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Boot Failure: System Halted


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#1
boomdog1983

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This morning I attempted to "wake up" my PC since I hadn't powered it off last night. Wouldn't do anything so I figure it was "frozen" and proceeded to shutdown by holding in the power button on my Dell Dimension 4400 desktop. After powering up, the PC went no further in the boot process than the Topic title. A quick Google on the topic title leads me to believe my harddrive (Western Digital Caviar WD400BB) may have pooped in the bed :blink:

A reboot only allows me into SETUP. Hitting the F12 key to access the boot menu is futile.

BIOS version is A03
Intel Pentium 4 processor, 1.80 GHz
768MB System RAM

Harddrive and PC are 4.5 years old. Any suggestions/help/advice are mucho appreciated. :whistling:
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#2
austin_o

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Hi and welcome to Geeks to Go. Since you can access the bios, change the boot order to boot from cd, then try booting to your windows install cd or your system recovery cd.
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#3
boomdog1983

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Thanks for the response. Not looking too good. After finally getting the CD-ROM drive to boot first, I inserted the Windows XP Setup disc. It gave three options:

1. Setup Windows XP
2. Repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console
3. Quit Setup

Options 1 and 2 we're not able to execute. The following message displayed:

Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer :whistling:

Setup cannot continue
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#4
austin_o

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Yea, it looks like the hd died (may it rest in peace). You could try running the manufacturer's diagnostics program on it. Links to most hd manufacturer's diagnostics can be found here http://forums.pcper....isplay.php?f=40 see the sticky post at the top.
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#5
boomdog1983

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Okay, so now here's the latest. First I can't seem to load the Manufacturer's diagnostic program onto a CD that's bootable. But to my next point. I decide to buy another WD Caviar 120 GB drive. I replace the old HDD with this new one, and I get the SAME freaking message: Boot failure, sytem halted???? Could it be cables? Power Supply? Motherboard? Help.... :whistling:
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#6
valis

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if it's not detecting the hd, I'd check the ide cable with a known working one first. For both to fail, while possible, is EXTREMELY unlikely.
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#7
boomdog1983

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I'll have to look into the possibility of a bad cable. In the mean time I'll have a friend of mine verify the status of my harddrive. BTW, sometimes when I power up the PC, the harddrive spins long enough to actually load windows before it "quits" and freezes the PC. I've actually been able to execute a few mouse strokes once the operating system loaded. I got as far as opening my Outlook and it froze on one occasion. Sometimes the harddrive will "cycle on and off" before completely stopping to spin. Upon which I wait a little while and attempt to power up again...Thanks for response, BTW.
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#8
valis

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thought I replied to this, but oh well, if it's a dupe I apologize.

sometimes when I power up the PC, the harddrive spins long enough to actually load windows before it "quits" and freezes the PC


does this happen with both hard drives?
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