Unknown Hard Error

[Kwould]

I was working with Photoshop for several hours on Sunday when suddenly a Windows dialog box appeared stating "unknown hard error". My open programs immediately stopped reponding and their respective windows closed by themselves. Explorer also stopped reponding and the start button/menu disappeared as well. I was forced to manually power down my PC. When I started it back up, Windows would not boot. It gets to the splash screen and the Windows scrolling bar continues on infinitely. Here is what I have so far:

• I ran a memory test and received no errors
• My motherboard has posted no error codes (via LED screen on M/B)
• My RAID config is reading healthy
• All voltages and teperatures in BIOS are in the norm, All BIOS settings, save for "no halt on errors" is/was at fail-safe defaults

The dialog box message was not accompanied by a stop error code (perhaps because of the no halt setting). The only thing I can think of is a striping error that wasn't detected by the RAID driver. I have not attempted to reinstall Windows yet - I wanted to see if anyone here had any insight. Any ideas?

My Specs:

Windows XP SP2 + all updates
Athlon64 X2 6000+
EVGA nForce 590 SLI
4GB OCZ PC2-6400 RAM
2 x WD Raptor 150 RAID 0 (Boot)
1 x Hitachi Deskstar 250
EVGA GeForce 8800GTS
Hiper 580W PSU (38A 12V)

[n0e]

This is one I had never experienced before. I did a little googling but all had the way to fix it if you could still boot into windows xp.

The only way I can suggest you can fix this is pop in your winxp cd and run the repair option so you can boot into windows.

Then, I found this link that suggested it could be corrupt event system notification logs and when you write new logs to it, it would crash the system in this way and disabling that service would stop the error from occurring. It's a rather lengthy post, but this is a rather odd and crippling error.

I hope the repair option helps.. otherwise you may need to do a clean install of windows (which I always view as a last resort)

[only1yoni]

Sounds like a Memory Error.

[Kwould]

Originally Posted by n0e

The only way I can suggest you can fix this is pop in your winxp cd and run the repair option so you can boot into windows...

I hope the repair option helps.. otherwise you may need to do a clean install of windows (which I always view as a last resort)

Thanks n0e, I just tried that and unfortunately Windows setup won't let me run the repair option, claiming it can't detect any installed HDD's. My BIOS clearly shows my storage drive, and my RAID array is identified during POST.

Am I going to be forced to delete my RAID array?

[~Merrick]

When using raid, it can still read as " ok ". One of your raid drives sounds like it may be failing.

Have you attempted to start up using safe mode ?
You may want to check the stability of the hdd's by using Pc dr or some other such proggy.

This is one of the reasons why i have slipped away from RAID and gone to imaging. So if i do lose my Hdd, i can just get a new hdd and plop the image onto the new Hdd.

[Kwould]

Originally Posted by ~Merrick

Have you attempted to start up using safe mode ?

Yeah, it runs down the list of drivers and then stops dead in it's tracks.

I kinda figure that I will have to delete my array and start from scratch. Hopefully if one of the drives is failing, I reinstall windows on the one that is not. I set all the drives on the servers at work for redundancy, you'd think I'd have the sense to do so at home...

I guess I'm going to stay away from RAID myself now. Striping doesn't provide enough of a performance boost to be worth headaches like this.

[~Merrick]

Striping works when you are working off two 10k hdd's. The issue is just as you are having. When one starts to fail all you can do is down the aray and check the disks to find what has gone wrong.

Test both drives before installing your windows os.
Then as i have told people, use an imaging software like acronis, and make a full image when you have the pc the way you want it. You can always slave off the hdd to another pc, install aconis and slide the image over. 2 hours of windows installs and drivers installs go down the tube. It takes 15 min and you are up and running again .....

[arcadeplayer987]

What hdd do you have??

[n0e]

Originally Posted by Kwould

Thanks n0e, I just tried that and unfortunately Windows setup won't let me run the repair option, claiming it can't detect any installed HDD's. My BIOS clearly shows my storage drive, and my RAID array is identified during POST.

Am I going to be forced to delete my RAID array?

Ahh Raid Arrays. The bane of all things stable. They're tricky to work with, especially if the problem exists on one hard drive and not the other, you lose all information. When you run the windows installer, with a raid array you must have a disk that has the chipset drivers for that array for windows to see it. (it's a floppy that comes with your motherboard or desktop) You install it at the very beginning when it prompts you to hit f6 to install scsi drivers (RAID is considered scsi by windows)

If that doesn't work the only other potential things I can think it could be would be either the raid array broke (it's not as uncommon as you may think) and you need to recreate it in bios (thus losing all of your information) or your master boot record MBR has been corrupted or damaged meaning you need to break the array yourself and boot them as seperate drives. Use the windows installer to check the drives. It will see them both (or should) and ask if you wish to repartition and reformat the selected drive with the bad MBR on the screen where you select which drive to install windows on.

My best guess is you forgot to pop in the floppy drive to install the drivers for the windows installer to see the devices (it's nothing to feel stupid about, it's something most don't think of) and popping it in the drive will fix the reinstall process.

[Kwould]

Ahhhh! So your saying, to use the repair option I need to install the RAID drivers first, just as if I were going to install?