[ale] [OT] - system crapped out

[Rich Faulkner]

Jim, 

Didn't read through all of this but have you confirmed in BIOS:  AHCI
vs. IDE mode?  That will often cause a BSOD at GDI on XP.

Rich


On Thu, 2012-12-06 at 15:53 -0500, Jim Kinney wrote:

> 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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