Big Problem with Boot

[David09sp]

Help Please!

Ok so you may or may not of read some of my recent issues but here's whats going on.

I start my computer and I get a "Verifying DMI Pool Data" then after a few seconds a "Disk Read Error Occured."
Steps I have tried:
-Reseting CMOS
-Playing with boot sequence
-Unplugging everything and re-plugging it all

So today it aloud me on to my computer, as in it booted normal into the XP screen and all the way through, I had about 10 minutes, and then boom freeze everything locks, so i shut it down, and restarted and it happend again.

Then I tried using my XP CD and trying to get to the Recovery Consol, but problem! I set 1st Boot to CD Drive, and slap in the XP CD, it says "Boot from CD:" but then doesnt get anywhere, then after 10 seconds or so goes back to the "Disk Read Error Occured!"

AHHHH, I cant boot with the CD, nor floppy, nor harddrive.

Someone help please!!! I have a video that I need to edit before the end of the week.

[stinger608]

Well first thing that I would suggest, is to unplug your floppy, optical disks (ie cd-rom, and/or DVD drives), hard drive(s), and all but one stick of ram.

Turn on the computer, and see what it does. If it goes to the "missing system disk" and stops there, go ahead and just let it sit there for a few minutes to make sure it does not do a reboot.

If the above goes ok, now plug in your hard drive that has the operating system on it, and reboot again. See what happens now! If you have the same issue that you have been experiencing lately, then most likely your hard drive is failing, but if it boots ok into windows, attempt to do a few things in windows and see if it freezes again.

If all goes well, then install the rest of your ram and try it again, then the optical drives and so on.

One other note, when was the last time that you cleaned out the dust in your system, video card, cpu fan & heat sink, etc...?

[Quakindude]

Are you overclocking your RAM or tightening the timings on your RAM? Made any adjustments to BIOS settings?

[David09sp]

I have not made any adjustments, only a few to the BIOS after trial and error, but then reset back to standard settings after the trials didnt do anything.

And well the Dust thing, my computer isnt in a case, its in a Shoe Box....not kidding. I havent dusted it for about 8 months or so. Could dust actually be a problem? Cause i havent had a problem with it before, or nothing that I know of.

[Stormcrow]

A shoebox? Haha man, you beat my idea of making a cardboard case. And yes, dust can be issue as it chokes fans and builds up heat. If you got your components in a shoebox...then the lack of airflow would definitely allow some dust to build up in there. The drives could be overheating and not functioning properly, due to congestion and heat entrapment.

[David09sp]

I actually have 2 fans mounted in the box. But dust is probably prown to the machine, if it is dust what do I do to fix it? or can it?

Also I booted with just 1 stick of ram, no hardrive, floppy, and cd, and this is what I got:

Verifying DMI Pool Data.........................Update Success
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

Then plugged back the Harddrive, and got the Verifying DMI Pool Data but no "Update Success" then once again after a few seconds a "Disk Read Occured"

help...

[Stormcrow]

Sounds like your hard drive is making its last stand, try plugging it into the machine your using now, and see if you can access the drive. If the drive is faulty, least this way you can attempt to recover the data from it.
Dust builds up quickly in a machine, the more confined the space the more dust you'll see. Just grab a can of compressed air and hose out your equipment with it, remove the fans and clean them, spray down the board and wires, put the little nozzle on and get in the hard to reach places, like PCI and empty RAM slots. I have to clean my system out every month, and its well ventilated. A shoebox, maybe once every two weeks or so.

[stinger608]

Yep, that is almost surely the drive going bad

[Panda Man]

Also, when you set it to boot from the CD, are you sure you didn't get a message say "Press any key to boot from CD..."?

As for the shoebox mod, been there done that

Ghetto shoebox pooter!

:P


And as a last ditch effort, you could always try killdisk and see if that helps, assuming you have all your data backed up. I would suggest using killdisk from UBCD

Ultimate Boot CD - Overview

If killdisk + windows reinstallation doesn't work, then it can't be anything other than the hard disk.

[David09sp]

Yup I am gonna try to plug it into this computer, I need to get about 18gb off that hardrive or i am f'd.

BtW My shoebox looks alot beter then that one, that thing looks horrible.