crashed again each time with a generic MS message about possible driver
problems.
Until this point this PC was working great - what are some steps to
getting
this drive woking again, and saving data if ast all possible? I am wary
about connecting the drive to a known good machine as I don't want it to
kill it! Anti-virus was up-to-date.
Mich

It seems to be a coincidence that at the time the new video card was
installed, the hard drive has failed. When you placed the hard drive
into a USB case, make sure that the "other" PC is not set to "boot"
off any type of USB "device" first. Also, boot the XP successfully
and then "try" to connect the USB "enabled" hard drive.

You will possibly need to locate a disk recovery system. TestDisk is
an "open source" recovery system

As soon as you have "saved" all import info from the "defunct" hard
drive, locate the driver's manufacturer hard drive diagnostic tools
and check the drive.

 

[Anna]

A friend bought a new monitor for his XBox and wanted to also use it for
his computer also but the computer only had a VGA port. He bought a new
AGP video card with DVI-D interface and installed it into his 5 or 6 year
old XP computer. It immediately crashed on boot, BSOD with errors about
ntfs.sys, even when he put the old video card back, or even used the
onboard video card. Set CMOS back to defaults, changed out the memory,
CMOS battery, and other PCI cards. Finally took the hard drive out and put
it in an external USB case and connected that to anothr XP machine which
promptly crashed as soon as it recognized the USB connection. Tried it a
couple of times more - crashed again each time with a generic MS message
about possible driver problems.
Until this point this PC was working great - what are some steps to
getting this drive woking again, and saving data if ast all possible? I
am wary about connecting the drive to a known good machine as I don't want
it to kill it! Anti-virus was up-to-date.
Mich

(Mich later adds...)

The other XP machine was already up and running when I plugged in the USB
cable. It showed Found New Hardware, recognized the drive, then the
computer rebooted suddenly. I removed the USB drive, rebooted, inserted
the USB and it crashed again. I am not booting to the USB drive.

If I cannot connect the drive to another PC, how will I run a disk
recovery system?

Mich...
It's hard to tell exactly what's going on here that's causing this problem
other than it seems a defective HDD is at the root of the problem as
"smulnatick" has suggested. But maybe not.

Anyway, do this...

1. Download the HDD diagnostic utility from the disk's manufacturer and see
if you can check it out. It's possible the diagnostic program will not even
detect the disk which is a near-sure sign you're dealing with a defective
drive.

2. I'm assuming the disk is recognized in the BIOS when it's installed as an
internal HDD and booted to. Is that right?

3. Setting aside the graphics card, you're sure the onboard graphics
capability is enabled in the BIOS upon bootup?

4. Have you tried installing the HDD as an internal (secondary) HDD in the
running machine, not as a USB device? Does the boot still fail? If so,
that's another indication you're dealing with a defective HDD.

5. Using the XP installation CD, have you tried booting to such and
accessing the Recovery Console? Is the system detected under those
circumstances? If so, have you invoked any of the usual commands (I assume
with which you're familiar) to repair the boot process?

Try the above for starters...
Anna

 

[M Skabialka]

1. Download the HDD diagnostic utility from the disk's manufacturer and

see if you can check it out. It's possible the diagnostic program will not
even detect the disk which is a near-sure sign you're dealing with a
defective drive.

I will try this as you suggest.

2. I'm assuming the disk is recognized in the BIOS when it's installed as
an internal HDD and booted to. Is that right?

Yes it is recognized, and Windows seems to start to boot. e.g. in Safe Mode
it starts listing the drivers it is loading then always crashes at the same
point. So it is reading the drive.

3. Setting aside the graphics card, you're sure the onboard graphics
capability is enabled in the BIOS upon bootup?

Yes, otherwise there'd be nothing on the screen - right? It looks no
different using the new AGP card, the old AGP card or the onboard video.

4. Have you tried installing the HDD as an internal (secondary) HDD in the
running machine, not as a USB device? Does the boot still fail? If so,
that's another indication you're dealing with a defective HDD.

I didn't install it as a secondary on my XP machine as it already has 2 HDD
drives and 2 CD/DVD drives, and after the crash I'm somewhat wary of
corrupting my machine as well as his.

5. Using the XP installation CD, have you tried booting to such and
accessing the Recovery Console? Is the system detected under those
circumstances? If so, have you invoked any of the usual commands (I assume
with which you're familiar) to repair the boot process?

I tried this but as soon as I select R for Recovery Console or any other
choice I get the BSOD error. I am not ready to reformat and start over
yet...

 

[Anna]

I will try this as you suggest.


Yes it is recognized, and Windows seems to start to boot. e.g. in Safe
Mode it starts listing the drivers it is loading then always crashes at
the same point. So it is reading the drive.


Yes, otherwise there'd be nothing on the screen - right? It looks no
different using the new AGP card, the old AGP card or the onboard video.


I didn't install it as a secondary on my XP machine as it already has 2
HDD drives and 2 CD/DVD drives, and after the crash I'm somewhat wary of
corrupting my machine as well as his.


I tried this but as soon as I select R for Recovery Console or any other
choice I get the BSOD error. I am not ready to reformat and start over
yet...

Mitch:
The only reason I brought up the question re the onboard graphics capability
was to confirm that capability was enabled since I wasn't certain from your
OP that you were getting a display and not a "black screen" situation. But
you've indicated you indeed get a display so it appears there's no video
problem traceable to the AGP graphics card or onboard graphics capability.

Do check out the HDD with the diagnostic utility.

Assuming it checks out OK, have you considered running a Repair install of
the OS, assuming you have an XP OS installation CD (non-branded OEM or
retail version) that will permit a Repair install? It may be worth a shot at
this point.

I really would consider installing the problem drive as a secondary HDD in a
working machine to see if its data could be accessed. I really can't see how
it would "corrupt" that system. Are you concerned about some malware
infestation on that drive doing the "corrupting"? In any event, if its data
could be accessed through that means (via Windows Explorer or Disk
Management for example), it would indicate you're not working with a
defective HDD. But that's your call of course.
Anna

 

[smlunatick]

The other XP machine was already up and running when I plugged in the USB
cable.  It showed Found New Hardware, recognized the drive, then the
computer rebooted suddenly.  I removed the USB drive, rebooted, inserted the
USB and it crashed again.  I am not booting to the USB drive.

If I cannot connect the drive to another PC, how will I run a disk recovery
system?




It seems to be a coincidence that at the time the new video card was
installed, the hard drive has failed.  When you placed the hard drive
into a USB case, make sure that the "other" PC is not set to "boot"
off any type of USB "device" first.  Also, boot the XP successfully
and then "try" to connect the USB "enabled" hard drive.

You will possibly need to locate a disk recovery system.  TestDisk is
an "open source" recovery system

As soon as you have "saved" all import info from the "defunct" hard
drive, locate the driver's manufacturer hard drive diagnostic tools
and check the drive.

Since you attempted to access this"defunct" drive on a different PC
and it "rendered" the "other" PC unusable (aka crashed) then it may be
"dead." Unfortuneately, with no "easy" means of accessing the data,
the drive "may" be unrecoverable.

 

[Bob Harris]

After reading the series of suggestions and your responses, I tend to agree
that the hard drive is bad, not just some corrupt data, but
mechanically/electrically bad.

This reminds me of a frustrating problem I encounter several years ago. My
PC would not even complete the BIOS checks, let alone boot into XP, or get
far enough to press any "F" key to initiate some recovery process. The
problem was eventually traced to a bad USB hub, which was sucking too much
current, thus dropping the voltage to the motherboard enough to prevent the
BIOS checks from completing. Up until that point I had assumed that a PC's
power supply and/or design of the motherboard would limit current, but
apparently that is not always the case. Instead, I get the feeling that the
power supply is intended to limit the maximum voltage, that is, to smooth
out (small) fluctuations on the 110 VAC line.

But, there is a simple aeries of test you can run:

(1) Boot the PC into XP, then attach any USB device, except the suspect hard
drive, to the PC. If this works, the USB post on the PC is probably OK.

(2) Remove that USB device and attached only the external USB enclosure,
without the suspect hard drive. Caution: check the manual/website for the
enclosure to be sure that attaching it without anything inside will not harm
it. If it must have something inside, use a know-good hard drive, CD/DVD,
etc. If this works, then the enclosure is probably OK.

(3) Place the suspect hard drive in the enclosure and attach to the PC. If
the PC crashes, the hard drive is probably bad (95%+ chance).

(4) Download a "live" LINUX CD and boot the PC from it. (For example, the
KNOPPIX CD runs on most hardware.
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html) Then attach the suspect hard
drive via the USB enclosure. If this also crashes the PC, the odds are
about 100% that the hard drive is bad in a mechanical/electrical sense. If
it does not, then you might have some sort of virus in the master boot
record or partition table, and which is specific to windows operating
systems. (This is a very wild guess, and most unlikely.) But, if you can
read the hard drive recover files, remove partitions, reformat.

As far as the AGP card itself, be aware that there are three different
voltages for AGP cards, 3.3, 1.5, and 0.8 volts. Some motherboards are
smart enough to sense the card's required voltage and provide it. Others
can sense a mismatch, and will refuse to boot, possibly giving some "beep
code". My ASUS P4S8X gives a verbal error message about such an
incompatibility. However, it is also possible that a mismatch will destroy
the video card and/or the motherboard. Thus, be sure of the voltages,
before you install any AGP card, unless the same make/model as previously.
See the following link for much good information about AGP:
http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpfix/agpfix.html This link lists which card
make/model has what flavor of AGP and which mother board (chipset) is
compatible with which card type.
http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html That all said, if you can
see even some of the BIOS checks on the screen, then the video card is
working, and your problem is something else (likely the hard drive).

 

[Bill Bradshaw]

Do you have a bootable CD you can try? At least you might be able to
see if it will boot from a CD. Does the external USB case have a power
brick? As people have stated the harddrive may be drawing to much
power. As somebody whom is going through the process of reloading WinXP
Pro and programs because he could not get corrupted video drivers
straightened up I can understand why you do not want to reformat and
reload. And maybe the power requirements of the new video card is
stressing the computer's PSU.

 

[M Skabialka]

It turns out this drive causes any Windows XP or 2000 computer to crash. I
tried it as a secondary/slave drive on several desktops and on the USB
enclosure on laptops and they all instantly crashed when they detected the
USB drive, or BSOD if it was installed. I value my data on my Vista machine
too much to try that.
I downloaded the Western Digital diagnostics onto a bootable CD, installed
only the suspect drive in a computer, and it ran and passed with an error
code of 0000, which means no errors!
My next effort to recover the data on the drive was to create a set of WinXP
bootup floppies and was able to start a chkdsk /f before I left, which
should be complete when I get back.
Meanwhile the computer which developed the problem now has a new hard drive
and Windows XP, but it did on one occasion right after install have the same
BSOD as before with the ntfs.sys error but then it rebooted OK, and seems to
have no problems now.

To answer some other questions:
When I tried to do a repair with the XP CD as soon as I chose R for repair,
it crashed BSOD.
The USB external case has separate power.
The drive crashed the original PC with only the drive and nothing else,
on-board LAN, etc, no other drives or cards, so it can't be power issues.
Other USB devices do not crash the PC with the new drive.
The external drive bay works on the other machines, unless it has the
suspect drive in it, so that rules the bay out.
I haven't tried the Linux boot CD.
The new AGP card is working on the new drive.
There should not have been any malware on the drive as antivirus was up to
date and just finished the latest Windows and Office updates.

 

[M Skabialka]

The chkdsk was run on the wrong disk - my friend was trying something else!
So I put the bad disk back in the machine and booted with the 6 XP boot
floppies to run the chkdsk. It crashed as soon as I chose R for repair. I
ran the extensive Western Digital diagnostics from a floppy and it reported
no errors. After trying every possible way to get to read this disk I have
given up - it is still under warranty and I have an RMA to return it. The
data is history.
Unless someone knows a good piece of recovery software that won't crash the
computer as soon as it detects the drive... so far only the Western Digital
software hasn't crashed.
Mich

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

The chkdsk was run on the wrong disk - my friend was trying something else!
So I put the bad disk back in the machine and booted with the 6 XP boot
floppies to run the chkdsk. It crashed as soon as I chose R for repair. I
ran the extensive Western Digital diagnostics from a floppy and it reported
no errors. After trying every possible way to get to read this disk I have
given up - it is still under warranty and I have an RMA to return it. The
data is history.
Unless someone knows a good piece of recovery software that won't crash the
computer as soon as it detects the drive... so far only the Western Digital
software hasn't crashed.
Mich

I don't know how valuable your data is but you might want to look at
Spinrite. The program has been around since the days of DOS and runs
from a floppy. I last used it to repair a Windows XP boot drive that
was crashing much like yours so that I could use Ghost to copy the
drive. In a couple of hours the drive worked fine and I was able to
make the copy. It won't work if the drive is truly dead, but when it
starts it runs extensive diagnostics on the drive and will tell you if
it will be able to run on the drive.

 

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