[J3Vr6]

Alright, I'm having problems again.  If you don't remember, I had issues with an motherboard and got a new MSI motherboard where you guys were nice and dandy to help.  I'm too lazy to link the old threads about it.  Anyway, things have been going peachy keen til lunch today (more specifically, since I've installed I-War2).

I went home for lunch and turned on the computer to play a little I-War 2 when my computer decides to hang at start up (windows 98SE).   It happens once in a while so I restart the computer and try to boot up.

First thing that happens is that I get the following error:

"While Initializing device IOS:
Windows protection error.  Please restart your computer."

No idea what that means.  So I try to restart it and the computer wouldn't even POST.  After trying restart it a few times, I finally get the computer to POST when I get the following error before getting into windows:

"Invalid VxD dynamic link call to device 3, service B.  Please run windows set-up to fix."

?????  I don't even know if I have the CD anymore!  I try to restart and finally get into Windows and see if I have the setup in my windows directory (I remember my brother in law installed all the CAB files and whatnot to a directory).  I try the windows set up and it goes into windows install.  Don't know if I had to do that or not plus I had to go back to work, so I cancel.

Afterwards, the computer wouldn't post for a good 20 minutes, had to reset bios twice.  Windows is still giving me those above errors...

What to do?!  What to do?!

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]How old is your hard drive? The symptoms sound as if it's giving up the ghost.[/color]

[J3Vr6]

Um, pre-2000... don't know how much older than that.

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]That could be it then. I've had drives running for longer than that, but then again I consider myself to have been lucky.
The other options I can think of are really, really nasty things. Such as virii, or motherboard failures.[/color]

[Stryke 9]

You got a crap hard disk. Get a new hard disk, preferably of a more respectable brand. You'll probably be able to recover most of the data from the old one when you've got a working one as primary to boot from.

[Ashrak]

oldprobly exploded.....but i recommend you drag your HDD to another PC stick it in and see what it does

[J3Vr6]

It's a Maxtor...  I thought Maxtor was a good brand.

So I shouldn't even bother running Windows set up on it?  Or upgrade to XP on it?  Will the torture ever end?

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]If your HD is dying, no amount of re-installing will 'fix' it. Hard drives are cheap, you should have little problem finding a new 80GB one for £40, whatever the equivalent currency is now.

Of course, you can always try running Windows setup. It ought not to hurt anything. Ashrak's idea is also good, be sure to take care with the master/slave jumpers if you choose to go down that path.[/color]

[J3Vr6]

Well I searched windows to find out what they had to say about it.  Surprisingly enough, they had both of them on there for the IOS one:

It could be an unsafe device driver is detected, or a protected mode driver is missing or damaged in the Iosubsys file, or a virus.  It could also occur if you have installed new software or hardware, or removing outdated software or hardware.

Since this computer isn't hooked up to the computer, I don't think it's a virus (plus I haven't installed anything new except for I-War2).  Anyway, it has some fun things on there to figure out and do.

The VxD one said that it can occur if the System.ini file is blank.  Huh?  No idea what this means.

[Fury]

Actually if the HDD is showing symptoms of dying, you better use it as little as possible. Otherwise it may get worse and you may not be able to recover any data to a new HDD later on.

Although it worries me if the system wouldn't even boot, if it would be just a HDD malfunction, the system should still POST.

If the motherboard does not sound the standard single beeb when it POSTS, but something else. Get the mobo's manual and see what the beeb code means.

If no sound comes, it might be a bad power supply (also possibly damaged other components if you have bad luck) or then it's the mobo.

[J3Vr6]

poop.  I don't like my computer anymore.

Well, I got it to post finally cuz apparently something got set wrong in Cmos for some reason.  And I think I know what that was.  I tried to overclock using the software the mobo came with and it crashed.  Didn't bother clearing the cmos on that one til lunch today.

[Liberator]

Are you using 1 memory stick or two?

Put another one of the same speed in if you're not.

[J3Vr6]

Using two sticks of the same memory.

[Liberator]

Very strange.  One, or both, of them may be bad.

It runs fine until Windows GUI starts to load right?

[J3Vr6]

Sometime it posts, sometimes it doesn't.  Usually it will post right away and get into windows (if I don't get that VxD or IOS error) but then in windows it will crash and restart on it's own.  When that happens, it sometimes doesn't POST.  Then I have to wait forever and then it will POST again.

Fustration owns me right now.  I'm starting to wonder if it *is* my harddrive, since every time it seems to crash is when it's reading the C: drive.

[Thorn]

Maxtor=Fail
I got a 13 gig for christmas in '00. About a year later it died. I had it RMAd. Got a 20 gig in return (they stopped making the 13s). A year later it died. Had it RMAd they gave me a 30 gig Quantum. Still using it without any problems.

[J3Vr6]

If it's the harddrive shouldn't it POST all the time anyway?


EDIT:

Also, one of the times that I was able to get into my computer I decided to just go to COMMAND PROMPT ONLY.  Everything was fine for a while, looking in this directory and that, when I tried to read one of the directories in C:.   The computer froze and there was a ton of letters all over the screen.  Had to restart.  When I did, I couldn't POST again.

Does this sound like the harddrive?

[Liberator]

Turn on S.M.A.R.T. support if the driver supports it and see what that does.

In answer to your question, yes it does, save what data you can and start looking for a new one.  Don't pay more than $1.00 per GB, less if you can find it.

Gigaparts Cnetpc.com

Seagate has the best reputation, I've always thought that Maxtor was better than Western Digital.  Also look at IBM or maybe Kingston.

[J3Vr6]

I found an 120 gig western digital for like 80 bux...

What peeves me is that a few months ago I saw an 120 gigger at Office Max going for 50 dollars rebates...

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]I've never had a Western Digital fail me yet, so I'd deem that a good choice [/color]