Windows Startup Problem - 2 Machines Same time

Startup problem on 2 machines probably happened the same time.

Machine 1 is an XP machine. Yesterday morn I saw a plain blue screen when I got up and restarted the machine. The windows startup screen started and thinking it was starting I left for work. When I got home the startup screen was still there. Turned off till this morning. Tried to boot into safe mode and it went to logon screen and I chose the logon, it went to a blue screen with information on it. Something about DRIVER_IROL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, lots of numbers and rastor.sys Address F7B1925F and other numbers. Then it just stays. I went back to safe mode and tried Recovery and the same thing happens.

Machine 2 is a Vista machine. I did not see it until this morning and I noticed it was not on. When I turned it on, I get a black screen with a cursor at the top left. I turned it off then on again and get the same thing. Left it off.

I'm thinking, though I don't know, that maybe it was a problem with an automatic update for it to have happened to both machines at the same time.
Get automatic backups of McAfee and Windows.

#1 is an old machine, that was upgraded to XP long time ago. #2 Vista is couple years old. Both Dell.

Would appreciate any help you can give.

Thanks, mmaque

 

Something like that happening to two machines with different OS's at the same time might suggest malware if their networked but the first thing I would do is boot a WinXP CD on the XP machine. Enter the repair console (press R at the first screen) and run chkdsk /r . I try not to know much about Vista but I would guess you could do the same with it.

 

thank you so much for your quick reply. They are networked. Will try XP CD first.
mmaque

 

Okay,

XP machine - with xp disk - ran chkdsk /r - Almost immediately I got message "This volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems."

Vista machine - I have Dell OEM for it. Tried that, it wanted to install windows and that's all. But in my boot menu there was an option to boot from "Bootable Add In Cards". Tried that and it booted. Windows running but don't know where to go from there.

So maybe it is not the same problem??? Maybe just my bad luck of just having 2 computers mess up at the same time.

Thanks, mmaque

 

On the Vista machine will it now boot normally with no disc?

 

The Vista machine - I booted it from a "Bootable Add in Card" listed in my Boot menu which I was able to access by F12. It gave a list of options for booting and since I couldn't use the OEM CD I tried it and it came up. I haven't turned the machine off and tried to boot from the disk again.

 

Sorry I didn't give complete information. It booted from the "Bootable Add In Card" listed as I said. I can access my C drive from there and see the files that are on it.

mmaque

 

The question we are trying to answer is what is the "Bootable Add in Card" and is it necessary to boot?

The flashing cursor usually means the computer can't find boot files in the location it is looking form them. When you chose "Bootable Add in Card" it found them. I doubt you really have an Add in Card. Are any memory card slots empty? And was the CD in the tray when you were able to get into Vista?

 

Okay, thanks, I have the Vista machine up and running. Since I was able to boot, I ran restore and then it booted from the hard drive after the restore just fine, so I think that problem is solved.

The XP machine is another story. It will boot from the XP disc but when I ran chkdsk /r it immediately said "The volume has one or more unrecoverable problems" and I am stuck there. Do you think it is toast or is there anything else I can do from here?

 

Sorry I think we posted messages about same time. I really don't know what it is. It is a Dell system. When you start the computer you can hit F12 and go to a boot menu which lists the hard drive and any other drives on your system to choose where you want to boot from. Don't normally have to do that was just trying to get the system to boot. One of the things listed was "Bootable Add in Card" and truly I didn't know what it was but it said it was bootable so I tried it. The system booted just like it would normally. So I copied files that I thought I didn't want to lose then ran Restore from my last restore point and then went back to the F12 boot menu and chose my hard drive and everything started normally.

You know now that I think of it there was a CD in the tray when I put the OEM Windows disc in there, and I can't remember whether I tried to boot computer after I realized the Windows disc was not going to work. Maybe that was my problem with the Vista machine from the beginning. If so I have egg on my face. Having the problem with the XP machine may have just made me jumpy. Haven't ever opened that computer so don't know about memory slots, it has the 4 gig that came with it. Sorry I puzzled you. Sometimes when I get in a tizzy, I just don't think clearly. Thank you so much for helping me. Is there anything at all I can do with the XP machine?

mmaque

 

I'm thinking about the XP machine. I'm not sure what the best mode forward is because I am unfamiliar with that error. I haven't figured out if it is a hard drive going bad error or just a file system error.

Have you tried F8 and then Last Know Good Configuration?

*******

So you could get into safe mode? By recovery do you mean System Restore?

 

After thinking about it some more, I remembered that I had to go to that F12 boot menu and change it to boot from the CD in order to get the machine to load the Windows CD because it wouldn't boot when I first put the disc in, and that is why I knew about the option for "Bootable Add in card" so I guess it is just a mystery.

 

Thank you for answering, yes, you are right, couldn't read my writing. All the messages were:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Then the message: If this is the first time you've seen this message . . . . etc.

Then ---

Technical Information:
** Stop: 0X000000D1 (0X00000018, 0X00000002, 0X00000000, 0XF7B1025F)

**iastor.sys - Address F7B1925F base at F7B0A000, Datestamp 42b2df42

Really appreciate all the help I've gotten so far. Thanks, mmaque

 

Sorry, I just saw Sach2's question about trying "Last good configuration" and I did try that early on.

 

I had found this thread from DELL but it is even older. If it is a DELL we are talking about then maybe the first part would get you back into Windows.

If it is not a DELL than your BIOS would look different and those instructions would not work.

I am not comfortable in RAID configurations. How many hard drives are in that machine?

 

iastor.sys is a raid driver from Intel but it also the SATA driver for Intel boards. It is probably built into your OEM install disk to allow access to the HDD during installation.

I recall a couple of years ago, Seagate had a problem with the bios on a specific group of HDD's. I don't remember the exact number but it was something like the 7200.10 series I think. If it is one of these drives, Seagate was repairing the drives without cost and supposedly without data loss.

If it's not one of the Seagate problem drives, it sounds like there is some serious corruption on the HDD. I would suggest booting a live Linux CD such as Knoppix and see if the drive can be accessed to recover your data. It could be copied to a USB drive or a network drive. Then run the diagnostic disk from the drive manufacturer.