PC booting problem - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Vronsky · #1 09-21-2008, 04:51 AM

Would appreciate your help here:
when booting, my P4-desktop sometimes stalls at 'Detecting IDE'
I've tried changng PSU and IDE cables, but problem remains.
Voltage readings in BIOS look fine.
Only other possible issue I can think of is the CMOS battery.

Any other ideas what might be wrong here?

Thanks !

Gurkha · #2 09-21-2008, 06:06 AM

Do a chkdsk and tell me how many bad sectors are detected.

Vronsky · #3 09-21-2008, 11:17 AM

Noticed earlier that my slave HD on IDE1 wasn't detected.
After I disconnected this drive, system booted fined.
Ran chkdsk on the slave, took a long time, but no error reports though.
System seems to be working fine again.
Slave HD has a NTFS partition with an XP-backup, and EXT3 & Linux swap for Ubuntu. Maybe there was the issue.

Thanks.

powerpig · #4 09-21-2008, 12:48 PM

Make sure your master is jumped to master and the slave is jumped to slave. Also, make sure you have the correct boot sequence setup in the bios.

Vronsky · #5 09-21-2008, 03:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerpig

Make sure your master is jumped to master and the slave is jumped to slave. Also, make sure you have the correct boot sequence setup in the bios.

Thanks, I've got the jumpers in 'cable select'

Gurkha · #6 09-21-2008, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vronsky

Thanks, I've got the jumpers in 'cable select'

That could be the crux of your problems......cable select has always been flaky from the start. Select Master for your boot drive and slave for your other drive and you won't have any problems in the future.

79-240d-project · #7 09-22-2008, 02:50 AM

Ditto on 'cable select', not a good idea.

Get a new battery if the old one is three years +, they do not last forever.

I had a sproadic boot problem just last month, new hard disk fixed it up.

Pain in the b$tt to rebuild and I almost lost years of digital pictures. I now have a second pc to mirror my digital pictures. It was free but it does have Vista as an OS. I am not a real fan of Vista, niether was the guy who gave it to me.

Vronsky · #8 09-22-2008, 03:52 AM

As I said, machine worked fine yesterday evening.
...this morning, problem was right back as it was

Am going to replace the battery, and if that doesn't work, change the switches. Have them in CS for years, no probs untill recently.

Thanks.

Vronsky · #9 09-23-2008, 02:33 AM

No luck. Changed switches and battery, but same problem back this morning.
Think I've narrowed the problem down to the IDE1 slave drive. PC boots fine when I disconnect the cable on this unit. Weird thing is that when I place the cable back again and reboot, problem is gone until I shut down again and start up next morning.

Looks like the drive is (getting) dodgy. Will download one of these (Seagate) diagnostic tools, and see if some fault shows up.

Thanks,
V.

pawoSD · #10 09-23-2008, 11:51 AM

Its a bad hard drive. Replace it.

Vronsky · #11 09-24-2008, 03:11 AM

Tested the Seagate drive with Seagate's SeaTools diagnostic software, and result was good ('passed'). Forgot to mention earlier that drive also makes this clicking noise during boot before it stalling.

Latest development is btw that PC now also starts by itself after shutdown

I assume/hope the WOL function has been enabled after I reset the BIOS to default...

Only test remaining is replacing the drive with a spare one.

pawoSD · #12 09-24-2008, 10:31 AM

The SeaTools is pretty unreliable as far as diagnosis. I have had clicking dying flaky drives that "passed" in its scan, which then died a week later. I'd just replace the drive. If the PC is powering up on its own and stuff though, you might be looking at a mainboard issue as well. If the computer is old enough it may be time to rebuild!