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System stops before OS boot??

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Edward78

Member
Joined
Apr 20, 2005
This has happened 3 times, not sure exactly when the other 2 before today happened. It has been weeks apart, not months. Anyway, this happens on the screen with all the IRQ info, just before the OS boots. I have not changed a thing & when it happens I reboot it everything is fine. It doesn't reboot, it just stops, screen is still there.
 
Could be the HDD or HDD cable/ribbon. I would start swapping cables first.

Why would it be fine most times then? I haven't really been moving it around, it just happens out of nowhere at rare times. Is there a app that can tell me the prob?? My sys is dual boot, could it be the boot loader?
 
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Cables & hardware can just malfunction or fail at any time, it's electrical. One minute everything is perfect, then out of the blue..poof with no reason whatsoever.

No, there is no program that can detect that sort of problem, and if there is I have no knowledge of it. Maybe someone else might know of one.

If it was the bootloader, you would have an error come up on the screen. The fact that upon boot-up it hangs, is a hardware issue.

Just as a test, try using a different harddrive or swap the sata cables/IDE ribbon to that boot drive.

*Edit*

Problem can also be in the ram. Test each stick with memtest.
 
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Sometimes the bios will figure it out if the cable is dead enough, the drive will fail to detect.
With PATA drives though the cable can have issues with just a couple data pins, it'll detect but won't actually run.

Why cables fail or fall out on their own i have no idea (thermal expansion/contraction maybe or gremlins, or aliens), but it does happen.
 
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