Jump to content

Welcome to Geeks to Go - Register now for FREE

Need help with your computer or device? Want to learn new tech skills? You're in the right place!
Geeks to Go is a friendly community of tech experts who can solve any problem you have. Just create a free account and post your question. Our volunteers will reply quickly and guide you through the steps. Don't let tech troubles stop you. Join Geeks to Go now and get the support you need!

How it Works Create Account
Photo

reboot loop - stalls on gagp30kx.sys - CDROM is AWOL


  • Please log in to reply

#1
sleepyboy

sleepyboy

    Member

  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 10 posts
AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+, 1GB RAM
Windows XP Pro - with SP2 downloaded and installed

No hardware changes, bios updates, or software installations recently, latest Kaspersky Online Scan for viruses (two days ago) was clean, used computer as normal yesterday, shut it down, and today got the Windows did no start succesfully, boot in safe mode or start normally screen. All options result in a reboot loop. When starting in safe mode it stalls on the gagp30kx.sys driver.

So I googled that, and it seems like the first thing I should try is replacing that driver or try a windows "repair". Only heres the problem, I can't boot my Windows XP CD - my CDROM has gone AWOL. When I enter the boot menu and select to boot from the CD-Rom first, it just skips over it like it's not there. But when I put the windows disk into the CD-ROM drive I hear it rev up and start whirring.

I have the Windows XP set-up disks which I used to get the CD-ROM working the first time so I could install Windows, but I am hesitant to re-use those, because I don't know if they will set me up for a complete Windows re-install, which I would like to avoid if possible.

I also used a DOS boot disk to see if I could get a look inside the drivers directory on the harddrive, but it wouldn't read the c: drive or the cd-rom drive even though it had IDE drivers installed for cd-rom.

Any recommended courses of action? Or should I just chuck the computer out a window?

...grateful for any assistance. Thanks!
  • 0

Advertisements


#2
wannabe1

wannabe1

    Tech Staff

  • Technician
  • 16,645 posts
sleepyboy...

The XP boot disk set will boot just like booting from the cd and will yield the same options. Use them and then try SFC or chkdsk from Recovery Console...or the Repair Installation if you prefer.

wannabe1
  • 0

#3
sleepyboy

sleepyboy

    Member

  • Topic Starter
  • Member
  • PipPip
  • 10 posts
thanks for the fast reply...

...gets stranger and stranger though. Loaded up from the disks and went into the recovery console. It couldn't perform the directory command. Ran chkdsk (without any parameters) and was able to read the directory. Would have copied gagp30kx.sys back into the drivers directory, only... I can't get a copy of just gagp30kx.sys unless I download it from some pay site. Exited the recovery console and the system rebooted, and lo and behold it booted past gagp30kx.sys but this time crashed at lsass.exe - an invalid parameter was passed to a service or function - I was going to go back into the recovery console and just run a full repair, but it wouldn't accept my administrator password this time.

Am I watching my harddrive disintegrate or what? This system is less than a year old, so the warranty should cover the harddrive, but the data loss is going to be tough to deal with. I am contemplating going out and buying another harddrive and installing windows on that, then slaving in the old drive and recovering as much data as possible before formatting it. Any other suggestions before I take such drastic actions?

thanks in advance...
  • 0

#4
TixPix

TixPix

    New Member

  • Member
  • Pip
  • 2 posts
I had this same trouble yesterday, while I was trying to partition and format from my computer a failing hard drive that I connected as slave.
I boot with verbose turned on, and noticed that the boot process froze while at "gag30kx.sys".
I then tried to boot in safe mode and recovery console with no sucess.
As my system seemed to be doing well before I connected the bad HDD, I unplugged it and everything went OK.
What pisses me off is that how WinXP froze because of a slave drive!!
...and worse of it: it won't tell you is because of that bad slave drive!!
Anyhoo, I booted from my BartPE CD and made a disk check and found out (or "CONFIRMED") that the hard drive was in a very bad condition.
Hope this helps.
By the way: Hard drives can get damaged (even if new) after a cabinet hit or sudden movement while turned on, so it don't matter if they are new.
  • 0

#5
PunkyFeople

PunkyFeople

    New Member

  • Member
  • Pip
  • 6 posts
I joined simply to give the solution I found. I had the same issue, hanging at gagp30kx etc. etc. Tried it all, ubuntu, puppy, other computers, etc. etc.

The problem turned out to be the one thing I overlooked for a while... the main drive (C: drive) was full. Windows must have room to write to the registry at all times, if drive C is full then windows can't boot.

I used ubuntu, cleaned the drive of some waste and boom, I have a start button in the lower right corner now.

Happy Computing.

Thanks,
Derek Rayburn
Geek of 30 years.
  • 0






Similar Topics

0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users

As Featured On:

Microsoft Yahoo BBC MSN PC Magazine Washington Post HP