Hello,
Firstly I will start with my system spec: (OS: WinXP Home SP2) Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro mobo, AMD 3200+ 64bit CPU, 2 x Kingston 512DDR RAM, 80GB Seagate Barracuda SATA HDD, Asus 6800GT GPU.
I'll try to explain my problem as best as I can...okay, my machine has had an annoying problem since day one, the majority of the time when it booted up it would come up with "Boot from CD - Invalid system disk" and this forced a restart. Immediately I thought this would be to do with the boot priority or perhaps because I am using a SATA HDD and it isnt configured properly in the BIOS. Anyway I set the BIOS how the maual describes to; enable SATA, boot from hard disk first and disable all other devices in the boot sequence. The problem still occurred but would ALWAYS boot to OS fine the second time so I decided it was probably just a driver or BIOS update I would need.
I downloaded all of the relevant drivers and updated the BIOS using Gigabyte's "@BIOS" software but still the "Boot from CD..." came up on first boot. Seeing as my system was running so sweet I thought why bother trying to fix it, just bare it.
This problem started happening so that my PC wasn't booting to OS on second boot, but perhaps the 3rd or 4th attempt. I went back to the Gigabyte site to try and find any drivers I may have missed and found a newer chipset driver recommended for my mobo. I downloaded this and rebooted my machine - it ran fine for about 3-4 sessions and then unexpectedly crashed to a blue screen saying that the nvidia chipset driver had malfunctioned and got stuck in a "loop" - it continued to dump memory from bank to bank and forced me to restart. This is the ONLY time my PC has ever crashed from the OS since I built it. I ran my PC for a further 4-5 sessions, running as normal (still with the annoying "Boot from CD" error at the start but oh well) and then suddenly during an msn conversation i recieved a flash of a blue screen and a restart.
Okay here's my current problem >>>
The next time it tried to boot, it ran it's post fine but...no Windows loading logo appeared, just a black screen. Restarted 3-4 times, same problem. Went into the BIOS and realised that the HDD was not recognised and was not appearing on any of the IDE Channels as it used to. Tried to search for a HDD automatically on all available channels, masters and slaves - and a quick single line of red text appeard on Master IDE Channel 3 (Where the HDD used to be). The line of text flashed very quickly so I had to do a pause-screen to find it read: "Once OS is installed in [APIC], system can't boot to OS when [PIC] is s..." and it cut off there.
Consulted the manual and it said restore factory defaults or "Load Optimised Defaults" and reset the CMOS settings. Did so, and hey presto the SATA HDD re-appeared on Master IDE 3 (this is the only channel that the HDD can be found on). Great!
Rebooted and again, black screen - no Windows loading. This time however, my HDD remained in the BIOS settings.
I researched Windows site, this site, and various other sources all telling me this is most likely a corrupted NTLDR file or bad memory. Firstly I checked the memory by taking the 512 stick out of slot 2 - same prob. Switched sticks so the stic from slot 2 was now in 1 - same prob. Anyway I tried various combinations and the POST was telling me that the memory test was fine and still a healthy single-beep POST.
The instructions I found for a corrupted NTLDR file were basically boot from XP disc and use the recovery console to repair the partition. I boot from the CD and at the "Hardware Abstraction Layer" stage very early in setup I get prompted with a "TRAP 00000006 EXCEPTION" error and this hangs the system (keyboard is still operational but nothing seems to do anything when I press keys, lol). Tried the same thing 3-4 times as I thought it may be a one off but exactly the same TRAP error message comes up.
Reseached this and was instructed to do a repair using recovery console or in worst case, fdisk mbr the drive and reinstall fresh copy. This is impossible to do when it hangs at the very start of the setup >:(
I tried over and over, same thing. I also tried leaving it when it says "press any key to boot from CD" and strangely enough it goes past the screen and onto the "Start Windows in Safe Mode, with Command Line, Normally, Last known good config...etc" however, I can do nothing on this screen. It is pretty much frozen with the timer (that counts down) stuck and at the bottom reads the following error: "Unimplemented Vector Firmware. FID:00416793". So I still can't get to any kind of command prompt...
I tried another copy of a WinXP boot CD (it is an older SP1 Version) which again gives the same TRAP6 error.
I tried a WinXP boot floppy which lets me get to this same screen minus the error and I can actually move the selector up and down, but when I select anything (I tried all options many times) it hangs.
I tried a disk which I formatted in windows XP and made it as an "MSDOS Boot Disk". Trying this one let me get into a command prompt! But no drive or command other than A:\ or B:\ would work, lol. my C: D:...well nothing was recognised!
I really do apologise for the essay but this problem has baffled me and my college tutors!
Any ideas or recommendations?
Thankyou!
(i'm not too sure how this site works, will my feedback get posted back here or to email? If to email would it be possible to send it to "freestyler_d00gy@hotmail.
com" Thanks again)
