Win7, New(ish) HD: BSOD, NTLDR missing WTF!?!
December 21, 2009 7:59 PM Subscribe
Have Win 7 and new hard drive installed ~1 month ago on 3 year old computer. Today, Blue Screen of Death, then NTLDR missing, got it into SafeMode... now what?
Problem: My computer, with a main hard drive and Win 7 installed ~1 month ago, just had a Blue Screen of Death saying basically "BIOS problem, if this is the first time it happened please restart". I restarted. Got "NTLDR missing" twice with restarts. Turned rig totally off, waited 20 seconds, turned it back on, was able to get it into safe mode. Poked around a few minutes and decided I have no idea what I am doing. Turned it off, it hung trying to shut down for 20 minutes. Powered it off
Now I am here...(on another computer)
I'm reasonably computer savvy but I've never had any issues with computers for 3 years (see backstory). The win7 setup was done by Geek Squad (I'm lazy and more importantly I have no time). Interestingly, the rig itself is 3 years old but the reason for the new hard drive (and tangentially the upgrade to Win 7) is because the previous hard drive, when this was an XP machine, died spectacularly.
So wtf. Is this a hardware issue? is my PSU screwing up my Hard Drives? Did Geek Squad not setup Win 7 properly? Is this just bad luck?
Basically What should I do?
Back-story (excruciating detail feel free to skip):
I got a top of the line, self designed computer 3 years ago. I designed it correctly, had it built by some pros at a computer shop nearby, and never did anything stupid to it. It never had the slightest problem in 3 years. Never saw BSOD (on XP) or had to reformat, never even had a virus or spy ware problem or anything.
~4 months ago i got suspicious of PSU unit making noise. Had it looked at by Best Buy and researched online. Basically everyone says if it goes it goes, but it wont take anything with it and just replace it then. Fair enough (plus best buy tech said the PSU was upside down reducing airflow causing noise... fair enough flipped the PSU, seemed fine... then all this happened... post hoc ergo propter hoc (i know... that is a fallacy)?
~1 months ago, my Main Hard Drive, a Raptor Drive that is supposed to be overkill for personal use, died. Just Died. Took to Best Buy because I needed something quick and again, I have no time. They said the following:
- Main hard drive (raptor) was toast (good-bye tons of personal data),
- Secondary internal hard drive looked fine, but we backed it up to be safe.
- PSU was fine
- The reason of the failure was that I always left the computer on but never in sleep mode for 3 years (ok, I'm an idiot...I thought if you leave it on all the time it is good for it... oh you have to put it in sleeeeeeep... ohhhhhh)
As a result I:
- Got a new Hard Drive (the secondary hard drive was suspect since it was under the same stress as the main hard drive... also it is comparatively small given how huge and cheap Hard Drives are these days)
- Got Windows 7 (since i was getting a new Hard Drive and lost all my data anyway, made a good time to upgrade with a clean install)
- Had Geek Squad install it and tweak it etc (again, lazy and no time)
Today - Problem described above. I will note that I did notice that the new hard drive was seeming to spin up and then stop suddenly at various times, but I noticed no computer problems and chaulked it up to just a "different sound" than I was used to. Also, it seems that Win 7 has a problem keeping the computer in sleep for more than about 7 minutes. I have been meaning to mess around with that but, again, no time.
So here I am no... I am making time, I have all Christmas Break. What can I do to fix this right? Thanks in advance for any advise.
Problem: My computer, with a main hard drive and Win 7 installed ~1 month ago, just had a Blue Screen of Death saying basically "BIOS problem, if this is the first time it happened please restart". I restarted. Got "NTLDR missing" twice with restarts. Turned rig totally off, waited 20 seconds, turned it back on, was able to get it into safe mode. Poked around a few minutes and decided I have no idea what I am doing. Turned it off, it hung trying to shut down for 20 minutes. Powered it off
Now I am here...(on another computer)
I'm reasonably computer savvy but I've never had any issues with computers for 3 years (see backstory). The win7 setup was done by Geek Squad (I'm lazy and more importantly I have no time). Interestingly, the rig itself is 3 years old but the reason for the new hard drive (and tangentially the upgrade to Win 7) is because the previous hard drive, when this was an XP machine, died spectacularly.
So wtf. Is this a hardware issue? is my PSU screwing up my Hard Drives? Did Geek Squad not setup Win 7 properly? Is this just bad luck?
Basically What should I do?
Back-story (excruciating detail feel free to skip):
I got a top of the line, self designed computer 3 years ago. I designed it correctly, had it built by some pros at a computer shop nearby, and never did anything stupid to it. It never had the slightest problem in 3 years. Never saw BSOD (on XP) or had to reformat, never even had a virus or spy ware problem or anything.
~4 months ago i got suspicious of PSU unit making noise. Had it looked at by Best Buy and researched online. Basically everyone says if it goes it goes, but it wont take anything with it and just replace it then. Fair enough (plus best buy tech said the PSU was upside down reducing airflow causing noise... fair enough flipped the PSU, seemed fine... then all this happened... post hoc ergo propter hoc (i know... that is a fallacy)?
~1 months ago, my Main Hard Drive, a Raptor Drive that is supposed to be overkill for personal use, died. Just Died. Took to Best Buy because I needed something quick and again, I have no time. They said the following:
- Main hard drive (raptor) was toast (good-bye tons of personal data),
- Secondary internal hard drive looked fine, but we backed it up to be safe.
- PSU was fine
- The reason of the failure was that I always left the computer on but never in sleep mode for 3 years (ok, I'm an idiot...I thought if you leave it on all the time it is good for it... oh you have to put it in sleeeeeeep... ohhhhhh)
As a result I:
- Got a new Hard Drive (the secondary hard drive was suspect since it was under the same stress as the main hard drive... also it is comparatively small given how huge and cheap Hard Drives are these days)
- Got Windows 7 (since i was getting a new Hard Drive and lost all my data anyway, made a good time to upgrade with a clean install)
- Had Geek Squad install it and tweak it etc (again, lazy and no time)
Today - Problem described above. I will note that I did notice that the new hard drive was seeming to spin up and then stop suddenly at various times, but I noticed no computer problems and chaulked it up to just a "different sound" than I was used to. Also, it seems that Win 7 has a problem keeping the computer in sleep for more than about 7 minutes. I have been meaning to mess around with that but, again, no time.
So here I am no... I am making time, I have all Christmas Break. What can I do to fix this right? Thanks in advance for any advise.
Have you tried putting the windows 7 install disc in, booting from it and attempt startup repair.
posted by ijoyner at 10:20 PM on December 21, 2009
posted by ijoyner at 10:20 PM on December 21, 2009
Could you open the case up and see what brand and wattage the power supply is and post that here?
posted by ijoyner at 10:22 PM on December 21, 2009
posted by ijoyner at 10:22 PM on December 21, 2009
Response by poster: Cooler Master RP-600-PCAR eXtreme Power 600W ATX12V SLI Power Supply
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:42 PM on December 21, 2009
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:42 PM on December 21, 2009
Response by poster: So, just general Clarification. I was able to log in in Safe Mode, I didn't poke around too much since I am under the impression my hard drive will die at any moment (maybe maybe not? anyone?) so I don't want to press my luck until tomorrow after I have backed up a few things.
But if I got in via safe mode, than the Hard Drive is not totally dead, just maybe corrupted or something, right??? What do I do from there to diagnose? Should I just take it to Geek Squad and demand they fix whatever they did to it? (did they even do anything?)
I have many more questions than I have answers, it is frustrating.
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:45 PM on December 21, 2009
But if I got in via safe mode, than the Hard Drive is not totally dead, just maybe corrupted or something, right??? What do I do from there to diagnose? Should I just take it to Geek Squad and demand they fix whatever they did to it? (did they even do anything?)
I have many more questions than I have answers, it is frustrating.
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:45 PM on December 21, 2009
OK, I'm not really up on windows 7 but try booting from your CD and running repair. I had something like this (don't remember exactly what my error message was) but got things back to normal in short order with Fdisk.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 4:41 AM on December 22, 2009
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 4:41 AM on December 22, 2009
Could be a driver problem. Since it was done by geek squad they dont care if it installs right as long as it installs.
Make sure all drivers are up to date. Worse comes to worse get all your data off of the pc and reinstall windows 7 yourself. I dont want to hear i dont know how. Thats how you learn :)
posted by majortom1981 at 5:12 AM on December 22, 2009
Make sure all drivers are up to date. Worse comes to worse get all your data off of the pc and reinstall windows 7 yourself. I dont want to hear i dont know how. Thats how you learn :)
posted by majortom1981 at 5:12 AM on December 22, 2009
If your NTloader was missing then you wouldnt be able to boot into safe mode. If this comes up randomly then its probably a drive issue.
>What do I do from there to diagnose?
You can run a disk check. Right-click on the disk and select properties, Tools, Error Checking. This is how to do it on XP. Im not on a 7 machine right now.
Reboot. It will now check the disk for errors. It will report the errors in the event log in the application log under the heading WinLogon. If you have any bad sectors/clusters its probably dying.
If this is your second or third bad disk then I would be worried about the drive getting too hot. Perhaps the case doesnt have enough fans.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:38 AM on December 22, 2009
>What do I do from there to diagnose?
You can run a disk check. Right-click on the disk and select properties, Tools, Error Checking. This is how to do it on XP. Im not on a 7 machine right now.
Reboot. It will now check the disk for errors. It will report the errors in the event log in the application log under the heading WinLogon. If you have any bad sectors/clusters its probably dying.
If this is your second or third bad disk then I would be worried about the drive getting too hot. Perhaps the case doesnt have enough fans.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:38 AM on December 22, 2009
I was getting random crashes with my Windows 7 install (Biostar motherboard) for a week or so (and going nuts trying to figure out what it was) until I updated my motherboard BIOS to the latest available (it was a 2007 release until I upgraded it to a 3/2009 release)
posted by Calloused_Foot at 8:31 AM on December 22, 2009
posted by Calloused_Foot at 8:31 AM on December 22, 2009
Response by poster: Thanks for the advice so far all. I am at work but will be working on this when I get home.
damn dirty ape: I would be very surprised if it was an airflow issue, this is an Anantec 900 case, it has 2 fans in front, 1 in back, and a Giant one that pushes air in from the top. I am not overclocking it or doing anything funky.
However, have always had two internal Hard Drives (it has space for 4 IIRC) but is it possible they are crowding each other?? I don't recall ever having temperature issues.
My Motherboard is a Asus P5B-E, if that matters. I thought I had updated the drivers but I will check again.
posted by DetonatedManiac at 2:33 PM on December 22, 2009
damn dirty ape: I would be very surprised if it was an airflow issue, this is an Anantec 900 case, it has 2 fans in front, 1 in back, and a Giant one that pushes air in from the top. I am not overclocking it or doing anything funky.
However, have always had two internal Hard Drives (it has space for 4 IIRC) but is it possible they are crowding each other?? I don't recall ever having temperature issues.
My Motherboard is a Asus P5B-E, if that matters. I thought I had updated the drivers but I will check again.
posted by DetonatedManiac at 2:33 PM on December 22, 2009
Response by poster: Ok, so the computer is running now, HD error checking shows no bad sectors. Yay.
Trying to update my ASUS P5B-E drivers and bios.... it is not as easy as I thought. I am assuming I don't need to "flash" the bios, but it is not clear what drivers/updates I do need.
Still looking...
posted by DetonatedManiac at 6:47 PM on December 22, 2009
Trying to update my ASUS P5B-E drivers and bios.... it is not as easy as I thought. I am assuming I don't need to "flash" the bios, but it is not clear what drivers/updates I do need.
Still looking...
posted by DetonatedManiac at 6:47 PM on December 22, 2009
Flashing is how you update the BIOS. Its not an OS driver.
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:08 PM on December 22, 2009
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:08 PM on December 22, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
1. Leaving your computer on all the time is not a problem. I have always left my systems on 24x7.
2. Sounds like your new drive might have a problem; this is not so uncommon, a lot of the large drives these days have problems. You can probably get the drive replaced under warranty. After that you'll need to reinstall win 7.
3. count on hard drives to fail, always back up to one or two spare external drives.
posted by jockc at 8:25 PM on December 21, 2009