I've been having problems with my PC for the last few weeks and I thought I'd ask for some advice as I've got fed up with reformatting.

Sometime near the end of August my PC stopped booting properly. It would get to the 'Windows XP' screen and the little blue bar would scroll for about 5 minutes (with the HDD activity light on constantly), then the bar would stop, then the system would reboot. It would then sit at the POST screen until I switched it off.
The system would boot in Safe Mode but not in normal mode.

Reformatting solved the problem so I thought I was just unlucky. Unfortunately it happened again two weeks later, followed by another reformat, then a week after that (which takes us to last Friday and another reformat), now it's happened after only two days (typing this from Safe Mode)!

I've searched around and I seem to have the dreaded 'MUP.SYS' boot failure which seems to have a whole load of different causes all with the same symptoms. On two occasions of the four failures I had recently updated or installed some drivers.

At the moment I'm leaning towards a physical problem with the main boot HDD. CHKDSK did find some bad sectors after one crash but none this time round. The manufacturer's diagnostic software has passed the drive OK.

I've arranged with a friend for me to borrow a HDD from him tomorrow but I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone else has any suggestions. I'm hoping that the problem will go away with a different HDD so buying a new one will fix the problem. A little irritating for a 14 month old HDD...better look out the warranty information!

The system is a home-built PC...specs as follows:

Intel Core2Duo 6600
Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard (NVIDIA nForce 650i)
MSI NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTO
2 x 1024MB Corsair DDR2 6400 C4
Creative Audigy 4 sound card
Hauppauge HVR-1300 TV card
2 x Maxtor DiamondMax +10 7200RPM IDE/133 250GB 16MB Cache HDD
Sony DWG-120ASV 16x16x8x DVDRW/RAM
Sony 52x32x52x CD-RW

Runinng a fully updated Windows XP Home Edition.

Any help or advice would be appreciated!

Does sound like a HD issue, I notice you have two Maxtors. Why not just boot from the other harddrive to see if the errors continue?
~Bryan~

I'd be willing to bet that your HDD is at fault. I know Maxtors are not looked fondly upon by many for their higher-than-average failure rate. Do try what dropin_biking suggested, as that will confirm it.

Definately a hard drive problem. I've had similar problems before, with XP not booting, but it was usually just Windows problems, once they were solved the problem disappeared. Btw, why are you still using IDE? I mean, you have this amazing system, and you're not running SATA hard drives on it?

Quote from dropin_biking :

Does sound like a HD issue, I notice you have two Maxtors. Why not just boot from the other harddrive to see if the errors continue?

I don't have any partitions available on that drive to install an OS.

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Definately a hard drive problem. I've had similar problems before, with XP not booting, but it was usually just Windows problems, once they were solved the problem disappeared.

That's what I thought initially, but the problem is occurring ever more frequently, so there must be some deeper problem than Windows.

Quote :

Btw, why are you still using IDE? I mean, you have this amazing system, and you're not running SATA hard drives on it?

I've been constantly upgrading parts of my system for the last two years...the CPU, mobo, GFX and RAM were added 6 months ago. I bought the drives over a year ago when they were on mega-special offer and couldn't really justify replacing brand new drives just to switch to SATA.

Many thanks for the replies guys, that confirms my suspicions. I'll run with a different HDD for a few days and see if the problem goes away. If so, I'll get some SATA replacements.

PS - Any suggestions for new HDDs regarding brands/models? I had thought about a pair of WD Raptors but I've not read great things about them (specifically the noise!).

Raptors aren't really that noisy, or hot, tbh, but they are very expensive for what they are - a set of Seagate 7200.10's in RAID0 will net you 320 GB of storage for the same price as a 74 GB drive while being almost as quick.

WD are good, as are Seagate - tbh i wouldn't touch Maxtor with a bargepole though

Quote from Jakg :

Raptors aren't really that noisy, or hot, tbh, but they are very expensive for what they are - a set of Seagate 7200.10's in RAID0 will net you 320 GB of storage for the same price as a 74 GB drive while being almost as quick.

WD are good, as are Seagate - tbh i wouldn't touch Maxtor with a bargepole though

The problem there is that Seagate now own Maxtor!

Seagate might own Maxtor, but that doesn't mean that ASRock are great boards because Asus own them...

I expected Seagate to improve Maxtor, but they're keeping them as a "budget brand". When a nice 7200.10 drive is £36, and a Maxtor alternative is £33, i can't see the point in "cheaping out".

If your interested, the 7200.11 should actually be able to outpace a raptor (the top model has 32 mb cache... ), however they come in at abut £170 for 750 GB, and Seagate have no intention of making them any smaller.

I'd get 2x Seagate 7200.10's and drop 'em in RAID0. In fact i did get two Seagate Barracuda's (7200.7's, though), only i forgot to make sure my board ACTUALLY had decent raid *slaps head*

LOL I use an ASRock board in my computer, and it's actually pretty good! Anyway, I wouldn't buy a WD drive again, I have one right now and I'm having lag issues with it. It was fine for like 6 months, then the problems started appearing. When I buy another hard drive it will be a Seagate cause I'm fed up with WD.

Yea, I have 4 Seagate 320 GB drives in RAID 0+1 and they work beautifully. They run at like 40C tho after a while because I have them in a tight cage...

OK, an update. I borrowed a spare HDD from the IT guy at work. Installed it last night and all seemed well.

That was until earlier this evening when the same problem returned. I had simply swapped my main boot HDD (which holds Windows, applications and games) for the new HDD from work and left my second HDD (used for documents and general storage) as the slave drive.

When the error occurred on the new drive, I unplugged the slave drive and, lo and behold, the system booted up fine. So, thinking there might be a problem with the second of the two drives, I unplugged the new HDD and swapped back to my old drive, which I hadn't touched since I had the last boot failure. This time, I get the same error and Windows won't boot (typing this from Safe Mode again).

So the system will now only boot when both my original drives are unplugged and the new HDD from work is acting as the boot drive.
I haven't tried plugging in my old boot drive as the slave to the new HDD as that would require lots of messing about with cables and jumpers. If you think it's worth it I could try it.

So, any suggestions? I was hoping a new HDD would solve the problem. I can't imagine that BOTH my Maxtors have failed, but the system will only boot with them unplugged...hmmm...

Yea, that's kinda weird. I know Windows does some odd things with different HDD configurations. I had a RAID setup in my PC and 1 HDD separate, and Windows refused to install on the RAID setup until I unplugged my loner drive - no idea why.

Are all the HDDs you are using SATA drives?

Erm, maybe a stupid point, but you do have the jumpers set to master and slave on your HDD's ? If all's well then it may be a simple cable problem.

Quote from Stang70Fastback :

Yea, that's kinda weird. I know Windows does some odd things with different HDD configurations. I had a RAID setup in my PC and 1 HDD separate, and Windows refused to install on the RAID setup until I unplugged my loner drive - no idea why.

I've heard of some odd problems with drives in Windows, usually that the plugs need to be in a different order for them to work...no real logic behind it!

Quote :

Are all the HDDs you are using SATA drives?

Nope, IDE. My original setup was as follows:

Primary Master: 250Gb HDD (boot drive)
Primary Slave: 250Gb HDD (storage)
Secondary Master: DVD-RW
Secondary Slave: CD-RW

I've now tried the new HDD in place of the Primary Master and got the same failure. The only working configuration at the moment is both 250Gb disconnected and the new one from work as Primary Master.

Quote from Mazz4200 :

Erm, maybe a stupid point, but you do have the jumpers set to master and slave on your HDD's ? If all's well then it may be a simple cable problem.

I haven't actually checked, but I'm sure I set this up properly when I installed the drives a year ago. I would assume if the jumpers were wrong then nothing would work, rather than a fault appearing after a few days. I will swap the IDE cable for a new one when I get home from work, just to remove that from the possible problems list.

I suspect the PSU is either not up to the job or on it's way out.

I had a very similar problem a few months back, XP would lock/restart/BSOD seemingly randomly and sometimes fail to boot. After borrowing various parts from friends to test, it turned out to be the PSU, although all voltages in monitoring apps looked fine at the time.

Can you borrow one from a mate to test ?

Quote from Bean0 :

I suspect the PSU is either not up to the job or on it's way out.

I had a very similar problem a few months back, XP would lock/restart/BSOD seemingly randomly and sometimes fail to boot. After borrowing various parts from friends to test, it turned out to be the PSU, although all voltages in monitoring apps looked fine at the time.

I had considered that, but discounted it because reinstalling Windows solves the problem...unless the PSU failure is corrupting the disc data in the same place I don't see how it could be the cause. There's still the issue that, even after a failure, it will boot in safe mode.
My PSU is the 500W version of this:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module ... duleNo=98736&doy=19m9

and is about 18 months old.

Quote :

Can you borrow one from a mate to test ?

Possibly, yes. It's certainly worth trying.

Mine would boot into safe mode, and a reinstall would work until I installed graphics drivers.

I think using the graphics card with its proper drivers was causing it to put more load on the PSU, which was then causing the crashes.

Further investigation revealed that my PSU was making a barely audible high pitched noise just before each crash, I could only hear it with my ear virtually touching the PSU.

As you say, it's worth trying another if you can borrow one, swapping a few cables over isnt exactly a hard job

Quote from Bean0 :

Mine would boot into safe mode, and a reinstall would work until I installed graphics drivers.

Interesting! The first time this problem occurred back in August, I had just updated to the newest (168.somethingorother) NVIDIA drivers.

Quote :

As you say, it's worth trying another if you can borrow one, swapping a few cables over isnt exactly a hard job

Indeed...I've just heard that a friend has a spare, so I'll try that one. Thanks

OK, here's the latest. I unplugged all non-essential devices from my PC in an attempt to lower the power draw on the PSU. Still broken.

I then plugged in my friend's power supply (which, incidentally, is the 450W version of mine). and it still wouldn't work.

I've also tried changing the order of the HDDs and the only configuration which will boot up properly is the borrowed HDD on its own. Any time either of my Maxtor drives is plugged in, the PC fails to boot. I've tried varying Primary and Secondary IDE channels and master and slave order, but the PC still doesn't boot if a Maxtor drive is plugged in.

I've put my old boot drive in an external USB caddy I have and I can read the contents fine. I even ran Scandisk on it and no errors were found.

Now, it's hard to conclude that BOTH of my drives have died more-or-less simultaneously (though they were bought together, and were manufactured on the same day), so what could the problem be?

My next attempt will be to completely wipe my main boot drive and re-format. I'll put my second Maxtor drive in the USB caddy so I can access the information without having it plugged into the IDE bus.

Hmmm, and you tried a different IDE cable and power cable ?

It does sound odd that both HDD's would go at the same time, but stranger things have happened at sea (as they say)

If it all works fine with your mates HDD then the only other thing i can think of (other than both HDD's actually being knackered) is, there may be a virus in there thats screwing with your registry, even when you format and re-install windows. I'm certainly no expert when it comes to software stuff, but i think (and i stress the word think) there are a few viruses that stay even when you format the HDD's, it's a long shot, but i can't really come up with any other explanation ?

I've tried a different IDE cable, yes. I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'power cable'...I've tried changing round the 4-pin Molex connectors inside the case but the main 3-pin power lead from the power supply to the mains is the same.

I had thought about viruses so I ran a disk eraser last night...until I discovered that it was going to take 70 hours for one disk! I'm going to try to get hold of an old PC tonight so I can leave it going while I work on mine.

OK, it's happened again. I got everything back up and running on my old HDDs on Friday and all was well until this morning, when the problem reappeared.

However, if I disconnect my documents/storage drive (primary slave) then everything boots fine. The last time this happened, connecting the second drive would cause the boot to fail.

I've reached the point where I'm about to buy a pair of SATA drives but I'd like some confidence that it will fix the problem before I go spending more money. Does anybody have any final thoughts before these IDE drives get ditched?

EDIT: I just reconnected the second drive and it works! Maybe it could be the IDE cable...I did check this before, but I'll replace it and see what happens...that's a much cheaper fix than new HDDs