A string of OS problems

I'm trying to figure out if this problem is a software or hardware issue. There's been a string of incidents so I'm just going to bullet point them out in the order they've happened to make things a little easier.

1) Last Thursday evening, I was using my computer and everything was great as I shut down around 6pm. Then at about 11pm, I tried starting up again to take care of some more work and got an error message along the lines of "Windows/System is corrupt or missing. Press 'r' with the original Windows CD to repair the problem." The system would boot up until this message (still in the DOS-looking screens) and then wouldn't go any further. I was going on a trip over the weekend so I decided not to tackle the problem until later. So between Thursday night and this afternoon, the computer was never on and the last thing it said to me was that error message about a corrupt/missing System.

2) I tried starting up the computer again this afternoon and, surprisingly enough, it got through the boot process and Windows came up fine. After running for 15 minutes of normal activity (browsing, going through files, etc.), a Windows "unknown hard error" popped up, everything vanished except the background, and the error wouldn't go away. I had to do a hard reboot.

3) During the boot-up process, at the point after detecting the hard drives and CD drives, I received another error message that stated "Error loading OS." I did a soft reset and got the error message again. The next time it was booting up I went into the BIOS and checked the hdd auto-detect. My main drive listing (C was coming up as "none" and my slave drive (D had some goobledegook in the name rather than the actual hdd label. Both drives are on IDE1. I auto-detected the slave first and it came up fine, replacing the gibberish name. It took a couple attempts to auto-detect the main drive but it finally did go from "none" to the right name. Rebooting after that went normally and Windows started up fine.

4) I ran several diagnostics including Norton SystemWorks, DiscWizard, scandisk, etc. and they all seem to think the drives are fine.

After all that, my question is: what do you all think is happening? It's either Windows, hardware, or the BIOS. I thought it was just Windows at first because of the "corrupt System" last Thursday night, but then the issues with detecting the hdd's in the BIOS this morning makes me wonder if maybe it's something else.

Any ideas? My equipment that might be related to this problem is:

-WinXP Pro (w/ all current updates)
-ABIT KT7A-RAID
-2 Seagate hdd's (on IDE1)

Thanks,
m19

 

head to the manufacturers website for the drives and download their diagnostic software to test the drive fitness. That 99% eliminate the drives as an issue or not. Try replacing the IDE cables in the mean time

 

Thanks Kodo, I'll try both of those things tonight and report back if the problem persists. In the meantime, anyone else's opinions on anything else totry would be great.

m19

 

Seem to me you have all the symptoms of a failing hardrive

Eventually I suspect your drive will die indefinately.

I suggest you back up whatever you need now while you still might be able too.

some programs that diagnose your drive might seem to be working right but that is false security.

IT happened to me till finally the drive died.

 

You might check to make sure your fan is working correctly also. I had a similar situation on an old pooter of mine and it turned out the fan was dying not the hd. I was happy, fans are cheeper than hds

 

I know that my intake and outake fans, powersupply fans, and motherboard fans are all working properly. I don't think overheating is a problem, though.

m19

 

hi morgan
i just looked up the seagate diagnostic software here

http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

and the tools they have require an intel based system

so not a lot of good for you i would suggest making sure the IDE cable is seated properly at both the drive ends and the motherboard or as Kodo suggested try a new cable

 

Well that's goofy of them. Yeah, I attempted using the tools last night and just got a string of the good ol' DOS "Bad command or file name" replies back. I didn't have a spare IDE cable on me last night but should be able to grab one today.

m19

 

there's a web based one that should work
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/asp/tools/en/