Mizouse

The power rarely goes out at my house and don't get many surges either. That one from last year was a fluke, almost never happens...

I guess I should get one.

Can you hook up a lamp to one? So if the power goes out at night time I'll still have light?

Stapler

Just one question.

Don't you have fry's electronics up there?

stogie1020

ok, miz called it!

New power supply and it boots to Windows loading, and then cycles again. Probably has something to do with needing the RAID drivers (I had single 80GB as OS and two 250GBs as RAID0 using on board RAID/SATA).

Guess I need to find the RAID driver floppy disks...

80 bucks is a lot better than 800, fo sho...

Mizouse

It wasn't me, it was Stunna that called it.

But I'll take the credit

stogie1020

well, you both get the credit then...

thanks.

Just need to figure out the RAID driver issue I think...

#1 STUNNA

Are you serious!? Miz called it!? Bro WTF!

Y4DQl.jpg

stogie1020

Cant figure out why Windows STARTS to load, then reboots...

stogie1020

lol!

#1 STUNNA

What happened that you need to reinstall raid drivers? Do you need to rebuild your RAID array? If you disconnect your RAID drives does it boot? Does it boot in safemode?

#1 STUNNA

you can call me if you need help.....srs

Mizouse

Too far away just to buy something and return it...

stogie1020

I have unplugged all SATA but the OS drive.

pc gets to XP loading screen, a few passes of the progress bar and it reboots.

Thinking of poping in the XP disc at boot and seeing what happens...

I also have an Ubuntu boot disk and a copy of Vista business I never installed...

#1 STUNNA

^yes try those discs. I know that you're smart enough to backup your data so I don't have to ask about that.

try booting into safemode and if it freezes while loading drivers what's the driver listed at the bottom of the screen as the last one? that's should be the problem one.

stogie1020

Safe mode does hang and reboot, will get the file it hangs on...

I also think maybe the CMOS battery is dead or dying, hence the loss of BIOS data.

Mizouse

Geebus your PC is fvcked...

#1 STUNNA

is the date and time all wrong now too? Go in the bios and make sure its setup the way you had it.

AHA! figured it out! God I'm awesome! Go into the bios and for SATA setting make sure change the setting for ATA mode. If it's set to ATA or IDE then change it to AHCI, it it's set to AHCI then set it back to IDE.

/thread

#1 STUNNA

Not having that set to the right setting will cause windows to crash and reboot so if your bios settings got lost then it got reset back to the wrong setting and just needs to be changed back.

Mizouse

I'll accept stunnas computer repair donations via Paypal

stogie1020

you may be on to something Stunna.

Time was wrong, date was right.

I had changed those setting (Configure SATA as Standard IDE, AHCI, RAID mode) for the single OS drive, but now have all three drive in and will try each option (it's global, not drive specific).

stogie1020

In Recovery Console, all logical volumes (even RAID) are visible as a directory listing.

Just cant boot.

#1 STUNNA

then you'll have ti set it up as RAID and then rebuild the RAID 0 array in the configuration utility

stogie1020

the bios sees all three HDDs. The RAID config sees none of them.

I am considering a fresh XP install...

#1 STUNNA

uuhhh...that's weird. I guess you won't be able to configure RAID again then unless you get an add-on card.

Guess who has a brand new never opened PCI Express add-on RAID card with Sata II, ATA and eSata on it and it looking to sell it? Guess!

stogie1020

OK, now Bios sees as RAID and also nonmember disk (OS) BUT

While in Recovery Console, I used the FIXBOOT command on the C:... May have just junked up the boot sector...

I need to figure out how to set the correct disk to be the boot drive in the MBR.

#1 STUNNA

Fixmbr and then run fixboot?

stogie1020

going to try Checkdisk /f first, then those....

Gparted sees the drive ok, says may be issue with MBR, partition table, etc...

stogie1020

no dice. Looks like a clean install of XP is in the cards...

Mizouse

sux.... sorry to hear stogie, but i guess you dont have to spend $800?

me and stunna will gladly take your savings via paypal

stogie1020

definitely drive related.

Plugged a hdd in as the only drive that was the old OS drive from this netbook (cloned to a larger hdd) and booted up to the logon page...

Format C: imminent...

stogie1020

decided to install XP to the small laptop drive instead, in case I end up wanting to take a look at the contents of the original OS drive... They are both 80GB drives...

I am forgetting the RAID volume for now, until I get a working boot drive with a bootable partition and OS.

stogie1020

Posting from a clean install of XP Pro...

Mizouse

sweet.

stogie1020

Yeah, running OS off of a 80GB laptop drive right now, so hopefully tomorrow I can try adding the old OS drive as a secondary and see if I can move a few things off.

All the important stuff was backed up, although I never tested a backup to see how the recovery would go, so that may be interesting...

Also, not getting into the RAID issue tonight. Need a fresh head for that.

THANKS TONS guys for the help. Also, Will still probably be upgrading to a new machine here shortly... Glad I was forced to spec it out.

#1 STUNNA

Make sure you click on the little pop up balloon offering to give you a tour of Windows XP, it's got some good information in it.

If you dont have it already then download SP3 here
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=24

also do IE8
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=43

Then go to www.ninite.com to get all your 3rd party software and .Net 3.5 SP1 and MSE too.
www.ninite.com

Then do all the windows updates which will be a few hours worth but following these steps in this order will make it quickest and make the update process as hands off as possible.

Then if you need more drivers you can try connecting the other 80GB drive and going into device manager right click on the unknown device and choose update driver and point the folder at the windows or system32 folder of the old 80GB drive and it should see the drivers.

stogie1020

Thanks, doing all the updates now...

The tour was awesome. Who knew Windows would autoplay things?

AZuser

It's alive.... Cool. Guess that means you're holding off on the system upgrade for a bit longer (like me) then.

stogie1020

Yeah, for a little while. Nice to what I am going to get in advance though...

Mizouse

so what are you going to do with the money saved?

vegas?

treat me to some whores?

#1 STUNNA

I didn't get any "Thanks" for my very helpful posts.....

Mizouse

Thanks