Windows 7 starts 1 time out of 10

Hi there, :wave

It's been a couple of weeks my computer will almost never start...

I have a shuttle SP35P2 with the following configuration:
Dual-Core E6300 @ 2.8
3Gb DDR2
Radeon HD 5750
WDC WD5000AADS-00s9B0 ATA Device (partitioned in 2, 166 and 299)
WDC WD2500JS-40TGB0 ATA Device


Each time I m putting it to Hibernate, or I m Shutting it Down at the moment I want to turn it on it almost NEVER starts by itself.

I always have the message "no drive found" and then the screen with the small white cursor "blinking". And then nothing.

The only way to get it to start/resume windows (seven) is to press keys on the keyboard: sometimes the space bar, enter, F8, F12, etc.
But even with this it really starts/resumes very seldom.

What shall I do ?

Thank you very much

Takosdef

 

Did you install ANYTHING around the time the problem began...say 2-4 weeks ago?

 

Nope, I didn't install anything new
I used to have the problem before but not that much, and it would eventually boot by itself.
Now it never starts alone at all!

I fixed my problem actually :/ if I press Escape while booting it loads the "boot menu" and if I start pressing the arrows (up or down) before it loads it, I can pick my win7 HardDrive in the boot menu and it starts. Otherwise the boot menu freezes and I can't move in it.

I just made a CheckDisk (it lasted 1h30min) and it doesn't change anything. It still won't boot alone.


An idea?

Takosdef

 

takosdef...do you use any 7 modification software like Bootskins or LogonStudio? I have used these in XP, and they seem buggy with bootups...

Also, did you check the box before the Checkdisk to automatically fix errors? I am assuming you ran in from the drive properties/tools menu. There it calls it Error checking. The menu for that has an option for the program to fix problems. There is another option to check for bad sectors and attempt to repair them, too. Maybe you should make sure both those features are activated when you run the feature. Sorry this is in XP, and I don't know about 7...

I guess hardware is less likely your problem since you had the problem before and it went away for awhile. It still could be the problem though...

Sometimes softwares can confilct like if you're running a free 8 clone and Dexpot or something. I don't use hibernate, but some programs can interfere with system standby. Your problem sounds a little deeper than this, though.

Coming out of hibernation is a little like a reboot...is this true? I've used it, but I forget what it was like...

I will say I had a similar problem when I first bought a couple of used computers years ago. I purchased a warranty, so I was able to replace the HDs on both (which both had the same errors on boot and disk error problem ironically) for free before I had even made any changes to the system.

There are some programs for testing HDs. If you know the manufacturer of your HD, most of those have disk checkers...

 

Check all your cables to the CD-rom and HDDs they could have been nocked loss.

 

So yes of course I ticked the 2 boxes "Automatically fix file system errors" & "Scan for attempt recovery of bad sectors"
But it looks like nothing was repaired. rolleyes

The problem never went away^^ It was simply not recurrent like now...

It seems to me that the problem would either come from the BIOS wich according to the Shuttle website is up to date... or from the harddrive itself, even though they are recognize in the Bios or the boot menu so I don't think it's them. Who knows :confused

Thank you anyway for your answers
Takosdef

 

Good point But I guess if it was the case the Harddrive(s) would not always be seen in the bios or the boot menu, no ?
And they always are


Takosdef

 

Some PATA cables get messed up i have a mix on my desktop Both PATA and Sata if i put a ata hdd and ata cd rom my windows will not boot at all but if i have just the PATA CD rom and sata hdd it runs fun.

And in this person case it could be a bad cable as well i had a PATA cable go bad on me it is very rare but it does happen and they do not cost much you could go to a local radio shack and pick one up for like 15$ or 20$ at the most.

AtlBo
Just unplug the PATA cable carefully and push them back in and see what that does do not push too hard they could bend the pins on the HDD and CD roms.Even on the mother board do the same.

 

I have no PATA connection in the Shuttle only SATA

Takosdef

 

takosdef...

The ESC thing has me intrigued, but I think I would still be wary of a possible HD failure. I am guessing your machine could be in the age bracket to be considering it at least a little bit seriously.

For the record, a little more on the problem I had when I changed the HDs I mentioned previously (XP machines btw). Both were on new/clean installations, and I felt at the time that I went to the wall to be certain the drives were bad (it was a weird coincidence I thought and I wanted to be sure it wasn't software related). It was a situation where I could get in just like you 1 out 10 or so times (I know ironic but it was on both). Super frustrating. It was like hit the button and pray almost as I didn't have a back up drive at the time. I will say, if I recall correctly, the drives were showing up in DOS. To be exact, because of that experience, I don't think a drive appearing in DOS is much of a test of its condition or functionality truthfully...just a test that it is connected and powered basically and then a smidgen of info. Anwyay, I eventually attributed the problem I had to the hard drives not being able to access the data reliably for the boot...or put another way, that they were broken, them having brand new installations of Windows, etc. One mention...the error I got with those drives was the same one you are getting..."Drive not found".

A little more. At the point of the problems (they were days apart), I had moved some text, spreadsheets, and music files over to the machines, so I decided fairly quickly (having the problem on both) to make the SquareTrade claims. Great company by the way. I think they paid $100 or so for replacement drives...and quickly too. Anyway, the new drives solved the problem on both. I paid a tech to move over the data on one of them to a new drive using his laptop, then fixed the other one myself. Whether it was the drives' readers or the actual hard drive surfaces themselves that were the problem, I couldn't say, but I guess I am about 90% sure the drives were both bad and that SquareTrade was correct to pay off and I to claim, etc. The problem being fixed was enough proof for me.

In this light, perhaps you might want to be on guard for a full failure. I had an almost complete failure on a Win 98 machine, and I was barely able to save my files. That problem was almost identical, but I was experiencing problems in Windows, too, not just on boot, so that was easier to identify. The drive just became unstable is the best way I can think of to explain that situation. May be a good idea to make sure you have USB or standard hard drive backup of your files and D&S if you don't now. These events caused me to go to a 3 HD system and so far so good...

Good luck with this...

One thing...I guess you could try to reinstall DOS or to run a repair on Windows and then reinstall DOS. If you do, I would be interested to read the results. With XP the repair means you have to redownload updates, but everything else stays intact. It's a cool option for times when a program might mess up Windows, etc... 7s repair feature is probably even better I am guessing...

 

Goldenskull...thanks for the tip. I don't have those machines any more, but I will remember that one for older machines. Actually, I think I tried that on the advice of a board tech at the time of the problems I had if I recall. This was back in like 2002 I think...

Thanks again...

 

Thank you for these answers

I will go on Monday to buy new HardDrives in order to make a full back-up on the first and keep the second one aside in case of...
And I'll re install 7 on the current(old) one. We ll see what's going on ^_^

Then if indeed the current HD is either too old or defect I'll use the other new one and get rid of the old

I'll let you know.

And I confirm you that now I can only boot by launching the "Boot Menu"...


Takosdef

 

Good idea to buy a back up HD. After the problems I had, I bought a USB backup drive and then a short time later a new PC with 2 HDs installed. Gotta say life is much better with back up in place...

I'll be interested to see how you come out with the reinstall. I would run the repair option so you can save your files. You'd get a good snapshot of the cause if the repair works...corruption in Windows. I still think it could be such as the drive not found error (I can't confirm this) I believe could possibly occur when the PC tries to start Windows during boot but cannot find Windows files or finds corrupted Windows files. If a repair of Windows fixes the problem, that would confirm that corruption in Windows can cause that error...

 

So here we go

The problem was coming from the small secondary HardDrive... The SMART tool from WD showed me several failures and problems, it looks like it was still miraculously working and letting me access info on it :cool

And he's the one who was preventing my main HardDrive to boot... Why ?, I still don't get it. ^_^

But it appears that once I tried to boot only with the main, Hooray! No more problems...

I checked my main HardDrive and it appears to be in absolutely perfect condition!!! So no need to change it for now.

I replaced the small one with a new 640go from Seagate and made a Back-up on my external Lacie.
And try to repair windows, but like windows said, lol, nothing to repair
I'll anyway make a fresh install in a couple of days.

:celebrate So for now, everything is working fine :hyper


Anyway I still can't figure out why the small HardDrive (with only docs, movies and pics) would prevent the other one from booting... confused
I'd be interested to know why


Takosdef

 

Hey takosdef...just a guess as I don't know, but, if the PC came from the manufacturer with 2 HDs, maybe there was some kind of RAID connection there. Something must have been causing the dependency, so I guess that's my best attempt at the answer for what it's worth...

I assume you got your info off the bad disk or at least most of it. That's the best part. It's almost like stealing when a HD starts going bad like that and you can recover the data. I recovered like 50,000 files one time from a really wacked out dying HD. I still have them and that was like 10 years ago...yah...

Nothing like a happy ending

:duck:celebrate