[jjsant]

I’ve been having an intermittent set of problems that I assume are all related. Here are the symptoms:

-sometimes the HD is not found during boot
-sometimes the boot files are not found during boot (“NTLDR not found…”)
-sometimes changing/re-inserting the ide cable resolves it
-sometimes the red HD indicator light stays bright and no noise occurs for some time.

If/when the red-light-freeze happens for about 30 seconds or more, the system blue-screens me or freezes. When this happens, the Event Log writes a “warning” classified as a “disk” problem with the detail:

Event 51. Source –Disk “An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.”

I have purchased new ide cables and cleaned the pins on the mother board and HD connections with DeOxit Power Booster and the Deoxit Gold.

I have reviewed the Bios and don’t see anything strange but I am no expert. Can you tell me if I should have some particular settings in there related to this type of problem?

I have tried removing one memory board and switching them with no improvements. I always update my anti-virus software and scanned several times.

It seems to me that either some pin(s) on the board or on the HD are not connecting well to the ide cable or to their solder points? Is there any way I can confirm this? Is there a gizmo to help me get a better connection to the cable? Can/should I re-touch the solder points on the HD? I certainly hope I don't have to do that on the mother board. Any chance it’s related to ram? Any utilities that can run a test or monitor for problems with specific pin connection? I’d rather re-touch the solder on only the problem pin(s) if that is the solution since they are so small.

The PC is a Gateway Model 510 with 3.06ghz Pentium 4 with 533mhz, 512k level 2 cache and hyper threading and dual channel. Running XP Home. HD is “Ultra ATA 7200rpm 120GB” but I don’t think that is a complete description. I can’t find where to get that at the moment, other than the bios which I can go into and find if needed.

I really appreciate any help.

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jjsant, is this the same computer as this?
http://www.geekstogo...topic=86786&hl=

Did you try swapping IDE channels?

[makai]

jjsant, is this the same computer as this?
http://www.geekstogo...topic=86786&hl=

Did you try swapping IDE channels?

[jjsant]

Yes this is the same PC as the other thread you mentioned. This HD problem has been occurring for quite some time so it's not related to the hijacking that occurred Friday night.

BTW, I normally like to also have my second/slave HD connected but the ide cable that works best doesn't reach the 2nd drive with it's slave connector. The 2nd drive always works when connected but has no operating system on it. I re-formatted it with this PC after installing it on this PC. It was from my prior PC. It is set to slave with the jumper. I use it to backup important documents.

I just noticed that one of the USB Universal Host controllers is sharing an IRQ with the "Ultra ATA Storage Controller." I don't know if that's something I should change (nor how to do it.)

I would like to try swapping ide channels but I don't know how to do it. Is it a change to the bios? Or just switch the 2 cables at the motherboard? I have a DVD Rom and a CDRW ROM on the cable to the other socket next to the socket for the HDs.

Edited by jjsant, 26 December 2005 - 07:20 PM.

[makai]

Just change the IDE cables. The bios will look for the OS, so there's nothing you have to do in the bios. Note: There is a possibility that the malware you have has been on your machine for a while and not related to what hit you on Friday. You should really try to take care of the malware first before trying to solve hardware problems. As long as you can boot, take care of the malware. Afterwards, there will be no question whether you are dealing with malware or hardware issues.

[jjsant]

I switched the cables at the motherboard. At 1st I ran just the HD cable (in the "other" socket) and it worked good. I then shutdown and added the DVDrw and CDrw cable and it ran ok. I did not yet consider the problem resolved since it is an intermitted problem. It is not resolved.

Today it went back into the problem mode where the red light stays bright for about 5-20 seconds then the HD proceeds and the light flashes as normal. After about 15 minutes of that happening over and over, it's ok as I type this. This overall scenario is one of the common ones. Sometimes it blue-screens, sometimes it has the disc error in the event log but doesn't crash.

I should mention that I moved in June and I think that's when the problem started. I was on Cablevision for internet with a "shark fin" cable modem. The current service is Comcast cable and they said they don't support that modem so I am renting theirs. They installed the modem and such when I wasn't home. Since then, when I boot, the 1st thing I see is a messaged something like:

Intel Boot Agent.................... (listed twice I think)

.............MAC ADDRESS..........DHCP / <<(that line spins around in a circle.)

Eventually it would proceed to boot but I hit escape to end the spinning thing and boot. It then says "exiting Intel Boot agent" and usually boots (or says NTLDR not found when it's really angry.)

I notice that DHCP is checked and "running" in the "services" tab in the msconfig utility. However, I don't see that phrase in either task manager program I'm using, nor in the registry nor as a partial file name on the HD.

In addition to the Event 51 warning "Source –Disk “An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation,”" the event log also lists an "error" and a "warning" related to "Dhcp" every few minutes. Here are those texts:

WARNING
SOURCE Dhcp
ID 1003

Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address 000CF1AE2C7E. The following error occurred:
The semaphore timeout period has expired. . Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server.

and/or

ERROR
SOURCE Dhcp
ID 1000
Your computer has lost the lease to its IP address 192.168.100.3 on the Network Card with network address 000CF1AE2C7E.

and/or

ERROR
SOURCE Dhcp
ID 1002
The IP address lease 192.168.100.3 for the Network Card with network address 000CF1AE2C7E has been denied by the DHCP server 192.168.100.1 (The DHCP Server sent a DHCPNACK message).

I also get the following in the event log every few minutes:

ERROR
SOURCE-ipnathlp
ID 32003
The Network Address Translator (NAT) was unable to request an operation of the kernel-mode translation module. This may indicate misconfiguration, insufficient resources, or an internal error. The data is the error code.

I also get:

ERROR
SOURCE ATAPI
ID 9
The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort1, did not respond within the timeout period.

I tried unchecking the dhcp in the "services" tab in the msconfig utility and rebooting. The spinning thing was still there during the beginning of the boot. The "network" would not work alt all so I re-checked it.

I'd really appreciate any ideas on this mystery network boot thing as well as the HD problem. Maybe I should try unplugging the DVD / CD cable again? Maybe a conflict amonst the 2 ide channels?


Update: I'm editing this after a few days of research. I learned that ATAPI is CD\DVD type drives (pardon my ignorance) which maked the above code 9 error interesting since I never have any CDs in my 2 ATAPI drives during these problems. Seems that a symptom of the overall problem is the system being confused over which drive needs to take action. The main problem seems to be involving the Event 51. Source –Disk “An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.” The networking related logs are probably showing that a network-related request was made that happened to be the trigger of the disk error which is likely the real problem. I googled the event 51 text and read a very long and interesting thread in another group about how the combination of SP2, certain hardware, drivers, and settings can lead to this problem. The thread is very long and over a year in span.

http://www.hardwarea...ic/12946/?o=180

One post says my drives/channels should all be in DMA mode and I notice my HD is running in PIO even though it is set to use DMA "if available." The CD/DVD channnel both show they are running in Ultra DMA mode 2. So I pulled the CD/DVD cable again. Now the HD is running in DMA mode and the disk errors are gone. The solution for many was to add a PCI card controller for the HD which may be the way I end up going............

Update: All malware attack problems are gone. The attack was 2 weeks ago and (I believe) the HD problems have been around since I upgraded to sp2 about a year ago. The missing boot files / missing HD problems have not occured in some time.

The HD hang and HD running in PIO I/O UDMA5 mode problems remain. I keep researching and have learned that there are "normal" ide 80 wire (40 pin) cables and "fast" ones (133.) I've ordered one since I don't know what I have.

Edited by jjsant, 07 January 2006 - 02:16 PM.