I had the photoshop browser freeze during a file transfer and I restarted my pc.

Unfortunately it won't start. I get the safe mode screen and have tried starting it in safe mode or with last good config or start normally.

Then I see the windows XP logo for a few seconds and then it seems to crash again and the whole process starts all over again.

BTW this machine is used constantly for large graphics files.. I have owned it about a year now.

Can someone give me some educated guesses as to what may be the problem?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Welcome to http://pcguide.com/ubb/pcgubb.gif. You can do a couple of things. The first would be to try some Live cd of linix (Ubuntu is usually suggested.) to see if the problem is Hardware related. If Ubuntu loads properly, then Hardware is no longer a possible problem.

The next would be to try Memtest86 (http://www.memtest.org/), which is also a boot off CD program. If no errors are found by that, then all that is left is Software.

Those are the easiest ideas that poped into my head. If niether of those turn up anything, check the start up processes. (I am not sure about technical terms, sorry about that.) during start up, it says hit [F2] or a different F button for options. Go there, and move over to start up processes (or something like that). and then post the list on this site.

Thanks for the advice. I was able to run the ubuntu from the cd drive but unable to get the memtest to work. Instead I ran Windows Memory Diagnostic and the memory passed.

I could not find the processes you you mentioned to list.

Any ideas on what my next step would be?

Seems Startup gets to a fairly advanced stage where Windows is loading off the HDD, but even Safe Mode fails to load successfully.
I'd say you need to repair your Windows installation (http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm).

Unless you have an image backup [of the Windows partition] you can restore.

Good idea to test the HDD using the HDD manufacturers diagnostic program.

You can back up most of your data (theoretically) through Ubuntu, just running off the live CD. The problem may incur if the drive it self was not shut down properly (which may be the case.) After trying to get the data, try the repair instalation, or if the OS came on the system, re-instal.

Good luck

Thank you both so much for your advice.

I have an update to this problem.

I don't see any of the hard drives through Ubuntu so I cant back up my files. Unless there is something I am missing?

I also noticed that the Ubuntu came with a memory tester and I am running it now. It seems to indicate there may be a memory problem after all. Although I am not sure what the data it is giving me means.

Is it still advisable to go ahead with the XP repair install?

1. "I don't see any of the hard drives through Ubuntu"
Ubuntu should be able to see all your drives/partitions.
How many physical HDD's and partitions [NTFS? FAT32?] do you have?
I have four FAT32 partitions and one NTFS, and Ubuntu sees all of them and displays the content.
Check whether your HDD[s] can be seen by the BIOS, and test the HDD[s] using a diagnostic program [preferably the diagnostic supplied by the HDD manufacturer].
The fact that Ubuntu works just fine on your hardware [HDD not included because the OS isn't loading from it] suggests there's nothing wrong with your hardware [RAM for example].
But the fact that Ubuntu cannot see your drive[s]/partitions suggests a problem with the HDD[s].
It would be pointless to attempt a repair of the Windows installation if the HDD is faulty on which it resides.

Ubuntu is not IMHO as easy as Knoppix (link in my sig) at detecting and showing you the non-Linux drives for backup purposes.

Backing up, especially if you have really important data, is always a good idea even though running a repair installation is unlikely to lose any of your personal data.

If Ubuntu really doesnt see any partitions then check the BIOS to see if your HDDs are detected there. You wont be able to run a repair installation unless the Windows installation CD can find the HDD and windows partition. If you are still getting SafeMode prompts then a HDD must be detectable.

Ubuntu has a problem with drives or partitions that were not shut down correctly. Since Windows was not shut down properly, Ubuntu may not access the partition/drive. (I learned the hard way about that) It should still see the hard drive though.

Since Windows was not shut down properly, Ubuntu may not access the partition/drive.
Not as such. The denied access is more likely to do with read/write permissions particularly with NTFS partitions. Obviously if there is significant surface or file corruption access may be patchy. However one of the main reasons for using Live Linux CDs to access faulty Wiindow's drives is to allow for access and backup. Only if there is significant damage to the surfaces will the specialist use of such as dd_rescue be necessary - but even that should run OK as long as the DRIVE IS DETECTED IN THE BIOS SETUP - which is usually the most significant thing of all.

Pauls advice was good. I am able to to see the hd now.

Will let you know what happens. I am sure I will have more questions.

Actually, if Ubuntu is now using the NTFS-3G driver, then yes it does prevent access to the drive if the 'dirty bit' is set.

if Ubuntu is now using the NTFS-3G driverI don't know which is used in 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) but if I was wrong then I certainly apologize. Have never had problems over the last two or three years accessing difficult volumes with Knoppix (or Ubuntu for that matter) and they both are Debian based if nothing else. One should still be able to backup a whole partition with dd if the FS cant be accessed. I had formed the opinion that NTFS was no longer problematic in the ways it was in the not too distant past.

Anyone know what specific messages Linux displays when such an inaccessible volume is attempted to be entered. Inaccessible, unmountable, etc, ??

There isn't as much as a problem as there once was. The only problem I found was when XP froze, and I restarted into Ubuntu. The hard drive XP was on was not availiable, When I restarted into XP and shut down again, the problem stopped.

The ntfs-3g driver package prevents mounting the NTFS partitions if Windows wasn't shut down properly or is in hibernation...it can be manually 'force' mounted or CHKDSK can be run in Windows (which doesn't do any good if you can't boot Windows...)

From what I have gleaned, "dirty bit" volumes can be mounted as ro (read only). This would mean data could be backed-up, etc, but just not written-to. Possibly its the same for hibernated systems. Does mount as ro mean the same as a "force mount"?

The following is apparently displayed:

Choose one action:
Boot Windows and shutdown it cleanly, or if you have a removable
device then click the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon in the Windows
taskbar notification area before disconnecting it.
Or
Run ntfsfix version 1.13.1 on Linux unless you have Vista.
Or
Mount the NTFS volume with the 'ro' option in read-only mode.

PS (1)
One thing occurs to me is that with Knoppix this might not be a problem at all for starters since all HDD partitions are read-only by default.

PS (2)
Seems to have been quite stable since Feb 2007. http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

Ok I was able to retrieve my files with Knoppix.

I did not have such luck with windows repair. Upon attempted install it seems to stop loading at some point and I get the blue screen saying windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

Any other ideas?

Thank you all for you help so far BTW.

I'm not as convinced as others that there is absolutely no problem with your hardware. It could be worth resetting the CMOS (by jumper or by removing the battery for a while) as well as going into the BIOS and setting the failsafe defaults. Check all cables and connections and consider checking the PSU and of replacing the CMOS battery with a new one.

There is certainly some file system corruption and that can arise from a number of causes including whenever access to a hard drive is patchy (for whatever reason) or when a HDD is about to fail - so it is also worth checking the drive with the maker's diagnostic utility from their website.

Otherwise you may have to try wiping/zeroing the drive and doing a clean installation of windows.

Ok, so here is where I am on this.

The pc I am concerned with has two hard drives which were seen as one in windows.

I can see the c drive in Knoppix. (In knoppix I actually see 2 hard drives on the desktop, (one of which is not mountable, so I am assuming it is a Linux thing showing one drive as two) and 2 other drives which is the cd rom (one of which is not mountable) .) I have run some Hd diagnostic apps from ubcd to try to see what may be wrong. A couple of them did not see any drives and the rest I had no luck with.

I also tried to wipe the hard drive and had no luck with that either.

However all this being said I am a complete newbie to all this and am not sure of much of this.

I did remove the battery for a while to reset cmos.

I checked all of the connections to make sure they are good.

I have just tried replacing both the drives with a new one and tried to install windows but it crashed and I am getting the following error message STOP: 0x0000007b (0xf78d2524, 0xc0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000).

This is the same thing that happened when I tried the repair install.

Not sure what to do at this point.

Any pointers would be gratefully accepted.

For the stop error...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103

The fact that Knoppix is seeing two hard drives, with only one being mountable shows that there is something else wrong with this machine...something hardware related. Especially if there is only one physical drive.

It is showing a doubled optical drive also?

That is looking like a problem with the disk controller...what kind of drives does this machine use...IDE or SATA?

The pc I am concerned with has two hard drives which were seen as one in windows.
Do you actually have one or two hard drives? Do you have two hard drives listed in the BIOS setup? If so you possibly have a RAID array setup. This would appear as one drive in windows (if running with the correct drivers) but might well appear as two drives under Linux. Knoppix would list each partition rather than each hard drive on its desktop by default.

You could try running fdisk -l (l is lower case L)from a command prompt in Knoppix to see all relevant hard drives and partitions.

For the stop error...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324103

The fact that Knoppix is seeing two hard drives, with only one being mountable shows that there is something else wrong with this machine...something hardware related. Especially if there is only one physical drive.

It is showing a doubled optical drive also?

That is looking like a problem with the disk controller...what kind of drives does this machine use...IDE or SATA?

It is a sata drive. Yes it is showing two of each drive on the desktop. One which is mountable and one which is not. It is showing 2 cd drives too.

Please note I have now installed a new single drive and tried to install windows but when installing windows get the blue screen as I did previously when trying a repair install on the previous setup.

Do you actually have one or two hard drives? Do you have two hard drives listed in the BIOS setup? If so you possibly have a RAID array setup. This would appear as one drive in windows (if running with the correct drivers) but might well appear as two drives under Linux. Knoppix would list each partition rather than each hard drive on its desktop by default.

You could try running fdisk -l (l is lower case L)from a command prompt in Knoppix to see all relevant hard drives and partitions.

Yes it did have two drives as a raid. However like I said it is showing one as mountable and one not mountable. It is the same with the cd drives. I was thinking it is just a bug.

At this point I have replaced the two drives with one new drive. I did this thinking that it would tell me if it was or wasn't the hard drives or software on the drives.

I am getting the blue screen when I try to install windows on this new drive. This is the same thing that happened when I tried to do the repair install on the raid array previously.

Since I am still having problems wouldn't this point toward another device or software?

Go back to Memtest....

Why didn't it work?

Go back to Memtest....

Why didn't it work?

Ok running memtest right now. What should I look for? I am not certain of what I am looking at with this test.

Ok, memtest seems to be indicating errors. Although I am not sure what I am looking at it, is giving me a bunch of data in red and is providing data under the failing address.

I am going to try removing the ram and try one stick at a time to see if that improves the problem

Ok, memtest seems to be indicating errors. Although I am not sure what I am looking at it, is giving me a bunch of data in red and is providing data under the failing address.


Yep...that is exactly what you are looking for...you've got at least on bad stick of RAM....

I ran memtest with each stick one at a time. All four sticks are coming up bad! What would cause that? That cant be normal.

If they are recently bought, you could be very unlucky. Ram can easily be damaged as well. If you aren't grounded when adding or removing anything in the computer, you can fry things like RAM or so I understand.

When you were testing the sticks one by one - were you testing them in the same slot?

For all four sticks to go bad at once after a year does seem to need an explanation - particularly if you had not been changing any hardware inside the case.

The only other way to confirm things would be to try a stick in another compatible mobo or try a new stick in your one.

It kind of sounds more like the slot being bad to me.

Go with Paul's suggestions...

Yes I was testing it in them in the same slot. I purchased a new stick. I will try it in a different slot and see what happens. Can I put it in any of the slots or is there normally a particular order or placement?

Hardware geeks will no doubt indicate if, on certain systems, there is an optimum configuration. Most sytems that I have used would recognise a single stick in any slot made for that type of RAM - even if not the ideal config.

Thanks to all. I will be working on this tomorrow. I will let you know what happens.

Ok, The new memory has come up with errors also. I tried it in different slots. I assume this means the board is bad or I am mistaken in my interpretation of the memtest data. I checked to make sure the memory is snapped in well when I tested it so it is not a bad connection.

If all slots are testing bad...then, yeah it would be a motherboard problem.

Check the motherboard for any leaking/bulging capacitors (little can shaped items soldered onto the board).

I don't see any evidence of bulging or leaking. Is there any software I can use to check out the board?

It has been confirmed that it is the motherboard. I am going to have it replaced.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped me with this problem! It goes to show how generous people can be to a complete stranger (me). Thank you!

Bruce