Constant Restart during boot up.

[Captain Pugwash]

Hi, I have a major problem. I'll start from the beginning of what I think may be of relevance. A few weeks ago I flashed my bios (Asus K8V Deluxe) and everything seemed ok until a couple of days ago. On booting up an error message told me there was an overclocking error and it reset my bios to the default settings. I really dont know anything about overclocking and very little about changing the bios settings although, I do know my way around the bios on the pc. So I changed the bits in bios that I actually knew that I could change but aside from that it has been left at the default settings. Everything seemed fine until this morning when I was in the middle of installing NIS and on completing I had to restart. When booting up it got all the way to my desktop then flashed the "blue screen of death" for a fraction of a second then re-booted. It then took me to a Norton Go Back screen with several options of which are:

1:  Restore Drive (Which I have tried by now several times)
2:  Disable Norton go back (which it will not let me do-just crashes)
3:  Enable autoback (which says that any changes on the system will be temporary until this is disabled but then just comes up with the error "norton go back needs to reboot your computer because your system has become unstable. This could be cauased by memory failures, unreliable hard disk transfers, or overclocking the CPU or other components."
4:  Boot Floppy/CD

Currently the pc will not even get to the windows desktop before it reboots itself and presents me with the same options every time. I have tried safe mode and that is the same. I have only got access to bios and to be able to boot from my OS cd but I really dont want to format if I can help it 'cos I'm not sure even that will help.  .

Has anyone got any suggestions where I could go from here? I would really appreciate any help anyone could give. I have put as much info in the post as I could think of.

Thankyou.

AMD Athlon64 3400+
200 GIG HDD
Asus K8v SE Deluxe motherboard.
1280 meg ram DDR400 (2x512 1x256)

[eggz]

You could try booting from the Windows XP CD and select the Repair OS option.

[Captain Pugwash]

Oh my god! When I boot from CD and select the repair option it says:

Windows XP Professional Setup. Setup did not find any hard disk drives on your computer. Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer supplied diagnostic or setup program.  Setup cannot continue. Press F3 to quit

If I put a boot disk in and at the command prompt select drive C and do scandisk it takes no time at all(fraction of a second) and then reports that there are no errors.

Jeebies, what happnin? Where has my hard drive gone?

   Help!!!

[eggz]

Pop the XP CD back in and try the repair console.  Run a chkdsk /r

[MTChandler]

Oh my god! When I boot from CD and select the repair option it says:
If I put a boot disk in and at the command prompt select drive C and do scandisk it takes no time at all(fraction of a second) and then reports that there are no errors.

Jeebies, what happnin? Where has my hard drive gone?

   Help!!!

There is something wrong with your description, it doesn't make sense. What do you mean by a "boot disk"? There is no point in either of the repair options in Windows XP where you are asked to use a boot disk. It looks like you are getting yourself confused over the procedure.

There are 2 ways in which you can repair a WindowsXP installation. I think that the one you need is as follows:
1. Boot the computer using the XP CD. You may need to change the boot order in the system BIOS so the CD boots before the hard drive. Check your system documentation for steps to access the BIOS and change the boot order.
2. When you see the "Welcome To Setup" screen, you will see the options below 

      This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft
         Windows XP to run on your computer:

         To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

         To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.

         To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.
3. Press Enter to start the Windows Setup.
       
Do not choose "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press  R", (you Do Not want to load Recovery Console). I repeat, do not choose "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press  R".
4. Accept the License Agreement and Windows will search for existing Windows installations.
5. Select the XP installation you want to repair from the list and press R to start the repair.
6. Setup will copy the necessary files to the hard drive and reboot.  Do not press any key to boot from CD when the message appears. Setup will continue as if it were doing a clean install, but your applications and settings will remain intact.
7. Sometime during this repair you will be asked to re-enter your Windows licence/key number, so you should have this handy

Warning!! If the option to Repair Install is NOT available and you continue with the install; you may end upl deleting your Windows & Documents and Settings folders.  All Applications that place keys in the registry will need to be re-installed.

You should exit setup if the repair option is not available and consider other options. I have found if the Repair option is not available, XP is usually not repairable and will require a Clean install. If you still have the ability to access the Windows XP installation, backup all important files not restorable from other sources before attempting any recovery console trouble shooting attempts.

The second way to "repair" a WindowsXP installation is as follows:

1. Boot the computer using the XP CD. You may need to change the boot order in the system BIOS so the CD boots before the hard drive. Check your system documentation for steps to access the BIOS and change the boot order.
2. When you see the "Welcome To Setup" screen, you will see the options below 

      This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft
         Windows XP to run on your computer:

         To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

         To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.

         To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.
3. Instead of choosing to Press Enter to start the Windows Setup you  choose "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press  R".

When the Recovery Console loads up (it will look like a DOS screen) you will be asked which copy of Windows you want to repair, Usually this only needs you to press the "1" key (without quotes) and press Enter. Then you will be asked for the Administrator's password. If there is one, type it in. If there isn't one then just press Enter. You should now end up at a command prompt.

At this point you need to tell the Recovery Cosole what you want to do. If Windows is not loading up then type the command "chkdsk /p /r" (without quotes) Press Enter and then go away for about an hour.

If, when you boot the system from the Windows XP disk, you get the message that no hard drive is detected, it is probable that you are using a SATA drive and you need a floppy disk with the SATA controller drivers loaded on it. These you can get from the motherboard drivers CD. During the boot up sequence you will be asked to press the F6 key in order to install any Third-Party drivers that you need and then later on you will asked to put in the disk which has these drivers on it.
.


.

[Captain Pugwash]

If, when you boot the system from the Windows XP disk, you get the message that no hard drive is detected, it is probable that you are using a SATA drive and you need a floppy disk with the SATA controller drivers loaded on it. These you can get from the motherboard drivers CD. During the boot up sequence you will be asked to press the F6 key in order to install any Third-Party drivers that you need and then later on you will asked to put in the disk which has these drivers on it.

It seems this is the case, unfortunately my Mesh pc did not come with the motherboard cd. They did send me however an XP cd after a similar failure of my first hard drive labelled "XP PRO with SATA" Now I think the idea was that he was putting those sata drivers on that cd but I have had a look and I dont know what type of file I am looking for. A list of files on XP cd below:
1: oem
2: docs
3: dotnetfx
4: 1386
5: support
6: valueadd
7: autorun
8: readme
9: setup
10: sp notes
11: win51
12:win51ip
13: win51ip.sp1

I also have the original XP cd from Mesh and I have compared the discs and the only file that is different is number 13. Does this look like it could be the correct one? If so I will stick it on a floppy and have a go.

Thanks

Tried it, and the files in the oem filder too, the pc asks for txtsetup.oem and says it cannot be found. I will have a look and see if I can download them from anywhere. If not it looks like a long phone call and a few days wait for Mesh. 

[MTChandler]

If you don't have the drivers on any CD from Mesh, then all is not lost. Mesh use standard products in their systems and so we should only need to find out which motherboard is in the system and get the appropriate driver from the motherboard manufacturer's website. If you take the side of the case off you should be able to find the name of the motherboard manufacturer and the model of the motherboard. Usually these are marked in white script over near the AGP slot. If you can't see the manufacturer's name don't worry, the model name should be enough.

[jason]

I have only got access to bios and to be able to boot from my OS cd but I really dont want to format if I can help it 'cos I'm not sure even that will help.  .

IF the above information from MT / eggz does not work, then a format is really your only option..and  you say you dont think it will help - it will, im almost certain of that, if you use the xp WITH SATA drivers  and at least you will have a bootable pc - with a nice clean, uncorrupted drive.

Good Luck with whatever you decide.

[Captain Pugwash]

Ok! This is not happening. I have found the driver from Asus's web site:


Motherboard is Asus K8v SE deluxe

Version 1.00.0.26 2003/07/07update 
OS Win98SE / WinME / WinNT / Win2K / WinXP / Win2003 
Description Promise SATA378 Driver V1.00.0.26 (ATA Mode) 
File Size 959.32 (KBytes)

I boot from cd, press F6 to load my own driver which I do successfully. Then win setup starts and loads a lot of drivers and eventually gets to a page titled:
Windows XP Professional Setup.
Options are: 

1. To Setup XP on the selected item, press enter
2. To create a partition in the unpartitioned space, press c
3. To delete the selected partition, press D

I only have 2 partitions 194466mb partitioned (50621 free) and 8mb unpartitioned.
Judging from the amount of space left in the partitioned space all my data is still there.

If I select option 1 it tells me I have to delete the partition first before I can install windows.

I am sure I would then lose everything; am I right?

Cheers
 

[jason]

if you delete the windows partition yopull lose everything, yes.
You should be able to install windows on to that partition though"over the top" of what you have, a bit messy but it should enable you to get your stuff backed up before a reinstall?

[Captain Pugwash]

Anyone got any idea how to do that? At the moment it refuses to let me install windows on the same partition as the existing windows. I would like to have a look round and backup a few nthings before I redo everything. What if I installed windows on a new hdd? Could I then access the old drive to extract any of the files I want?

[jason]

right im just about to go out, so ill leave this for others - what happens when you try to install windows on to the main HD ? I take it you are getting errors?
If you put windows on another drive, pop that in as master (other to slave) you should be able to boot and possibly access the corrupt drive, but im not too sure you will get in that way, as the drive is corrupted in some way.

[bluetracker]

I'm guessing that the screen that gives you the three options you describe is a black background with white lettering?...From what you have said, I very much doubt that you have the correct CD in the drive. Sounds very much as though you are accessing a bootdisk instead of the XP setup proper...

[Captain Pugwash]

No, its a blue screen not black.

[MTChandler]

Yes, you can replace the existing hard drive with another one and install Windows on this new drive. If you then attach your existing hard drive as a secondary master or slave you should then be able to access your data and copy it across.

However, I think that you should try going into the repair console as I described above. It is the second procedure (though the choice to go with the repair console is the first option that you get when you boot your system with the Windows XP disk) that I outlined. The repair console option comes before the licence agreement, so if you get the licence agreement you have gone too far.