XP machine will only boot in Safe mode after cable problem andreplacement

[brassplyer]

Have a P4 2.4 gig system with a Soyo Dragon mobo, running XP Home SP2.
Have 2 SATA and 2 IDE drives. Started having some issues with lockups
and/or a "process or thread has been terminated" blue screen.

I came to the conclusion it was a cable issue. Touching the cable
running between the two IDE drives - my C: & D: drives, would
instantly cause the "whirr click" and machine freeze.

Replaced the wide ribbon cable with one of the narrow profile types,
but now find it won't boot normally. I've got the blue plastic
connector going to the mobo, black and grey going to the drives.
Tried swapping which cable connector each was on - end connector vs
middle, tried removing the D drive and just running the C drive with
various jumper settings. Even tried a different flat ribbon cable from
my spare parts bin. In all cases it will boot in Safe Mode but when
attempting to boot normally it gets as far as the screen with Windows
XP logo and little blue activity animation below then goes to a black
screen with the cursor in the middle and there it stays. I assume if
the initial problem were with the housing for the C drive pin
connections itself, it wouldn't even boot to Safe Mode?

Machine has been running flawlessly up to this point.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[brassplyer]

I should add that prior to this, it was booting as far as the desktop
but then freezing. Now it won't get as far as the desktop.

 

[GlowingBlueMist]

I should add that prior to this, it was booting as far as the desktop
but then freezing. Now it won't get as far as the desktop.

Try booting into the safe mode and then use a system restore point to a date
prior to the problems starting and see if that gets you going again.

 

[brassplyer]

Does the BIOS recognize all drives on the cable and the correct order?
The "Master" drive should be on the end of the cable.
If you have a "missing" drive, you might want to inspect each drive for abent
pin (very common at the end rows).

I've currently only got 2 of the 4 hooked up. The C: is the only IDE
drive now. I tried the restore point from a couple of days ago, that
still only gets me to the desktop, at which point the mouse freezes
and keyboard stops responding unless I boot to Safe Mode.

 

[GlowingBlueMist]

I've currently only got 2 of the 4 hooked up. The C: is the only IDE
drive now. I tried the restore point from a couple of days ago, that
still only gets me to the desktop, at which point the mouse freezes
and keyboard stops responding unless I boot to Safe Mode.

With the system booting fine in the safe mode you have at least ruled most
power supply problems.

It could still be a partial memory problem. In the safe mode or booting a
CD that has a memory tester like a recent version of Memtest86 you can test
the memory in the motherboard.

Then again it almost sounds like a possible graphics card might be partially
defective. In the safe mode Windows uses the old original built in windows
drivers and at a lower level of resolution. When you did the restore back
to a point prior to the problem you would have restored the graphic card
drivers so they can most likely be ruled out but not the card itself.

If the motherboard supports video directly from it and you have been using
an optional graphics card try removing the optional card and switching to
the motherboard connector.

If that allows Windows to come up normally then the problem is most likely a
partially bad video card, as in no longer supporting the video display mode
you normally had it set at but still supporting the older resolution. Other
problems that allow an internal video to work and a graphic card not to can
be the motherboard RAM, CMOS settings partially corrupted, a power supply at
the edge of going down and not able to support the added load of the graphic
mode being used.

If you had a spare drive around that you could erase with out a loss you
might put (only) it in and do a new install just to see how a fresh copy of
Windows does on your system.

 

[relic]

I've currently only got 2 of the 4 hooked up. The C: is the only IDE
drive now. I tried the restore point from a couple of days ago, that
still only gets me to the desktop, at which point the mouse freezes
and keyboard stops responding unless I boot to Safe Mode.

The main difference between 'Safe' and 'Normal' is how many Drivers and
Processes get loaded. Follow that plan.