Blue Screen After Reboot

[Midknyte]

- Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJB (bought May 2009)

The drive was just bought, so a recovery cd/dvd must have been used at some point.

[SirKenin]

Perfect. That means that they're

a) not using a "recovery tools" CD
b) not using a recovery partition
c) not using a standard "recovery set" that Broni is talking about
c) using a recovery disk set that has the XP CD that I was talking about to gain access to the recovery console

It should also be noted that Caviar SE and SE16 drives are quite famous for trashed partitions and MFTs. The reason is almost always heat and/or a high volume of read/write transactions.

[greasydame]

Oh holy crap, I leave for 2 days and all these post show up. I didn't even get an email letting me know that there were new posts. So I put off working on this issue because I am tired of it and we're having a heat wave. I have no AC so my room is boiling. I tried to read every post that was left but most of it was too technical for me to undersatand...sorry.
This is how I do the factory restore:
1. Use Compaq Restore Plus! CD
2. Next it asks for the Compaq Operating System CD ( Microsoft Windows XP Home)
3. It asks for Restore Supplemental Software CDs. I have 2 of those. That's it.

About my HD, it is 160 GB. I bought it on newegg.

I just got done chatting with a HP tech online for 2 hours. I need a short break from this and then I will come back and tell you what he told me.

EDIT: I forgot to add that the CDs came with my computer when I bought it in 2002.

[greasydame]

The last thing I was going to try was to install this update which requires a floppy disk. I was having trouble with putting it on to the floppy with my sister's computer so I had an HP person help me with their Live Chat. They asked why I needed the update and I explained my whole situation--a condensed version anyway. Then they said that we could fix the problem...not the floppy problem but the bigger issue. So 2 hours later, I am told that my motherboard has gone bad. I believe they said this because I can't access the BIOS screen but I told them that I've never been able to. F1 doesn't open it. F10 opens the Compaq Computer Corporation Setup Utility but the screen is blank/blue. It has always been this way though.
So I told them that I can't get the motherboard fixed b/c I don't have the funds for that right now. I then asked about the whole floppy issue. They told me not to do the update on my computer because it will cause even more issues. Does this sound right? Is my motherboard bad?

I'd like to thank everyone again for taking the time to post about this problem.

[Train]

Compaq - F10
Compaq Presario - Press <Alt> <Ctrl> <Esc> at boot when you see the "Compaq" log in big letters

F10 worked for me when the curser jumper from the top left to top right.

[greasydame]

Compaq Presario - Press <Alt> <Ctrl> <Esc> at boot when you see the "Compaq" log in big letters

Hi, when i try this, I see the same screen from when i try F1 or F8. It is black and at the top left there is a blinky rectangle. Then on the bottom left it says v03.04. Bottom right says: Compaq Presario 6024US <F10=Setup> <F12= Network Service Boot>. Then after a few seconds, 2 lines of words show up and then disappear. The next screen I see is the 5 boot option screen.

[distortedfenian]

I had the Unmountable Boot Volume error on my old hd. tried and tried to repair it. my problem was data corruption in one single file ... hd refuses to do anything now

[greasydame]

That error supports what I told you in the other thread. An "unmountable_boot_volume" is a corrupt hard drive. Get an XP Pro disk, boot into the recovery console (it won't give you a Windows install to log into because it won't be able to find it, thus the error) and run chkdsk c: /r

Where do I get an XP Pro disk from? I only have an XP Home CD.

[greasydame]

I had the Unmountable Boot Volume error on my old hd. tried and tried to repair it. my problem was data corruption in one single file ... hd refuses to do anything now

That figgen sucks.

[SirKenin]

Where do I get an XP Pro disk from? I only have an XP Home CD.

Your version of the XP Home disk should have it. Mine don't, so I use my XP Pro disks.

[greasydame]

SirKenin, I want to tell you exactly what i did just so i can be sure that i'm doing it right.
1. Put OS CD in and Reboot Pressed any key
2. clicked on R
3. typed chkdsk c: /r
4. got a message saying :the volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems
5. repeated step 3 four more times with same message

Do I keep typing the same thing over and over? Am I doing this right? Thanks

[distortedfenian]

that's exactly what was happening to mine. but my hd was four years old

[SirKenin]

You are absolutely doing it right, but I think the drive is beyond repair, especially if it stops at the same point every time. In this case, rather than pressing R for the Recovery Console you'll need to install a new copy of XP, deleting the old partition, creating a new one, etc.

If it were me, I'd be throwing that Caviar in the lake where it belongs and buying a different breed of drive. Otherwise chances are good this will keep happening.

[greasydame]

Erg, this is so upsetting I bought this drive just this May. I don't understand how it could be damaged even after running 2 tests resulting in positive results. Is it my fault that it got messed up in the first place? What should I do differently next time?

[SirKenin]

No, it's an inherent design flaw in the drive.

Let me tell you a little something about the Caviar SE lineup that most people either won't bother to tell you or don't want you to know.

Western Digital knows about the flaw. They pretty much always have. They have a policy that anything below a 40&#37; failure rate is counted as "acceptable loss". At that rate they're still making profits, and it's a lot more profitable to turn a blind eye as opposed to redesigning the drive and retrofitting the fabs accordingly.

The drive is a piece of crap. Sorry, that's the truth. I refused to sell them. I ditched my Western Digital partnership because of their crap policies and absolute garbage consumer drives. I sold a brand new Caviar that failed within days. That finished me off. I was sick of sending the pieces of crap back at my expense.

The only decent WD drives are the RE3's and Velociraptors. The Caviar Blue is a Caviar SE16 with a prettier sticker pretty much. I'll sell the IDE version of them, as that's pretty much all that's available for large IDE drives these days.

The Caviar SE hates heat and high volumes of read/write transactions. The chances of failure in these circumstances is ridiculous. Then you get these idiots that put them in a RAID 0, cutting the mean time between failure (MTBF) in half. They're just asking for trouble, and then whine in the forums when they get it.

In short, I doubt very much you did anything to your drive. About the best you can do is vent on WD for making a piece of junk. Fat lot of good it will do, save for making you feel better.

The funniest thing of all was Dell cramming them in a cage up in front of the chassis. I can't tell you the number of borked WD drives I've seen as a result of such a stupid design fubar.

You're probably asking yourself right now why vendors sell them. They sell them because of the name, but more importantly because they're a few dollars cheaper than a decent drive. They're also the only IDE drives widely available in large sizes (250 GB and above).

In their defense, however, they make for a fabulous skeet shoot.