help, my XP hangs on STARTUP!

[Diesel]

I tried searching the forum for help on this one but it seems that most people have problems with XP shutdown rather than startup...

Here's the deal, about 1 out 5 times my XP professional will freeze on me at the XP Professional loading screen w/ the little status bar... usually on startup it will stutter for a second at the beginning of that nice little 'fade in' effect for this screen; but like I said 1 out of 5 times or so it will simply freeze there and not fade in to continue booting up. I have updated my BIOS to the latest version and everything but that hasn't stopped it completely. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to overcome this glitch? Also, my main concern about this is after installing new software that askes me to reboot I will get unlucky and it will freeze, does this screw up software installations?

thanks,

- Brian

AMD 1.2ghz T-bird
Abit KT7A-RAID
256mb RAM
IBM 60gxp HD (40gigs)
ATI All-In-Wonder RADEON
PlexWriter 12/10/32
Pioneer DVD-106S
M-Audio Audiophile 24/96
etc., etc., etc.

 

[jlanka]

Have you tried boot logging to see if you can identify where it hangs?

Next time you boot the system, hit F8 just after bios posts... Select Enable Boot Logging and try to start Windows. XP will keep a log of what it is doing on your hard drive. After the machine hangs, repeat the F8
procedure but select Safe Mode (or Safe Mode Command
Prompt if it doesn't work). View the boot log in the root directory of your system drive. Report back to the forum the last few entries in the log file if it doesn't help you figure it out yourself.


<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[carlbeck]

When I made my first clean install of XP Pro, (Formating with NTFS) I had the same problem. I worked for days trying to find out why. Just by chance I finally made a clean instal using a FAT33 format. I don't to this day know why but I have not had a problem since. My system has been running since November 2001 without a single hang or crash.

 

[Diesel]

Interesting, unfortunately I started off with a FAT format and am experiencing this problem. However, at this point I believe it has something to do with the HPT370 IDE RAID controller built into my Abit KT7a-RAID motherboard (which my single HD is connected to). Highpoint has special drivers to be used with WinXP, version 2.0.1019, but apparently WinXP seems to think it's default drivers for this device are better and won't let me update them!

Anyways, I have posted all the details to this issue seperately here: http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=512145#512145

Take a look if you're interested and/or have a fix for this sort of thing in XP, thanks!

- Brian

 

[CALV]

just out of interest, can I ask why you are using the raid connector for a single hdd? is thre any performance difference from using the ide connectors (I have the same board and am just wondering)


If they squeeze olives to get olive oil, how do they get baby oil?

 

[BGates2B]

When you installed XP, did you hit the F6 key and use the drivers on the floppy? I would recommend going to the Highpoint website and d/l drivers 2.31, extract them to a floppy, and use them for a clean install (if need be) by hitting F6 on first boot of the install (where it asks about special drivers).

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=87962" target="_new">My Rigs </A>

 

[Diesel]

yea, the HPT370 RAID controller supports ATA100 while the onboard IDE controllers #1 and #2 only support up to ATA66.
(i'm 95% sure about that one)

anyways, i've got all of that business figured out now; I'm currently running v2.31 of the HPT370 BIOS and Drivers, but I still have one more remaining issue:

My drive for some stupid reason is only running at ATA66 speeds rather than ATA100 and I can't fiogure it out

details are posted here in this thread: http://forumz.tomshardware.com/software/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=13252#13252

just look for the post w/ my name on it. I would really appreciate any tips on how to remedy this situation.

thanks,

- Brian