Got a problem! - Horse Racing Forum - PaceAdvantage.Com

gillenr · 08-02-2013, 09:56 PM

Just happened 2 days ago - ran HITMAN, Avast, Malwarebytes & Spybot & no help.
Win7 home SP1.
PC won't start unless I go thru 2 startup repair sequences. Works fine if I leave it on.
Two things worry me - the sound at bootup sounds wrong & when I first tried to update Spybot it gave me a screen I never saw before. Later it updated OK.
I've set up to checkdisk next restart, but don't want to shut down yet.
I have a full set of backup disks & wonder if I can use them to restore my original system without losing other stuff? Sys restore only takes me back one day.
Anything else I should look at?

njcurveball · 08-02-2013, 11:46 PM

If the PC is over a year old, I would suggest you back everything up as quick as you can.

The symptoms you describe hint the hard drive is failing.

gillenr · 08-03-2013, 12:04 AM

Done

JustRalph · 08-03-2013, 12:06 AM

Describe the sound......

If you are having to repair on startup, sounds like the drive is corrupting data as it writes to disk.

NJ is probably right

gillenr · 08-03-2013, 12:40 AM

It seems to be of slightly longer duration.

Longshot6977 · 08-03-2013, 12:46 AM

Yes, sounds like the HDD, however, to be sure, disconnect all drives that do not have the OS on it (not partioned, but a physical drive ) and any optical CD/DVD drives. If still noisy, replace HDD.

Also, please describe the noise. A PSU or case fan or CPU fan can get dusty and cause noise. Clean them all to be sure. A clicking noise is probably an HDD going bad real fast, otherwise, there's a small possibility a defective PSU is starting to go bad. I had a PC recently that behaved poorly like yours at startup, then ran fine for many hours, but a new PSU fixed everything. Let us know what you find.

gillenr · 08-03-2013, 12:56 AM

It sounds normal tone but longer- not a fan.

tupper · 08-03-2013, 01:37 AM

First of all, did you check to make sure that there is no disk in your optical drive that might bork your boot?

Secondly, before you unplug or plug any internal drives (or any cable on the motherboard), make sure that the computer is completely shut down and that the computer is unplugged from the wall. This precaution is not to protect you -- it is to protect you from bricking your motherboard.

By the way, you only need to disconnect the power plug to disable a drive. Don't bother with the zillion-pin signal cable.

Thirdly, get/burn a live CD and keep it handy. Parted Magic is a great live CD. It's small, it's easy to use, it's got a lot of tools and it only asks one question at boot. Such a live CD can do wonders when assessing computer problems (regardless of whether or not you run Windows, Mac or Linux/BSD.

For instance, someone in this thread suggested that you unplug all hard drives except your boot drive to see if you still hear the noise. Well, with a live CD, you can unplug all of your hard drives and still run your computer! In that scenario, if you hear the noise, it is either your optical drive or one of your fans (or you need to feed the gerbal on the treadmill inside your machine!).

In addition, Parted Magic has some antivirus and disk health tools, which would be less destructive than trying to run recovery off of one of your hard drives, if it is it truly is in trouble.

HUSKER55 · 08-03-2013, 08:41 AM

I am not a guru by any standards, ...even my own.

Try your restore point and save all of your data.

I had a hard drive go out a while back and it made a crackling type noise. Tiger Direct sells them reasonable and they are easy to replace. Mary's son did it for us, 20 minutes.

good luck!

Longshot6977 · 08-03-2013, 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gillenr

It sounds normal tone but longer- not a fan.

Not sure I understand this. You mean like a long beep tone(s) from the internal speaker? The more info you provide us, the better we can assist.

gillenr · 08-03-2013, 10:56 AM

Yes, a slightly longer beep.

Dave Schwartz · 08-03-2013, 11:44 AM

http://www.technick.net/public/code/...ide_beep_codes

Not sure if this will help.

tupper · 08-03-2013, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gillenr

Yes, a slightly longer beep.

Describing the sound as a beep is very helpful. Can you give any other details, such as what errors you are seeing?

I am guessing that Dave Schwartz's link to beep codes could be helpful, but it doesn't explain why you would suddenly notice a difference in the beep. Have you recently changed any settings in your BIOS/boot-manager? Also, if you have a newer motherboard, it might be using UEFI firmware and not BIOS firmware, which might make the linked beep codes inaccurate.

It sounds like the the problem/phenomenon involves some sort of interaction between your motherboard's firmware and the hard drives (probably the boot drive). Any such interaction is probably a result of your motherboard using UEFI firmware (instead of traditional BIOS firmware) and UEFI doesn't like something on the boot drive (something which might have changed from it's original condition).

If your motherboard is UEFI, it might be good to try to set the firmware to "BIOS/legacy" mode and see what happens. Of course, if you have some low level infection on your boot drive, this action will not eliminate that problem.

JustRalph · 08-03-2013, 06:20 PM

That beep tone is warning that something is dying

Depends on your mother board what it means.

Look up your model online and it will tell you

Example discussion

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/31...ard-beep-codes

fast4522 · 08-03-2013, 07:22 PM

I have seen some flaky doings when one memory stick is deciding to crap out, in laptops best keep the compressed air handy to blow out the dust out of the heat sink area. Heat and dust are the enemy.