[ale] [OT] - system crapped out

[Jim Kinney]

This is OT because the base system here is a zillion year old XP box (don't
ask - software won't run on new crap)

system became unresponsive to keyboard (USB) on the main connection on mobo
but worked on front panel connectors. Then those quit.

Clearly a hardware issue.

Noticed smell of overheated electronics from power supply so replaced it.
System had trouble booting but was OK going into safe mode.

2 main drives in RAID 1 on a 3ware sata RAID card. System not happy about
being shutdown uncleanly (many crashes before I was called) and ran a full
chckdsk /r on boot drives which reported no errors.
System will auto-reboot on normal startup at splash screen and now
complains about new hardware (3ware controller!) in safe-mode. The RAID
controller(s) were not changed so maybe a bit of drive scramble in that
sector. Time to reload drivers. woo.

Original driver disk nowhere to be found so using latest download from LSI
(2009 - about when the controller card went in) to add driver to OS
drive(s).

Can't. Installer requires a VC++ something that requires the windows
installer to run. But safe mode won't run the windows installer.

reboot and cuss. Try floppy image - dug out usb floppy and found a single
working floppy disk (thought I had tossed all of those?). Install would run
but reboot asked for drivers again.

cuss more when safe-mode now automatically reboots on startup. No way to
access system drives anymore.

Replace motherboard, CPU, RAM, CD drive and power supply. Boots to safe
mode (YAY!) for new driver install. But original drivers for both RAID
cards (other is an adaptec with a mirror pair with application data) were
now needing to be installed. Plus now need to "re-authenticate" (cuss.
spit.)

????  How are the originally working 3 days ago drivers vanishing ????

unplug EVERYTHING, all drives, all raid cards, and try to boot from a known
good XP hard drive built on a different system

It does the same thing as the other drives! Gets to the XP splash screen
then reboots the systems.

F8 - set no restart on error - no change, set debug mode - just restarts
with no messages

Insert original installation CD to try for recovery console - blue screens
after _long_ fight to get driver disk (see floppy) to work.

Try newer XP-SP3 disk - blue screens

memtest says all RAM is just fine (single pass all tests).

W   T   F   !!!!!?????!!!!!?????

<ihatewindowsihatewindowsihatewindowsihatewindowsihatewindows>

-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
*
*Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain
at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
*
http://electjimkinney.org
http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
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