Strange errors when booting from CD

Hi all, hope someone can help with this! I've tried searching for this type of problem, but no luck - apologies if I'm going over the same ground.

I've got a homebuilt system with the following spec: Asus P4P800X-S, P4 3GHz CPU, 2x512 RAM, Maxtor 120Gb IDE (OS), WD 120Gb IDE (Data), Maxtor 160 Gb SATA (Audio etc)... I'll also state at this point that the boot order is set to FDD -> CD -> HDD in the BIOS.

On the primary HD I have two primary partitions with Win XP (one for general use, one for audio software, kept seperate because I've found the audio stuff a bit temperamental). Every now and then I've tried to get to grips with Linux, and last week I booted with my installer DVD, and reinstalled it again to give it another go. I let the installer partition the drive as it wanted to, /boot, with / and /home in a logical partition. When the PC refused to boot I thought I might have made a mistake to let the installer do things the way it wanted. Things got a bit confusing after that...

Next I tried to boot with Partition Magic 8, so I could wipe the new Linux partitions and go back to my old stable setup. However, Partition Magic only booted as far as the intitial intro screen before it displayed the text "divide error!" and refused to go any further. Hmm...

I then tried booting with my WinXP install disk to see if I could use Recovery Console's fixmbr command to reset the MBR and at least get into my General XP partition (which I had left as default in the Fedora GRUB setup, so still should be the active partition, shouldn't it?). The WinXP CD booted, but only got as far as "Checking System Configuration" before it too halted.

I then suspected that there might be a problem with the CD/DVD drives, so checked again that the Fedora installer was still being allowed to boot - it did, and it still allowed me to see the partitions of the hard disk, and re-partition using DiskDruid, then go through the install process. I still couldn't boot the PC afterwards though.

I bought a new HD yesterday, to see if it's a problem with the existing drive, but I still get the same results.

The next thing I tried was downloading the Ultimate Boot CD, which seems to boot OK. However, when I tried to run one of the HD diagnostics, I got the message "Panic: MCB chain corrupted, system halted". All the HD Diag tests, and the Lucifer System Burn-In Test, seem to halt or exit with an error message.

However, the Mersenne Prime Test for the CPU does run, and seems to highlight an error (although it's not specific about what it is!).

Next, I tried Memtest86, which also ran (all day sun and mon) and came up with the following error listing:
Tst: 4
Pass: 11
Failing address: 00031563d4c 789.1 MB
Good (what it left there and expected to find): e5c22c5e
Bad (what it actually found): e1c22c5e
Err-Bits: 040000
Count: 2
Chan: 1
Any advice as to what this all means?

Once I got these error messages, I (reasonably, I thought) suspected that the RAM had failed, but in case just one of them had, I independently tested both of them individually in the first slot - only one of the RAM sticks came up with an error, so I've labelled that stick and put it to one side - I'm guessing I've eliminated the problem with the RAM now, am I right to assume that?

When I tried to boot Partition Magic, the divide error text came up both times (this is different from the last error, as it's now halting before it boots into Caldera DR-DOS!!). I then took out all the existing RAM and replaced it with a 256MB stick of RAM that seemed to work without problems in the PC I took it from last time I had it working (it's fairly stripped down these days and without a graphics card, so not easy to test without some messing about), but the same divide error message appears when attempting to boot with the PM CD. I ran Memtest on this stick of RAM, but it didn't report any problems.

However, the problem with the system still refusing to boot PM from the CD with apparently good RAM fitted, and still producing the 'divide error', suggests to me that, although the 512 sticks of RAM might have failed, there's also something else wrong.

I'm now fairly convinced this all points to a hardware problem - but what?!? The room had been fairly warm around the time of the failure, but not excessively so - however, I came back into the room at one point to find the fan working fairly hard (it slowed down as soon as I got it cooler with a household fan) - unfortunately the errors have persisted; could this be due to overheating? Would overheating produce these kinds of errors? I'm at a loss now, and short of ripping out the motherboard, and replacing it and the CPU, I'm not sure how to troubleshoot this any further. I don't have the funds to just go and buy a new CPU and mobo just yet (my partner has a baby on the way!), so any suggestions for anything else I could try to find out more accurately what's wrong would be gratefully received!! Help!!!

Many thanks in advance,
K

 

Pleeeaaase can anyone suggest where I go from here...? It would be a really big help!

 

If the Linux installer will still boot, then when you get to the partitioning section, use the "Manual" setting so that you can delete the Linux partitions. If Windows has 2 primary partitions ( hda1 and hda2 ) it would be safe to delete anything else. But you must be very careful. Read everything on the screen -- you can safely delete "/boot" "/home" "/" (root) and "swap". Once all Linux partitions have been removed, see if <ctrl><alt><del> will enable a reboot. If it does, then your repair utilities should now work.