Windows XP crash

[Alain Dekker]

I've tried this on a new Windows XP installation (trying to reproduce a
customer reported failure):
* Start boot up
* Just as the Windows XP splash screen shows kill power
* Repeat
* Eventually after about 10-20 goes, Windows is corrupted and won't reboot
normally just keeping cycling through BIOS and back locking up and back
again

What causes this and can anything be done to prevent this?

Thanks,
Alain

 

[SC Tom]

I've tried this on a new Windows XP installation (trying to reproduce a
customer reported failure):
* Start boot up
* Just as the Windows XP splash screen shows kill power
* Repeat
* Eventually after about 10-20 goes, Windows is corrupted and won't reboot
normally just keeping cycling through BIOS and back locking up and back
again

What causes this and can anything be done to prevent this?

Thanks,
Alain

The cause is that Windows is loading and writing files to the HDD during the
boot process, and you are corrupting the data by removing power during this
process.
The prevention is to keep you away from the PC while it is booting

Let's say you are sitting back in your favorite chair reading the morning
newspaper. Halfway through the article, someone bashes you in the back of
the head and knocks you unconscious. You come to, continue to read the
paper, and the same thing happens again. This repeats 10-20 times. What do
you think your retention of that newspaper article is going to be?

Drastic comparison, I know, but not too far off from what is happening to
the PC.

SC Tom

 

[Alain Dekker]

Nice analogy! ) And thanks for the replies.

I do appreciate whats going on, I'm just trying to decide on the best
strategy to fix or alleviate the problem. We have a complex piece of
software on a XP box that goes into a complex machine. 99% of the time it
works brilliantly. However, there is just no way I can expect the cretins,
sorry I meant customers, to treat the Windows XP box nicely. "Please use the
Shutdown button I've put in the software. No? You'd rather flip the bright
red switch on the side? (sigh)" We've even had them wire in the power wrong
and Windows blows up!

The UPS is one option, but doesn't it require Windows to be fully booted
before it works correctly? What if they turn off power on the outlet (not
the inlet) side of the UPS? That would be back to square one.

The HDD is NTFS, BTW.

Short of supervising every power connection anywhere in the world (not
possible!) or writing stren warnings against ill-treating the machine (not
likely to work!) is this just a fact of life under XP?

Is Windows 7 going to be more resilient? Maybe immune? I've heard WES 2009
is an option but our initial invstigations into it shows its quite
complicated and there's no guarantee it will solve the problem anyway. Is
there *any* operating system immune to this abuse?

My own personal experience is that I've never in all my years ever had an OS
fail on me (apart from when I try like a maniac).

Thanks,
Alain

 

[Alain Dekker]

The UPS is one option, but doesn't it require Windows to be fully booted

No,
if the power cuts out, the UPS maintains it.

The UPS "kicking in" has nothing to do with the OS...

of course with the proper software, while the OS is running,
it can go into a safe shut down automatically if the power is interrupted
longer than a momentary drop

Not if they cut the power from the outlet of the UPS into the system. I know
this might be a design flaw on our machine, but there's a switch for the UPS
(ie. inlet into the whole system) and another switch for the machine (after
the UPS). if they turn that one off (and its bright red!) then it doesn't
matter what the UPS does, the computer and the rest of the electronics are
definitely powered down.

Not easy...

 

[Bob I]

Not if they cut the power from the outlet of the UPS into the system. I know
this might be a design flaw on our machine, but there's a switch for the UPS
(ie. inlet into the whole system) and another switch for the machine (after
the UPS). if they turn that one off (and its bright red!) then it doesn't
matter what the UPS does, the computer and the rest of the electronics are
definitely powered down.

Not easy...

What is the purpose of the "bright red switch"? If it is only to be used
to kill electricity to the internals in the case of maintenance or fire,
use a double pole switch instead and use the other connection to power
a flashing light or alarm. Then place a large label indictating that
this switch is for maintenance purposes only.

 

[Daave]

Not if they cut the power from the outlet of the UPS into the system.
I know this might be a design flaw on our machine, but there's a
switch for the UPS (ie. inlet into the whole system) and another
switch for the machine (after the UPS). if they turn that one off
(and its bright red!) then it doesn't matter what the UPS does, the
computer and the rest of the electronics are definitely powered down.

The whole point of a UPS unit is to provide uninterrupted power. Unless
someone is disconnecting the PC from the UPS, the PC will continue to
receive power -- even if there is a power outage. The power would
seamlessly switch from AC to DC (from the UPS's battery).

If someone is so foolish as to switch off the connection from the UPS,
they deserve to have problems! And you should charge them accordingly to
fix them. Of course if they had a recent image of the hard drive, all
that would need to be done is to restore that image.

 

[HeyBub]

I've tried this on a new Windows XP installation (trying to reproduce
a customer reported failure):
* Start boot up
* Just as the Windows XP splash screen shows kill power
* Repeat
* Eventually after about 10-20 goes, Windows is corrupted and won't
reboot normally just keeping cycling through BIOS and back locking up
and back again

What causes this and can anything be done to prevent this?

Perhaps you can train them to "Hibernate" the machine (put a shortcut on the
desktop to a batch file or have your software invoke the batch file) under
the guise of "I've found a way to get the machine to "boot up" faster..."

You could also add the following code:

1. When the program starts, it writes a sentinel file.
2. When the program stops, the last thing it does is delete this sentinel
file.

Thereafter, at startup, before it writes the sentinel, it checks for the
file's existence. If the sentinel file is found at startup, the program does
the following:

A. Displays the message: 'The program was not terminated normally and must
now recover. You can help by praying really hard."
B. The program gives every indication that it is really busy - flash its
lights, put cryptic messages on the screen, displays a progress bar, etc. -
for some unbearable lenght of time.

It's all in the training.

 

[Alain Dekker]

Actually, we store an image of the hard disk on a flash card inside the
computer and can recover the computer this way...we're currently trying to
recover the computer as we speak but the customer is unhappy about the
machine downtime because its in a production plant.

Thanks for the comments.
Alain

 

[Jose]

Actually, we store an image of the hard disk on a flash card inside the
computer and can recover the computer this way...we're currently trying to
recover the computer as we speak but the customer is unhappy about the
machine downtime because its in a production plant.

Thanks for the comments.
Alain

Good.

In your RCA report, make it clear the downtime was caused by them (if
it was). Then offer them a solution (which is not a UPS if they are
using the big red switch).

The next time it happens, make sure it is down longer.

 

[Daave]

If time is a critical issue, then cloning would be better. Simply boot
off the cloned drive.

 

[BillW50]

[...]

Short of supervising every power connection anywhere in the world (not
possible!) or writing stren warnings against ill-treating the machine
(not likely to work!) is this just a fact of life under XP?

Is Windows 7 going to be more resilient? Maybe immune? I've heard WES
2009 is an option but our initial invstigations into it shows its
quite complicated and there's no guarantee it will solve the problem
anyway. Is there *any* operating system immune to this abuse?

Hello Alain! Yes there is actually. Microsoft calls it Embedded Windows
XP. Actually you can take any Windows XP SP2 (I don't know much about
the SP3 version) and grab the free EWF files from the trial version.
What this does is to make the system drive as read only.

Although you can toggle it on and off too when you want. And when
enabled, you can run as many viruses, pull the power plug, and do other
nasty things as much as you want too. And you won't hurt a thing. Just
kill the power whenever you want and just reboot and everything is back
to the same way as you started.

 

[Alain Dekker]

Actually I know about Windows XP Embedded, but my initial investigations
showed it to be very difficult to set up. For one thing, I thought you
needed to target designer to decide whihc components you need?

Is this "free" EWF file off the Windows XP SP2 CD, do you mean? Presumably
you still need to activate XP and all that? If the OS is write-only, that
would mean I'd need to write user data to a separate partition or can I make
part of the partition writeable, part not?

Any documentation you can point me too? This is the sort of thing we'd like
to do, but our industrial PC supplier (who even went to a MS conference on
WES 2009) struggled to understand WES! Its an option to rewrite the code to
write only to a separate D:\ partition.

Its also an option to switch read/write of the primary partition on/off...if
I knew how in C++ or Delphi!

Thanks again,
Alain

[...]

Short of supervising every power connection anywhere in the world (not
possible!) or writing stren warnings against ill-treating the machine
(not likely to work!) is this just a fact of life under XP?

Is Windows 7 going to be more resilient? Maybe immune? I've heard WES
2009 is an option but our initial invstigations into it shows its quite
complicated and there's no guarantee it will solve the problem anyway. Is
there *any* operating system immune to this abuse?

Hello Alain! Yes there is actually. Microsoft calls it Embedded Windows
XP. Actually you can take any Windows XP SP2 (I don't know much about the
SP3 version) and grab the free EWF files from the trial version. What this
does is to make the system drive as read only.

Although you can toggle it on and off too when you want. And when enabled,
you can run as many viruses, pull the power plug, and do other nasty
things as much as you want too. And you won't hurt a thing. Just kill the
power whenever you want and just reboot and everything is back to the same
way as you started.

 

[Alain Dekker]

Perhaps you can train them to "Hibernate" the machine (put a shortcut on
the desktop to a batch file or have your software invoke the batch file)
under the guise of "I've found a way to get the machine to "boot up"
faster..."

You could also add the following code:

1. When the program starts, it writes a sentinel file.
2. When the program stops, the last thing it does is delete this sentinel
file.

Thereafter, at startup, before it writes the sentinel, it checks for the
file's existence. If the sentinel file is found at startup, the program
does the following:

A. Displays the message: 'The program was not terminated normally and must
now recover. You can help by praying really hard."
B. The program gives every indication that it is really busy - flash its
lights, put cryptic messages on the screen, displays a progress bar,
etc. - for some unbearable lenght of time.

It's all in the training.

Don't take it to your head, please, but that is both exceedingly cunning and
clever! I think I'll do something along those lines, thanks...

Alain

 

[Richard Urban]

Nice analogy! ) And thanks for the replies.

I do appreciate whats going on, I'm just trying to decide on the best
strategy to fix or alleviate the problem. We have a complex piece of
software on a XP box that goes into a complex machine. 99% of the time it
works brilliantly. However, there is just no way I can expect the cretins,
sorry I meant customers, to treat the Windows XP box nicely. "Please use
the Shutdown button I've put in the software. No? You'd rather flip the
bright red switch on the side? (sigh)" We've even had them wire in the
power wrong and Windows blows up!

The UPS is one option, but doesn't it require Windows to be fully booted
before it works correctly? What if they turn off power on the outlet (not
the inlet) side of the UPS? That would be back to square one.

The HDD is NTFS, BTW.

Short of supervising every power connection anywhere in the world (not
possible!) or writing stren warnings against ill-treating the machine (not
likely to work!) is this just a fact of life under XP?

Is Windows 7 going to be more resilient? Maybe immune? I've heard WES 2009
is an option but our initial invstigations into it shows its quite
complicated and there's no guarantee it will solve the problem anyway. Is
there *any* operating system immune to this abuse?

My own personal experience is that I've never in all my years ever had an
OS fail on me (apart from when I try like a maniac).

Thanks,
Alain

You can not program to eliminate stupidity. An engineer can not create a
device that is "stupid" proof.

All the warnings in the world are not going to prevent someone from stepping
in front of a moving train if he wishes to do so.

Fools prevail!

 

[Craig S]

The sum total of these Replies seems to indicate you have a management issue
- Not a computer issue. The defeat of a "Solution" (ie) a UPS because an
employee(s) turns the power OFF (again) "at the computer" is akin to the
behavior of small children - which in my view makes this a Management Issue
to be discussed with them. You'll chase your tail until you do.

 

[BillW50]

In Alain Dekker typed on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:01:01 -0000:

Actually I know about Windows XP Embedded, but my initial
investigations showed it to be very difficult to set up. For one
thing, I thought you needed to target designer to decide whihc
components you need?

Hi Alain! Well I take a regular Windows XP SP2 system (I don't know of
SP3 embedded works for Windows SP3 or not) and add the EWF files from
the trial embedded download.

Is this "free" EWF file off the Windows XP SP2 CD, do you mean?

No, it is the trial version of embedded from Microsoft. Although you can
find the EWF files by Googling them too.

Presumably you still need to activate XP and all that?

Yes, retail or OEM version works just fine.

If the OS is write-only, that would mean I'd need to write user data
to a separate partition or can I make part of the partition writeable,
part not?

EWF write protects one or more partitions. Usually one wants the system
partition (although you can change it) as write protected. So let's say
drive C is write protected while the others or not. And how the write
protection works is by buffering all writes to either RAM (512MB max or
is that the default?) or to another partition. And as far as everything
is concerned including Windows, the protected drive is being written
too. Although it just looks like it is (so nothing complains), but it
isn't really.

Any documentation you can point me too? This is the sort of thing
we'd like to do, but our industrial PC supplier (who even went to a
MS conference on WES 2009) struggled to understand WES! Its an option
to rewrite the code to write only to a separate D:\ partition.

Lots of place on Google about EWF information. I don't have a favorite
one or anything. I just read many of them to get all of the pieces to
the puzzle. The installation is much easier though (read the readme file
for more info about EWF in general) with:

EWFTool_v1.0_BETA
http://www.computa.co.uk/staff/dan/?p=5

Its also an option to switch read/write of the primary partition
on/off...if I knew how in C++ or Delphi!

Yes there are command switches to toggle it on and off (reboot
required). And other switches to disable now and write everything to the
protected drive (no rebooting), etc. So you can place them in batch
files, or use GUI interfaces that others have created for EWF.

[...]

Short of supervising every power connection anywhere in the world
(not possible!) or writing stren warnings against ill-treating the
machine (not likely to work!) is this just a fact of life under XP?

Is Windows 7 going to be more resilient? Maybe immune? I've heard
WES 2009 is an option but our initial invstigations into it shows
its quite complicated and there's no guarantee it will solve the
problem anyway. Is there *any* operating system immune to this
abuse?

Hello Alain! Yes there is actually. Microsoft calls it Embedded
Windows XP. Actually you can take any Windows XP SP2 (I don't know
much about the SP3 version) and grab the free EWF files from the
trial version. What this does is to make the system drive as read
only. Although you can toggle it on and off too when you want. And
when
enabled, you can run as many viruses, pull the power plug, and do
other nasty things as much as you want too. And you won't hurt a
thing. Just kill the power whenever you want and just reboot and
everything is back to the same way as you started.