[Master Spade]

I got the External Hard Drive today. I put the Puppy Linux CD into the infected PC. The CD Drive is the first boot device.
But when I reboot with the CD in there, this comes up:

05/02/0: Error allocating Mem BAR for PCI device
05/02/0: Error allocating Mem BAR for PCI device
05/02/0: Error allocating Mem BAR for PCI device
05/02/0: Error allocating Mem BAR for PCI device


After I press F1 to continue, the CD does start up. It seems to work, until this Error comes out in Red:

ERROR, cannot find Puppy on 'satacd' boot media.
PUPMODE=1 PDEV1=
exited to initial-ram disk (initramfs) commandline...
(the Linux-guru can now debug, 'e3' editor is available)

All that is in red, followed by this:

/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off



It gets stuck there. Does that Error have anything to do with the "05/02/0: Error allocating Mem BAR for PCI device"? What is that? Is that talking about the Ram?


What should I do?

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I need to ask something.... is this a Dell system? This error seems to be normally in Dell systems. I found this in my research..
Error allocating Mem BAR for PCI device
The system encountered a problem while trying to configure an expansion card or integrated on-board devices.
If the device number points to an expansion card, the card can be removed. See "Troubleshooting Expansion Cards" in "Troubleshooting Your System."

If the device number points to a an on-board device, disable the device. See "Using the System Setup Program" in your User's Guide for details.

It is a card or on board issue. Now we just have to figure out which one is the culprit.

[rshaffer61]

I need to ask something.... is this a Dell system? This error seems to be normally in Dell systems. I found this in my research..
Error allocating Mem BAR for PCI device
The system encountered a problem while trying to configure an expansion card or integrated on-board devices.
If the device number points to an expansion card, the card can be removed. See "Troubleshooting Expansion Cards" in "Troubleshooting Your System."

If the device number points to a an on-board device, disable the device. See "Using the System Setup Program" in your User's Guide for details.

It is a card or on board issue. Now we just have to figure out which one is the culprit.

[Master Spade]

I need to ask something.... is this a Dell system? This error seems to be normally in Dell systems. I found this in my research..
Error allocating Mem BAR for PCI device
The system encountered a problem while trying to configure an expansion card or integrated on-board devices.
If the device number points to an expansion card, the card can be removed. See "Troubleshooting Expansion Cards" in "Troubleshooting Your System."

If the device number points to a an on-board device, disable the device. See "Using the System Setup Program" in your User's Guide for details.

It is a card or on board issue. Now we just have to figure out which one is the culprit.

Yup, it's a Dell XPS 400.

Could this mean that the big problem is something physical? If so, would that be a good thing, since it wouldn't be an infection?

[rshaffer61]

No it seems to be something that seems to plague Dell systems. It's not a big problem per say. We are just going to have to do this methodically till we find the culprit.
Did you recently add any card to the system like a sound card, network card or video card?

Edited by rshaffer61, 08 January 2010 - 08:29 PM.

[Master Spade]

No it seems to be something that seems to plague Dell systems. It's not a big problem per say. We are just going to have to do this methodically till we find the culprit.
Did you recently add any card to the system like a sound card, network card or video card?

No. The only thing I've ever added to the PC is the 500GB Hard Drive. That PC originally came with a 320GB HD. I made the 500GB HD the Main one, and the 320 the Slave. It was working Perfectly for Months.

Should I open the PC and make sure everything is connected tightly enough? If not, what should I do now?

Thanks.

[rshaffer61]

Now we need to go in to the bios and disable the onboard to check if it is one of them causing the issue.
Most likely it will be in the Advance, onboard or Integrated areas.
I would suggest disabling the sound and nic or network since the onboard video you have to keep to see with.
Make sure to save and exit or things will not work correctly.
The other option is to try and set the bios back to default settings.
To get to the bios, cmos or setup on the first post screen you would normally click Del but I'm not sure if it would be that or Esc. F1 or F2 on you system

[Master Spade]

Now we need to go in to the bios and disable the onboard to check if it is one of them causing the issue.
Most likely it will be in the Advance, onboard or Integrated areas.
I would suggest disabling the sound and nic or network since the onboard video you have to keep to see with.
Make sure to save and exit or things will not work correctly.
The other option is to try and set the bios back to default settings.
To get to the bios, cmos or setup on the first post screen you would normally click Del but I'm not sure if it would be that or Esc. F1 or F2 on you system

I'm not sure what to do here.

1.You say to disable the Onboard.....the onboard what?

2.Then you say it will be in the Advance, onboard or Integrated areas. How do I get to that Advance, onboard or Integrated areas?

3.Then you suggest disabling the sound and nic or network, since the onboard video you have to keep to see with. Again, where? How?



The other option of going back to the bios default settings, that's the bios order, right? The one where I put the CDROM in the 1st slot, followed by the Hard Drives, right?

I just want to make sure I don't mess anything up even more.



Thanks.

[rshaffer61]

Yes bios is where you set the boot order.
There should be different areas in the bios.
What you are looking for is a area that shows your onboard Video, Sound and nic(Network)card
When you find it then highlight the Audio and then on the bottom of the screen it should tell you how to change it either by clicking the + or - keys or up or down arrows.
Try disabeling this first then Save and Exit by clicking the F10[/b key and then the [b]Y to verify.
The system should reboot on it's own. Let it try to boot into normal mode.
If it doesn't work then reboot and enable to the audio and then try to disable the nic or network. Redo the save and exit and reboot. Does it work then in normal mode?
If not the we have a driver issue which will be harder to run down.

Edited by rshaffer61, 09 January 2010 - 01:42 AM.

[Master Spade]

Yes bios is where you set the boot order.
There should be different areas in the bios.
What you are looking for is a area that shows your onboard Video, Sound and nic(Network)card[b]
When you find it then highlight the Audio and then on the bottom of the screen it should tell you how to change it either by clicking the + or - keys or up or down arrows.
Try disabeling this first then Save and Exit by clicking the [b]F10[/b key and then the [b]Y to verify.
The system should reboot on it's own. Let it try to boot into normal mode.
If it doesn't work then reboot and enable to the audio and then try to disable the nic or network. Redo the save and exit and reboot. Does it work then in normal mode?
If not the we have a driver issue which will be harder to run down.

OK, I went into Setup, and noticed that the Integrated Audio was already turned off. I think that's because of the Soundblaster XF-I sound card I paid extra for when I first purchased the PC. But just to make sure I tested everything, I turned it on, saved, exited, system rebooted, and let it try to reboot in normal mode. But, no improvement. The Errors still came out. So I went back and turned it back off.
I tried the same thing with the Integrated NIC. That had 3 options: Off, On, and On w/PXE, which it said is needed only if intending to boot to an operating System on a Server. I tried all 3, but no luck.
When I tried it On w/PXE though, a screen came out and said this:

Windows could not start because following file is missing:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM


Should I now try to change the Bios order?

[rshaffer61]

Change the bios order?
If you mean change the boot order no it should be fine as long it is either... hard drive and then cdrom or even better if it is cdrom then hard drive.

Edited by rshaffer61, 09 January 2010 - 01:41 AM.

[Master Spade]

Vhange the bios order?
If you mean change the boot order no it sgould be fine as long it is either... hard drive and then cdrom or even better if it is cdrom then hard drive.

I was refering to what you said in post #36:

"The other option is to try and set the bios back to default settings.
To get to the bios, cmos or setup on the first post screen you would normally click Del but I'm not sure if it would be that or Esc. F1 or F2 on you system "

[rshaffer61]

You can enter bios as you have before and somewhere there should be a option to return the bios to default settings. Try that and see if it will work.

[Master Spade]

You can enter bios as you have before and somewhere there should be a option to return the bios to default settings. Try that and see if it will work.

I tried it, but nope.

With the first OS, that same Error message comes out:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

The the other 2 OS, the screen just goes black.

[rshaffer61]

OK so the option at this point is to try and repair the one OS or to wipe everything and start over.
You should just for the sake of trying open the system and make sure everything is tight and\or reseat anything to make sure that no dust has gotten into it.
I take it you haven't been able to backup your files?

[Master Spade]

No, I haven't been able to backup the Files on that PC. I can't get to the desktop to back them up. Is there another way to backup those files, without having to go to the desktop? Could I remove the Hard Drives, install them into another PC, connect the External HD to that PC, and backup the files that way?



Question about the Recovery Console. Since the ERROR message says that the PC can't start because it's missing that Windows\System32\Config\System file, don't PC's make copies of those files? If so, can't we copy that file from the PC's backup files, and install that? If this is possible, could this be done without having to worry about the rest of the PC files being erased? If this could be done, we'd be able to at least get to the Desktop using the Puppy Linux and save everything to the External HD.


One more question, do you know anything about "Guided Help" from microsoft? I've been reading about that and it says it can automatically do certain repairs, including the repair for this problem. Here's the link: http://support.micro...b;EN-US;q307545

This is one of the parts that I read that is good about that article: "This procedure does not guarantee full recovery of the system to a previous state; however, you should be able to recover data when you use this procedure."

But this part scared me: "Warning Do not use the procedure that is described in this article if your computer has an OEM-installed operating system. The system hive on OEM installations creates passwords and user accounts that did not exist previously. If you use the procedure that is described in this article, you may not be able to log back into the recovery console to restore the original registry hives."



Thanks.

Edited by Master Spade, 09 January 2010 - 03:45 PM.