# Boot Problems & Hard Drive Error



## BratDawg (Sep 23, 2004)

Someone brought me a computer that apparently had a dead power supply. I tested it with a tester, it was doing nothing. I tested the tester on another power supply just to make sure that it was lighting up as it should. I put another power supply in it and everything booted. It is running windows xp and is a fairly new dell.

She got it home and it wasn't booting again, although it was getting power this time. She brought it back.

I am getting a message that the Primary IDE master hard drive self monitoring system has reported that a parameter has exceeded it's normal operating range.

I entered the setup to make sure there was 1 master drive and 1 secondary master - that's how her machine is set up. All connections look right. I even replaced the cpu battery and hard drive ide cable just to see if that would help. I also made sure the machine was booting in the right order from the bios.

After the windows logo screen, a blue screen with an error message pops up but pops too fast for me to pause it or get the error, and the computer reboots. Think I caught "checksum" in there.

Suggestions? Thanks.


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## Lurker1 (Jan 30, 2001)

If the Dell SMART system says the hard drive is bad it probably is. You can go to the Hard drive manufacturers web site and downlod their diagnostics for the drive to test it out. (If its a maxtor drive just save time and throw it out.  )

What model is the Dell? If its a GX270 or GX280 check for bad caps on the system board as well.


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## BratDawg (Sep 23, 2004)

It is a Dell Dimension 3000 with a Western Digital WD400 hard drive. There is GMCH E210882 stamped on the motherboard above the dell part sticker.

If I try booting to safe mode with command prompt, I get the same blue screen & flashy message; also if I try safe mode or enable boot log. Can't get to a command prompt to look at the boot log.

I just tried yet another power supply that I am fairly confident is new and not possibly problematic - just for the heck of it.


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## Lurker1 (Jan 30, 2001)

Well I haven't heard of any bad cap problems with that Dell motherboard and WDs are usually pretty good, but I would still load Western digitals diagnostics and run them on your hard drive.


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## BratDawg (Sep 23, 2004)

Couldn't do that because I couldn't even get to a dos prompt. It flashed and rebooted right after the windows logo screen thought awhile. 

After off and on fussing all day and a couple of hours with their live person chat from india (who actually, while slow, seemed to understand me and I her....), I FINALLY noticed the option in the advanced windows boot menu (f8 at the dell logo screen) that disables automatic restart on boot failure. So, I at least got to see the error message - bad disk image, checksum bla bla.

The upshot is I need to try to do pc restore and reinstall windows. Why didn't I think of that? The idea the os was corrupt never even popped into my head... I was too busy trying to fight with the error and change power supplies, plug the drive into another computer.... basically spin around like a hamster on a wheel.

I've hooked the drive up to my laptop with a usb ide cable and I'm backing up her data and I'm going to try the acronis disk imaging program - free trial for 15 days - to see if I can image it. They said I could with it connected like that.

I just hate when I overlook the obvious like this.


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## Lurker1 (Jan 30, 2001)

You can download the Hard drive disk diags to a bootable floppy. I would not even bother trying to reload the operating system until I was sure that the hard drive was OK.


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## airforceone (Nov 22, 2003)

I had a similar problem. My son's computer suddenly would not boot up. When it was turned on, the following error message was on the screen, "NOTE: The primary IDE master hard drive SELF MONITORING SYSTEM has reported that a parameter has exceeded its normal operating range. Dell recommends that you back up..... regularly. A parameter out of range may or may not indicate a potential hard drive problem. Strike the F1 key to continue. F2 to run the setup utilitiy." I pushed F1 and the following msg began scrolling (slowly) up my screen, one line at a time, "File record request nnnn is undreadable" nnnn=numbers, i.e. 0001, 0002, 0003 etc. I let the computer run for about an hour until it stopped and the pc froze with this error message, "File verification is complete." The pc is a Dell Dimension 3000. The hard drive is a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9. I took the Maxtor out and replaced it with another hard drive i had laying around but is still good. When I rebooted the pc, it would not recognize the new hard drive. It would keep returning to the screen that gives you the option to reboot to to safe mode, last known good configuration, or normal mode." Can anyone recommend a good way to replace the Maxtor hard drive with another hard drive and get it to work? The Dell 3000 had Windows XP Media Edition on it. The one I tried to replace it with had Windows XP Home Edition on it. Not sure if this would cause conflict.

Thanks for any suggestions.

AF1



BratDawg said:


> Someone brought me a computer that apparently had a dead power supply. I tested it with a tester, it was doing nothing. I tested the tester on another power supply just to make sure that it was lighting up as it should. I put another power supply in it and everything booted. It is running windows xp and is a fairly new dell.
> 
> She got it home and it wasn't booting again, although it was getting power this time. She brought it back.
> 
> ...


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Most often, a drive that has been in another system that has an XP operating system on it, is not going to boot up. A repair install is going to be the best hope.


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## airforceone (Nov 22, 2003)

Thanks AcaCandy. Will check into how to perform a Repair Install.


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

You'll treat it like a new install when asked ---- and you should be told that the installation setup has determined that there in an existing operating system....at that point, you'll choose the repair option....NOT the first repair option.


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## airforceone (Nov 22, 2003)

but i can't get the screen to come up to the area where i can log on (with either hard drive). Also not sure if you meant the original hard drive or the one i replaced it with.


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

You'll need the Windows installation cd.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm


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## airforceone (Nov 22, 2003)

thanks. i know, that i should have KNOWN that. It's been soooooooo long since i've had to do that.


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## airforceone (Nov 22, 2003)

No luck. I was unable to get to the screen to allow for that option. Think i'll take the easy, more expensive way out and just buy a new NON Dell.


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Sounds like whatever Windows install cd you were attempting to use, may NOT be the one for that system?


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## jazz3000 (Apr 19, 2007)

I hope this helps some. I would just put the hard drive in and put my xp in and boot while tapping my space bar until the hard drive recognizes the xp- reformat the thing and install the new xp.Dell generally has a cd for drivers and you can add those after you install the xp. I dunno about repairing that circumstance. Make sure your bios is set to default setting and not optomized settings before you start. I dunno if it'll work for you but it always works for me.


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## airforceone (Nov 22, 2003)

thanks Jazz. will try that method.


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