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| Thread ID: 101790 | 2009-07-27 06:05:00 | desktop dying? | pukunui81 (15121) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 795633 | 2009-07-27 06:05:00 | Hi there, I'm new to these forums. I used to go to Experts Exchange for help but they've become a pay site ... :( Anyway, my desktop recently started spontaneously crashing and rebooting. It does this several times a day and whenever it reboots, it informs me that there is an Invalid System Disk. The only way to get it to boot back into Windows is to turn it off and then turn it back on (hitting the restart button just results in the Invalid System Disk message again). It's getting pretty old (many of the components - like the CPU and the primary hard drive - predate my arrival in NZ in 2003) so I don't know if there's much hope for it but I'd like to try. I was hoping it would last until Windows 7 officially comes out so I can get a brand new desktop with that OS. Anyway ... this old dinosaur of mine is running Windows XP Pro with SP3. It's got 1 GB of RAM, an AMD Athlon 1.7 GHz CPU, an ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card, a Creative SoundBlaster sound card. Everything's pretty much up to date. It only started having this problem in the past few days. I'm not entirely sure what's caused it. I have installed two games and several software updates (including Windows updates) recently, so I suppose it could've been any of those things. The games were Disney's Princess Fashion Boutique and Disney-Pixar's Cars game. Also, it was being strange the other day and I think I may have been rather rough with it, so that might have been the cause as well ... :dogeye: I'm hoping I can regain some stability so I can keep using it for a bit longer before I have to replace it. Let me know if you need any more information before you can help. Thanks in advance. Regards, pukunui81 |
pukunui81 (15121) | ||
| 795634 | 2009-07-27 06:08:00 | Is the hdd the bootdisk in the BIOS?? Also make sure no floppies are in the disk drive, if you use one. By crash is it bringing up a stop error?? If it is, once you can get into windows again. Press the windows key + pause on the keyboard. Go to advanced / settings on the bottom, untick automatically restart | Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 795635 | 2009-07-27 06:12:00 | Is the hdd the bootdisk in the BIOS?? Also make sure no floppies are in the disk drive, if you use one. By crash is it bringing up a stop error?? If it is, once you can get into windows again. Press the windows key + pause on the keyboard. Go to advanced / settings on the bottom, untick automatically restart Yeah, the hard drive is the primary boot disk. There are no floppies or CD/DVDs or anything in any of the drives. By crash I mean it freezes then a few moments later reboots itself. |
pukunui81 (15121) | ||
| 795636 | 2009-07-27 06:15:00 | If it isn't a bootdisk problem then its likely the hard drive *could* be dying. But most of the time its a boot sequence problem. edit: Just read your newest post-Untick auto restart as speedy said Blam |
Blam (54) | ||
| 795637 | 2009-07-27 06:16:00 | I would check the hdd cable then and power connection to it. Whats the brand/model of this system? | Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 795638 | 2009-07-27 06:19:00 | If it isn't a bootdisk problem then its likely the hard drive *could* be dying. But most of the time its a boot sequence problem. edit: Just read your newest post-Untick auto restart as speedy said Blam The hard drive's pretty old. I should add that on frequent crash/reboot sequences, it also loads up the Windows Check Disk thingy, which frequently finds a large number of orphaned files and the like ... and once last night Windows informed me there was a corrupt file when I opened up the Display properties tab (my background pic had disappeared and the drop shadows on the desktop icons had broken -- I managed to fix it and also ran the Check Disk again which seemed to resolve the corrupt file but I'm still having the crashing/rebooting). |
pukunui81 (15121) | ||
| 795639 | 2009-07-27 06:20:00 | I would check the hdd cable then and power connection to it. Whats the brand/model of this system? It's a custom system that I've put together and upgraded over the years. I've never had a problem with hard drives in the past, so if this one is dying, it'll be a first for me ... but then it is at least 7 years old, so maybe it's not really a big surprise? |
pukunui81 (15121) | ||
| 795640 | 2009-07-27 06:30:00 | Go to start/run type eventvwr. Look under application (probably system). Look for any !'s or X's or bugcheck entries. Double click on them, click on the icon under the down arrow then paste it here. Has it been scanned for malware / defragged? So, whats the brand/model of the mobo ?? | Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
| 795641 | 2009-07-27 07:28:00 | Go to start/run type eventvwr. Look under application (probably system). Look for any !'s or X's or bugcheck entries. Double click on them, click on the icon under the down arrow then paste it here. Has it been scanned for malware / defragged? So, whats the brand/model of the mobo ?? My mobo is an MSI board. I can never remember the exact model but I'm pretty sure it's this one: KM3M-V (ttp://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=km3m-v) When I recently updated Trillian Pro, my security system discovered a Trojan Horse piggybacking with it (much to my surprise). I thought it had dealt with it but perhaps that's what's causing the problem? I looked through the event viewer. Nothing out of the ordinary there. |
pukunui81 (15121) | ||
| 795642 | 2009-07-27 07:34:00 | Disable system restore. Get hijackthis below, run it click on scan the system and save a log. Copy and paste the log in here. What av program or internet security suite is installed? | Speedy Gonzales (78) | ||
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