System crashing after new HDD install

Good Morning,

I recently replaced a hard disk drive that I believed, at the time, to be failing.
I also added a slave hdd. Everything was fine for the first couple days. Now, the system will boot to a point and then restart. It will eventually boot up but it will take anywhere from two to four restarts before it boots completely. I am running Windows XP home with SP2.
I ran memory dump debug and this is what it is telling me:
Image name: ntoskrnl.exe
Symbol name: nt+74a39
Bucket ID: wrong symbol
I did a search for the image name and came up with one folder and two of the ntoskrnl.exe's. The folder was dated the day I ran the debug which was 4-19-2007(I presume this was the path I saved) but the two ntoskrnl.exe's were dated 8-03-2004 and 8-4-2004.
Any help will be most welcome.
Thanks! Cheers, it's Friday!

 

Just so I fully understand the changes.

You had one hard drive with windows.
There was a problem
You took the old hard drive out and put in a new one. How did Windows get on the new one?
You added a second drive as slave. Was this the old one?

Whatever, I would recommend running check disk with both fix options set and on both drives and then disconnecting the slave until the problem is fixed.
After running check disk run the system file checker.

If you need help with these operations post again.

FYI NTOSKRNL.exe will appear in several locations in XP#SP2. I have just looked and have 8 listed. The primary one is in c:\windows\system32 and is 2.13Mb.

Studio T

 

Both drives are new. I installed XP on the master. I used the western digital software to format the slave. As I said, everything was fine for about a week.

 

StudioT offers some solid advice. Run the Windows chkdsk followed by the system file checker. Both are run from the command prompt. Click Start > Run and type 'cmd' (no quotes) and press Enter to get to the command prompt. Here's a link to everything you need to know about chkdsk:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265/en-us
For the system file checker, go to the command prompt, and type 'sfc /purgecache' again with no quotes and press enter and let it do it's thing; about 2 minutes, maybe as long as 10+ minutes. When that's done, insert your XP install CD, let it load up and click the Exit button. In the command prompt window, type (without quotes) 'sfc /scannow' and let it do it's thing. This can take up to an hour or more, so be patient. When that's done, type 'exit' press enter and reboot the PC. You may also want to run the HD diagnostics available from the manufacturers of your hard drives. The downloads will be free on their respective web sites..... GOOD LUCK!!!

hopperdave2000

 

If you bough both drives together, you may have received from a bad batch or damaged in transit.

Studio T

 

I agree with the possible bad new hard drive,( possibly dropped by courier/post) and as Hopperdave, and Studiot say, test the drives with their own software, run chkdsk, and sfc /scannow - if one, or both (if both are new, unless the other is your old drive) are faulty, then do an RMA.
You may find by disconnecting second drive, the problem dissappears, if there is an inherrant fault with it.- check you cable (change if you have another.

 

Thanks to all of you! Will try these suggestions this weekend. Cheers!

 

As the Geeks say the cable is another possibility. You haven't said and I have rather assumed that your system is modern enough to have the 80 wire cable for the drives. The slave goes to the middle connector, the master to the end.

If the cable, drives and file system proves OK then you can try swapping them to the other IDE channel on the motherboard, in case there is a hardware problem with one you are using.

Studio T