Operating system issues

[Ronne]

So I finally decided to dual boot xp and see if it runs any better than Vista on my laptop. Made my drive partitions and such, installed a stripped version of xp I got from Waffles, and failure has ensued. After the XP install, I got "error loading operating system" and nothing else on boot, fine, okay, so that failed. I reformatted the partition xp was on and tried to boot from my original Vista partition, but that fails now also. It gives no error messages and the POST looks fine, but it just sits at a blinking cursor. After getting fed up with this, I dug out my recovery cd for Vista and formatted my hard drive and tried to do a clean Vista install, which seemingly works fine until the install restarts for the first time, then it just sits at the blinking cursor again.

Thoughts on this debacle? I'm downloading last xp on my secondary comp atm to try that, but it's too large for my flash drive and my only DVD burner is my laptop.

[mattsb84]

I would start by running any diagnostic utilities you have available to you to make sure all your hardware is good.

Past that, try removing all partitions, create just one, and reinstall your legit OS.

Shot in the dark, but do you happen to have a port replicator/docking station attached to the laptop?

[Ronne]

Originally Posted by mattsb84

I would start by running any diagnostic utilities you have available to you to make sure all your hardware is good.

Past that, try removing all partitions, create just one, and reinstall your legit OS.

Shot in the dark, but do you happen to have a port replicator/docking station attached to the laptop?

No nothing like that attached.

The hardware all worked fine yesterday before I started this, so I can't imagine anything exploded between now and then.

I'm at the point where I shrunk it all back down to one, formatted partition, but doing a 'clean' Vista install off my CD still fails somehow. It copies all the files and expands them all, then it goes to restart and it hands at the command prompt =\

[mattsb84]

Hmm.....

Do you have any kind of SATA config options in the BIOS? AHCI or Compatibility?

[Ronne]

LBA/Large Mode
Block (Multi-Sector Transfer)
PIO Mode
MDA Mode
S.M.A.R.T.
32Bit Data Transfer

Those are the only config options under my hard disk in the bios, all of which are set to auto by default except for 32bit transfer.

[mattsb84]

Originally Posted by Ronne

LBA/Large Mode
Block (Multi-Sector Transfer)
PIO Mode
MDA Mode
S.M.A.R.T.
32Bit Data Transfer

Those are the only config options under my hard disk in the bios, all of which are set to auto by default except for 32bit transfer.

Who's the laptop manufacturer and/or BIOS manufacturer?

Also, i would still run a hardware diagnostics on the laptop. Just to eliminate it as a possible cause being that this is somewhat of an odd issue.

[Ronne]

It's an Alienware m9750, not sure on the bios as it's currently doing things and I can't look.

I'm pestering their tech support currently, but they are just giving me the standard take ut the battery, put in the recovery CD bs that I've tried already. We're currently waiting 5 minutes at the 'boot from cd' screen to see if it will do anything, which i know it wont

[mattsb84]

Originally Posted by Ronne

It's an Alienware m9750, not sure on the bios as it's currently doing things and I can't look.

I'm pestering their tech support currently, but they are just giving me the standard take ut the battery, put in the recovery CD bs that I've tried already. We're currently waiting 5 minutes at the 'boot from cd' screen to see if it will do anything, which i know it wont

Really weird issue you have there. I've seen similar issues, but not exact;

Issues was with people with docking stations (with the cursor blinking at startup) and their docked hardware profile being corrupted. Being that you don't have a docking station...

Also have seen something somewhat similar when I've imaged a laptop that had the SATA drive set to AHCI and it would BS, then changing it to Compatibility it would boot without issue. You aren't getting a BSOD though.

And some weird issues with the MBR being fubar'ed. Which could be a possibility i suppose.

[Ronne]

Yea I don't know what to make of it. This is the first time I've actually called tech support because I'm not even getting an error message of any kind. The only error message I got was when I tried to boot from the xp partition, but it wasn't very informative, just "failed to load operating system".

Just eternally stalls out at the boot from cd/dvd selection prompt.

Ran disk and RAM check utilities and they all say everything is fine. My Vista support disc says if I have Vista installed and that it is booting normally, but it's clearly lying to me.

[Fog]

Things it could not be a problem with ("could" reads as "almost could" with computers, admittedly):

- The MBR, since you can wipe your drive and reinstall the OS and it's still broken.
- The hard disk or memory, if you've tested it correctly.
- Your install CDs, since you've tried more than one.

Things it could be a problem with:

- Any hardware you haven't tested, or bad settings on your current hardware.
- A bizarre Windows problem.

What I would do:

- Absolutely double-check any hard drive diagnostic tests you can find, because that's the first thing I would guess at for the symptoms. Make sure SMART is on in the BIOS to look for errors, although I don't know why it wouldn't be.
- Install a normal desktop Linux distro and use it for a little while. (Make sure you install LILO or GRUB over your MBR, while you're at it.) Any problems? How about Windows 98?
- Unplug your CD/DVD drive and reboot. Repeat with your network/wireless card, if you can. Try unplugging your hard drive and booting from CD. Try swapping out memory. Basically, replace and remove every piece of hardware you possibly can, and test.
- Break down into tears. Pray.

[Ronne]

Well, a friend is bringing over an official windows XP disc that I am going to try, as the XP I tried to install was a stripped down version that was only like 175mb and burned from an img file. Here's to hoping that works.

The hard disk passes every diagnostic my Vista utilities disc has on it, so that really shouldn't be it.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Ronne

The hard disk passes every diagnostic my Vista utilities disc has on it, so that really shouldn't be it.

Boy, I don't know what Vista's recovery disc does or doesn't do on that score. I expect it probably does a good job, but if you run out of other things to do, I'd consider downloading some independent diagnostic suites on a boot CD, like this one. That has stuff like SMARTUDM, which should be reassuring, and also manufacturer-specific hard drive diagnostic utilities. (It also has handy BIOS tools and other stuff.)

[Ronne]

Well I've got an official XPSP2 disc, so that is trying now, but it's gonna take like an hour to format to NTSC, so we'll see how it goes. If this fails I'll try some 3rd party diagnostics and see if any issues come up.

I'd almost prefer BSOD just so I could have some idea of wtf is wrong =\

[mattsb84]

Take a look at this...it somewhat describes the same issue you're seeing;

NTFS.com Fixing and repair MBR.Fix MBR.Recover boot record.Recovery.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by mattsb84

Take a look at this...it somewhat describes the same issue you're seeing;

NTFS.com Fixing and repair MBR.Fix MBR.Recover boot record.Recovery.

This is unlikely because unless you did something very strange your MBR has already been overwritten several times since you started experiencing failure -- each time you installed a new version of Windows.