W2K boot drive - unable to mount

[Mediamon]

Brief description of PC then the symptoms and errors I have observed and
actions taken thus far.

System:

W2K SP3
C = WD 120GB - system/boot drive - single partition/NTFS (basic disk)
D = WD 80GB - single partition/NTFS (basic disk)
E = Maxtor 27GB - single partition/NTFS (basic disk)
F = IDE/ATAPI CD-RW
G = IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM

C/D/E/F connected to Promise Ultra 133-TX2 IDE PCI Card
G connected to IDE on systemboard

The PC worked fine for the past year.

Then several weeks ago when booting up the PC stalled on W2K startup
screen. Afte several attempts at rebooting, I disconnected all the other
drives from the PC IDE adapter and found then I could successfully boot
into Windows 2000.

At that moment I should of imaged the boot drive but I did not (bad excuse:
lack of storage).

So I used the system for last two weeks without any apparent issues. Then
today while browsing the web the PC locked up. I restarted the PCed but
could not get past W2k startup screen (the gauge on the W2K graphical
startup screen paused half-way) .

So I rebooted again and pressed F8 to get to W2k startup menu and selected
SafeMode. Then a list of driver files loading into memory scrolled on
screen then stalled. Last file loaded showed mup.sys. So I assume safemode
startup stalled at whatever system driver was attempting to load righ after
mup.sys. Several attempts showed same issue.

So got out my four W2K setup boot floppies (for some reason I'm unable to
boot from CD on this system). After booting from floppy #1, I pressed F6 to
load the Promise card IDE driver, and then proceeded. Half way thru the
boot process I inserted floppy with Promise driver, then proceeded some
more. After inserting W2K setup floppy #4 it looked like the floppy boot
process was goingto work. But just before the time I expected to see the
W2K setup menu display on screen ("Loading Windows 2000" was displaying in
the in the boot up status bar) I observed a BSOD. I didn't document the
specific STOP string (but I can retrieve if needed). The error message
stated "ACPI BIOS in the system is not fully compliant with ACPI spec and
to try disabling ACPI mode during text mode setup by pressing F7 when
prompted to install storage drivers which will 'silently' disable ACPI".

Note that when I installed W2K on this PC a number of years ago I could not
install W2K with HAL set as ACPI. I had to select "Standard PC". Even after
updating the system BIOS I was never able to make ACPI work on this PC.
Thus I lived with the system operating as Standard PC, which was just fine.
Except that I could never upgrade to SP4. So I have been running under SP3
(now with the recent RPC threats which affect W2K SP3, and since MS only
provides security updates for SP4, I feel I am now more than a bit more
vulnerable). I digress...

So after the above BSOD I followed the instructions and rebooted and then
pressed F7 at the appropriate time. But this bypassed the ability to
install the needed Promise drivers. Thus when the W2K boot floppy process
finished and when I made it to the setup menu and selected Repair the hard
drive could not be found.

What to do? Fortunately I have another W2K machine (W2K SP4), also with the
same Promise Ultra PCI IDE card. So I moved the WD120 drive over to that
second machine and connected to the Promise card. When booting the Promise
BIOS reported on screen the regular boot drive for this second PC was at
postion "D0" and the WD120 I just moved over was drive number "D2. So
booting into the normal W2K looked to be proceeding ok. Then on W2K startup
screen, the startup gauge (for the lack of better word....) advanced almost
all the way to the very end, but then the boot up stalled. I could see the
WD120 HD LED illuminate for a ten secs or so then go off, then 30 secs
later turn on again for ten secs then turn off, like the system was
attempting to munt the hard drive. This continued until I rebooted.

From the above I gather the hard drive is the problem, not the original PC
itself.

So I rebooted pressing F8 to get into SafeMode. A listing of system drivers
scrolled down the screen then stall with mup.sys as the last one displayed,
Just like on the other system. (At that moment I should have read the
ntbtlog.txt file to note which driver was attempting to load when boot up
failed but forgot).

So rebooted with the W2K setup floppies. After pressing F6 and inserting
Promise driver disk, and proceeding to boot up with setup disk #4, loading
Windows 2000 was displaying in the text-mode boot up screen status bar. But
then system boot up stalled. No error messages.

So I am in a bit of a bind here. Any recommends on how to mount this hard
drive and/or try to save it? I've heard from some that running chkdsk on
the drive is not a good idea, but I couldn't do that right now anyway as I
cannot mount the drive.

I've also read that configuring a Bart's Boot CD may be best method to
mount the hard drive, but I'm unable to boot from CD on either of the W2K
PC's.

However I know I am able to boot from a Win98SE setup floppy which has CD
drivers and then able to access the CD drives from DOS. (But of course
Win98SE can;t read NTFS, even if was able to mount the drive).

So can I make a Bart's boot floppy to do similar?

How about one of those external USB boxes which I can put the WD120 hard
drive in and see if I can mount via USB? But problem is both W2K PC's only
support USB1.1 (and I can't boot off of USB on either one).

Yes I am living in hardware past but up til now both systems have been good
enough. Maybe Santa will be good to me this year but at any rate I will
need toreclaim my data.

Anotehr option is to take PC over to friends and see if I can mount on his
Windows XP SP2 PC.

Whatever options I may have available I want to safeguard the chance of
recovering the data on the disk (unfortunatley I cannot afford to send off
to a data recovery firm).

I have Ghost and TrueImage. If I can somehow get the hard drive to mount on
XP box should I immediately image/clone the drive to another dive first
thing. Or should first I run chkdsk or some other repair first?

I appreciate any and all suggestions. Thanks.

Woody

 

[Rod Speed]

Brief description of PC then the symptoms and errors I have observed
and actions taken thus far.

System:

W2K SP3
C = WD 120GB - system/boot drive - single partition/NTFS (basic disk)
D = WD 80GB - single partition/NTFS (basic disk)
E = Maxtor 27GB - single partition/NTFS (basic disk)
F = IDE/ATAPI CD-RW
G = IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM

C/D/E/F connected to Promise Ultra 133-TX2 IDE PCI Card
G connected to IDE on systemboard

The PC worked fine for the past year.

Then several weeks ago when booting up the PC stalled on W2K startup
screen. Afte several attempts at rebooting, I disconnected all the
other drives from the PC IDE adapter and found then I could
successfully boot into Windows 2000.

At that moment I should of imaged the boot drive but I did not (bad
excuse: lack of storage).

So I used the system for last two weeks without any apparent issues.
Then today while browsing the web the PC locked up. I restarted the
PCed but could not get past W2k startup screen (the gauge on the W2K
graphical startup screen paused half-way) .

So I rebooted again and pressed F8 to get to W2k startup menu and
selected SafeMode. Then a list of driver files loading into memory
scrolled on screen then stalled. Last file loaded showed mup.sys. So
I assume safemode startup stalled at whatever system driver was
attempting to load righ after mup.sys. Several attempts showed same
issue.

So got out my four W2K setup boot floppies (for some reason I'm
unable to boot from CD on this system). After booting from floppy #1,
I pressed F6 to load the Promise card IDE driver, and then proceeded.
Half way thru the boot process I inserted floppy with Promise driver,
then proceeded some more. After inserting W2K setup floppy #4 it
looked like the floppy boot process was goingto work. But just before
the time I expected to see the W2K setup menu display on screen
("Loading Windows 2000" was displaying in the in the boot up status
bar) I observed a BSOD. I didn't document the specific STOP string
(but I can retrieve if needed). The error message stated "ACPI BIOS
in the system is not fully compliant with ACPI spec and to try
disabling ACPI mode during text mode setup by pressing F7 when
prompted to install storage drivers which will 'silently' disable
ACPI".

Note that when I installed W2K on this PC a number of years ago I
could not install W2K with HAL set as ACPI. I had to select "Standard
PC". Even after updating the system BIOS I was never able to make
ACPI work on this PC. Thus I lived with the system operating as
Standard PC, which was just fine. Except that I could never upgrade
to SP4. So I have been running under SP3 (now with the recent RPC
threats which affect W2K SP3, and since MS only provides security
updates for SP4, I feel I am now more than a bit more vulnerable). I
digress...

So after the above BSOD I followed the instructions and rebooted and
then pressed F7 at the appropriate time. But this bypassed the
ability to install the needed Promise drivers. Thus when the W2K boot
floppy process finished and when I made it to the setup menu and
selected Repair the hard drive could not be found.

What to do? Fortunately I have another W2K machine (W2K SP4), also
with the same Promise Ultra PCI IDE card. So I moved the WD120 drive
over to that second machine and connected to the Promise card. When
booting the Promise BIOS reported on screen the regular boot drive
for this second PC was at postion "D0" and the WD120 I just moved
over was drive number "D2. So booting into the normal W2K looked to
be proceeding ok. Then on W2K startup screen, the startup gauge (for
the lack of better word....) advanced almost all the way to the very
end, but then the boot up stalled. I could see the WD120 HD LED
illuminate for a ten secs or so then go off, then 30 secs later turn
on again for ten secs then turn off, like the system was attempting
to munt the hard drive. This continued until I rebooted.

From the above I gather the hard drive is the problem, not the
original PC itself.

So I rebooted pressing F8 to get into SafeMode. A listing of system
drivers scrolled down the screen then stall with mup.sys as the last
one displayed, Just like on the other system. (At that moment I
should have read the ntbtlog.txt file to note which driver was
attempting to load when boot up failed but forgot).

So rebooted with the W2K setup floppies. After pressing F6 and
inserting Promise driver disk, and proceeding to boot up with setup
disk #4, loading Windows 2000 was displaying in the text-mode boot up
screen status bar. But then system boot up stalled. No error messages.

So I am in a bit of a bind here. Any recommends on how to mount this
hard drive and/or try to save it? I've heard from some that running
chkdsk on the drive is not a good idea, but I couldn't do that right
now anyway as I cannot mount the drive.

I've also read that configuring a Bart's Boot CD may be best method to
mount the hard drive, but I'm unable to boot from CD on either of the
W2K PC's.

However I know I am able to boot from a Win98SE setup floppy which
has CD drivers and then able to access the CD drives from DOS. (But
of course Win98SE can;t read NTFS, even if was able to mount the drive).

So can I make a Bart's boot floppy to do similar?

Not really, you need the CD because Bart PE is WinPE, too big for floppys.

How about one of those external USB boxes which I can put
the WD120 hard drive in and see if I can mount via USB?

Too risky with it not being backed up.

But problem is both W2K PC's only support USB1.1
(and I can't boot off of USB on either one).

Yes I am living in hardware past but up til now both systems
have been good enough. Maybe Santa will be good to me
this year but at any rate I will need to reclaim my data.

Anotehr option is to take PC over to friends and
see if I can mount on his Windows XP SP2 PC.

I'd go that route myself and use a bootable True
Image CD on that system to image that drive.

Once I had done that I'd decide whether you want to upgrade
the hardware now, and resolve the problem with booting a CD
on those systems if you dont. Thats gotta be fixable unless there
is some basic problem like the motherboard caps have gone bad.

Whatever options I may have available I want to
safeguard the chance of recovering the data on the disk

That's why I'd image the drive on the XP machine immediately, even
if you have to buy a USB drive to get somewhere to write the image.

(unfortunatley I cannot afford to send off to a data recovery firm).

Sure, and buying a USB drive to put the image is a much cheaper alternative.

I have Ghost and TrueImage. If I can somehow
get the hard drive to mount on XP box

You dont actually need to get it to mount, just visible to True
Image booted from CD would be all you need to image it.

should I immediately image/clone the drive to another dive first thing.
Yes.

Or should first I run chkdsk or some other repair first?

Nope, definitely not. Much safer to image it before
attempting to repair it if it wont mount on the XP system.

 

[Mediamon]

Mediamon <noemailATunknown.com> wrote:

I'd go that route myself and use a bootable True
Image CD on that system to image that drive.

Once I had done that I'd ... resolve the problem with booting a CD

I found my boot CD was bad, I built a bootable Rescue Media Builder CD
with True Image and I confirmed I can boot with the CD.

That's why I'd image the drive on the XP machine immediately, even
if you have to buy a USB drive to get somewhere to write the image.

You dont actually need to get it to mount, just visible to True
Image booted from CD would be all you need to image it.

I'm unable to "access" the hard drive or make the drive "visible". I
guess "mount" does not mean the same thing in this context?

Any recommends to make the disks connected to Promise PCI IDE card
visible to True Image when booting from CD?

When I run the Rescue Media Builder CD, which I made with True Image, I
find I cannot boot system when selecting "full" mode on the Rescue Media
menu. System shows "Loading. Please wait..." then after two minutes
shows "Restarting system..." but that message remains on screen and
system does not reboot.

When I select "Safe" version from the Rescue Media Builder CD, the True
Image recovery program starts (assuming True Image boot CD is based on
some version of Linux) but the drives connected to the Promise PCI IDE
card are not listed in True Image (this is explained by Acronis, that is
the "safe" version will not load SCSI, USB or other removable storage
drivers).

The dives connected to the Promise card do indeed show up when running
True Image within Windows (but unfortunately I can not start Windows when
the problem hard drive is attached).

Yes.

Going in circles here?Unfortunately my attempts to make the problem hard
drive "visible" so it can be cloned has been unsucessful.

I continue to appreciate any and all suggestions. Thanks again for your
assistance.

Woody

 

[Rod Speed]

I found my boot CD was bad, I built a bootable Rescue Media Builder
CD with True Image and I confirmed I can boot with the CD.

Just ran into a similar problem myself today. I was using some
dirt cheap CDRs that someone else bought for me, which worked
fine in some systems, but not others. These are semi transparent, you
can look right thru them, and quite a few drives dont like them much.

I'm unable to "access" the hard drive or make the drive "visible".

Are you saying that True Image booted from a CD cant see it ?

Sounds like you havent actually tried the friend's XP system yet.

I guess "mount" does not mean the same thing in this context?

Sort of, its basically unix terminology.

Any recommends to make the disks connected to Promise
PCI IDE card visible to True Image when booting from CD?

Try some other builds of TI, they can vary quite a bit on that stuff.

When I run the Rescue Media Builder CD, which I made with True
Image, I find I cannot boot system when selecting "full" mode on
the Rescue Media menu. System shows "Loading. Please wait..."
then after two minutes shows "Restarting system..." but that
message remains on screen and system does not reboot.

I get that when the drive doesnt like the media used for the TI rescue CD.

When I select "Safe" version from the Rescue Media Builder
CD, the True Image recovery program starts (assuming
True Image boot CD is based on some version of Linux)

Yes, the rescue CD certiainly is.

but the drives connected to the Promise PCI IDE
card are not listed in True Image (this is explained
by Acronis, that is the "safe" version will not load
SCSI, USB or other removable storage drivers).

I found that the NIC isnt seen either today. I normally create an
image of any system I am working on, before changing anything,
and normally do that over the lan. On this particular rather elderly
system, the full version produces a pretty scrambled video but
its only the graphic parts that are unreadable, so if you know
what its asking, it is possible to use the full version.

The safe version boots fine and is always completely
readable on the monitor but doesnt see the lan at all.

The dives connected to the Promise card do indeed show up
when running True Image within Windows (but unfortunately I
can not start Windows when the problem hard drive is attached).

Try different media, that might well load the full version fine.

It did with this dinosaur today.

Going in circles here?Unfortunately my attempts to make the problem
hard drive "visible" so it can be cloned has been unsucessful.

You still have things to try.

I continue to appreciate any and all suggestions.
Thanks again for your assistance.

Thanks for the progress report.

 

[Mediamon]

Are you saying that True Image booted from a CD cant see it ?

Yes. I cannopt boot any OS CD with the hard drive attached to the Promise
card.

Sounds like you havent actually tried the friend's XP system yet.

Found his system difficult to access these days.

Try some other builds of TI, they can vary quite a bit on that stuff.


I get that when the drive doesnt like the media used for the TI rescue
CD.

Didn't matter which media i burned to. I am able to burn other CD's just
fine and recently burned bootable CD's on smae media worked fine (see
below). Anyway went out and purchased more expensive media (TDK) and same
result.

I found that the NIC isnt seen either today. I normally create an
image of any system I am working on, before changing anything,
and normally do that over the lan. On this particular rather elderly
system, the full version produces a pretty scrambled video but
its only the graphic parts that are unreadable, so if you know
what its asking, it is possible to use the full version.

The safe version boots fine and is always completely
readable on the monitor but doesnt see the lan at all.

Unless I find a way to start Acronis in "full" mode I will never be able
to see any drives on the Promise controller card.

You still have things to try.

I built a BartPE CD (ReatogoXPE v3.13) and successfully booted both
systems with the CD and within the OS (XP SP2) was able to access all
drives connected to the Promise card. But when I attached the problem
hard drive and then rebooted with the PE CD, I observed the same stalling
results as when booting W2K normally.

So the above is as far as I have advanced. Neither W2k or ReatogoXPE will
boot with the problem hard drive attached. I still cannot successfully
start up with an OS which can can access the NTFS drive connected to the
Promise Ultra card.

Hopefully I can get myself in a position so I can access this problem
160GB hard drive soon so I can clone with True Image and then operate on
it (it has so much recent important info on it which I do not have backed
up... shame on me).

I've ben working on this for 10+ days now but perservering. So still open
for suggestions.

Woody

 

[Rod Speed]

Yes. I cannopt boot any OS CD with the
hard drive attached to the Promise card.

Found his system difficult to access these days.

Might be worth the trouble tho given that you cant get
anything useful with the drive on the Promise card.

Try the free trial of TI 9. Its quite a bit better on that stuff than the 8
builds.

Didn't matter which media i burned to. I am able to burn
other CD's just fine and recently burned bootable CD's on
smae media worked fine (see below). Anyway went out and
purchased more expensive media (TDK) and same result.

OK, that eliminates that possibility.

Unless I find a way to start Acronis in "full" mode I will never
be able to see any drives on the Promise controller card.
True.

I built a BartPE CD (ReatogoXPE v3.13) and successfully booted both
systems with the CD and within the OS (XP SP2) was able to access
all drives connected to the Promise card. But when I attached the
problem hard drive and then rebooted with the PE CD, I observed
the same stalling results as when booting W2K normally.

So the above is as far as I have advanced. Neither W2k or
ReatogoXPE will boot with the problem hard drive attached.
I still cannot successfully start up with an OS which can can
access the NTFS drive connected to the Promise Ultra card.

Hopefully I can get myself in a position so I can access this
problem 160GB hard drive soon so I can clone with True Image

Yeah, I'd try harder with the mate's XP machine or produce
your own by buying a cheap hard drive to put it on.

and then operate on it (it has so much recent important
info on it which I do not have backed up... shame on me).

I've ben working on this for 10+ days now but perservering.
So still open for suggestions.

Why cant you put the drive on one of the
motherboard ports, just so you can image it ?

 

[Guest]

Not really, you need the CD because Bart PE is WinPE, too big for floppys.


Too risky with it not being backed up.




I'd go that route myself and use a bootable True
Image CD on that system to image that drive.

Once I had done that I'd decide whether you want to upgrade
the hardware now, and resolve the problem with booting a CD
on those systems if you dont. Thats gotta be fixable unless there
is some basic problem like the motherboard caps have gone bad.


That's why I'd image the drive on the XP machine immediately, even
if you have to buy a USB drive to get somewhere to write the image.


Sure, and buying a USB drive to put the image is a much cheaper alternative.


You dont actually need to get it to mount, just visible to True
Image booted from CD would be all you need to image it.


Nope, definitely not. Much safer to image it before
attempting to repair it if it wont mount on the XP system.