# ]resolved]hang at boot startup with random characters on screen



## andygray (Feb 10, 2007)

Hi,

I have an interesting but strange problem here.
But first, my setup:
ASUS A8N-SLI Motherboard (bios version 1014 which is the latest)
AMD 3700+ CPU
2x512MB Ram
nVidia nForce 4 chipset

I recently purchased two new SATA HDD's and configured them using the nVidia Raid to be a mirrored pair, then I booted off my old HDD with the Raid drive also there, installed the drivers for the RAID array from Nvidia, and then after a reboot, used PowerQuest Drive Image 7.0 to copy everything from my original drive to the mirrored pair drive with the intention of using the mirrored pair from now on. The mirror took about 2 hours to complete. By the way, I plugged the mirrored drives into SATA1 and SATA2 with my original on SATA3 outside the RAID config (only SATA1&2 were controlled by the RAID controller). Once it had finished doing this, I turned off the computer, unplugged the original drive, and turned on the computer assuming I could boot off the RAID drives.

But I can't. After it completes the POST, it immediately hangs right where it is supposed to start loading the OS. Also, strange characters appear in random locations on my screen, often with funny colors to go with those characters too. (see below for a screen capture of this)

I have a Windows XP boot floppy disk, and if I insert that disk and reboot, then it boots off the disk and proceeds to load Windows as per normal (that's how I am typing this now). So that means that the initial copy from my original disk to this one worked mostly ok.

I have booted off the Windows XP install disk (with SP2 slipstreamed into it), loaded the nvidia drivers off a driver disk and run a recovery shell. I executed fixboot and fixmbr, but that didn't make any difference either.

So it seems to me something to do with the disk headers used by the bios to boot the OS, almost as if it's all currupted or something, but surely fixboot and fixmbr would resolve that. So perhaps it's something to do with the RAID controller not working properly. I don't know. I'm stumped.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

- Andy Gray


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

power supply
video card
driver
what psu do you have in it


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## andygray (Feb 10, 2007)

Hi,

I have the stock PSU that came with the case. Not sure what it is. But how could the problem be with the PSU when it was running fine with 3 HDD's in it, and now that it has only 2 it would have problems? Also, if I can boot off the floppy and proceed to boot windows from there and can do anything as per usual (including playing Half Life 2 etc) then I can't see how it could be the PSU.

But anyway, Video card is an Nvidia GeForce 6800GT with the most recent Nvidia driver

PSU is 350 watt and appears to be working well.

Thanks.

- Andy


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

350w belongs in a windows 98 computer
http://www.techsupportforum.com/showthread.php?t=107466


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## andygray (Feb 10, 2007)

Thanks for the reply. 

What you said may be true, but so what. It's not a power supply related problem. The HDD's are working fine at the moment. As I explained, the problem is immediately after POST where it fails to start loading the OS, but if I boot from a winXP boot floppy and then proceed to boot from the HDD, it boots fine. So you see, it cannot merely be a power supply problem. 

That said, I should probably look at upgrading the PSU anyway.

Any other ideas people? This problem hasn't gone away yet.

- Andy


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## dai (Jul 2, 2004)

tap f8 when booting and try 
last known good configuration


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## andygray (Feb 10, 2007)

Hi,

Your suggestion wont work, but I'll try it anyway, wait up....

Nope, I knew it wouldn't work and I was right.

The reason that I knew it wouldn't work (and you should have known this also) is because the problem lies with the loading of the boot record from the HDD, that's before it gets to the step where it loads the ntldr and before it reads the boot.ini. So you see I think the problem is earlier than the ntldr. Remember that XP does boot if I boot of a Windows XP boot floppy, so it is loading the OS from an NTLDR, but if booting off the HDD, it appears as though it's not even getting that far.

But it's hard to tell I guess. Is there a way to double check the contents of the NTLDR and NTDETECT etc that should be in C:\ to ensure that they are valid and not currupted binaries? Or do you think the problem might lay with the Raid controller from nVidia? 

Strange huh. Thanks for the suggestions.

- Andy


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## andygray (Feb 10, 2007)

See this doco for detail on the boot process. I suspect that the problem is earlier than the NTLDR step as shown in this doco.

http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/unknownreference/articles/12284.aspx

But I don't know...help needed.

- Andy


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## andygray (Feb 10, 2007)

*Possible useful information....*

Hi all,

I came across this article in me search for an answer. It seems like it could be related. Might this be the cause of my problems?? ie the problem started back when I was first using powerquest drive image to copy from my then current OS disk to the new mirrored disk array? 

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/...3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PW52cmFpZA**&p_li=&p_topview=1

If this is related, then can someone shed light on what it means to do those recommended steps and how to do them? ie, 
1. Disable the Direct Disk Access.
2. Enable "Extended INT13" to access the disk.

Or am I off track here? Because it seems to me as though the drive copy worked fine, ie windows boots ok if I boot off a floppy.

what ya think?

- Andy


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## MaverickUK (Sep 9, 2005)

There _must_ be some sort of corruption, most likely to be in your OS files. I'm sure a fresh install (or possibley repair) may fix this - and as to the colours on the screen, i think this is caused by driver conflictions or corruptions. From experience, mirroring a drive is not always 100% perfect, although i can't be sure the above fixes will actually work. 

Which dirve are you currently on now? The origional or one of the paired? I'm guessing at the origional.

Regards,
Nick.


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## andygray (Feb 10, 2007)

Hi,

I think I will try a repair install and see how that goes.

The drive I am on at the moment IS the mirrored pair. It's not one of them it's both of them. Eg, when I go into hardware manager and look at the drives, it says it is the mirrored drive that the nForce 4 chipset is mirroring. The original is unplugged at the moment, but the mirrored pair is actually working as a mirrored drive in windows, except that I cannot boot off them. 

That's why I must boot from a floppy first, but from that point onwards, it is actually using the mirrored drive (ie using both of them).

I will let you know how a repair install goes.

Thanks.

- Andy


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## andygray (Feb 10, 2007)

Update,

I did a repair windows install in the hope that it would fix the problem, but it didn't. After booting off the CD and loading the nvraid drivers off the disk and proceeding with the repair install, I found that it had copied files the the HDD as per usual, and then rebooted. It's supposed to at this time boot off the HDD, however it didn't, it just had the same problems as before. Booting off the floppy allowed the repair install to continue, but after it finished, it still wouldn't boot with the exact same problem as described before.

I'm stumped. Any ideas people?

Ta

- Andy


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## MaverickUK (Sep 9, 2005)

Where are you getting the RAID drivers from? Try resetting the CMOS (not going to work, but hey, try it anyway). The only thing i can think of is formatting and re-partitioning the drive, but even then it isn't definately going to fix the issue - and at a guess, you have information on the paired drives you may want, then again you can always re-copy from the single drive. 

This is a pretty weird case, to say the least.


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## andygray (Feb 10, 2007)

Hi,

I am getting the RAID drivers from nVidia, since it's an nVidia nForce 4 chipset (for an AMD cpu/mobo). They are the latest drivers they supplied on the nvidia web site. 

I have also upgraded the BIOS version to the latest version hoping that might fix it. But nope. 

I might try resetting the CMOS. 

I will probably try installing Windows on the mirrored pair as an experiment, and go back to my old single drive again for the time being...might have to settle for a re-install I think. Assuming that even works.

Thanks for the help so far. Issue not resolved yet.

- Andy


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## MaverickUK (Sep 9, 2005)

If installing windows again does not work, then the problem probably lies with either the nVidia drivers (corruption or confliction) or the hard drives themselves (chances of them _both_ being defective are minimal). Anyway, try this and let us know how it goes.

Regards,
Nick.


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## andygray (Feb 10, 2007)

Hi,

Well, I installed windows from scratch with the two hard drives in a raid 1 array. Used the driver disk during install. Guess what, it all worked fine! It booted normally, everything was ok.

What do you think that means? Something wrong with the ghosting process I used?

What do you think?

- Andy


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## MaverickUK (Sep 9, 2005)

MaverickUK said:


> There must be some sort of corruption, most likely to be in your OS files. I'm sure a fresh install (or possibley repair) may fix this - and as to the colours on the screen, i think this is caused by driver conflictions or corruptions. From experience, mirroring a drive is not always 100% perfect, although i can't be sure the above fixes will actually work.
> 
> Which dirve are you currently on now? The origional or one of the paired? I'm guessing at the origional.
> 
> ...


Thought as much :smooch: What you are saying relates directly to my first post, a probable problem when mirroring, as i said, they're never 100% secure.

Regards,
Nick.


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