Re: Weird problem on a laptop - BSODs, ...

Ok, let's do this again then... I submitted to a couple of forums because I don't know if my problem is related to hardware, software, OS, etc. I also included a long description because I didn't want people to tell me "did you try a memtest?" or "did you google your BSOD error codes?".

In brief: My laptop (Acer 1690 on XP) was freezing before the logon screen. I tried to fix it in multiple ways and resorted to changing the hard drive and reinstalling everything with recovery cds. The problem persists with the new hard drive and I keep getting BSODs. I think the RAM is ok. Don't know if this is related, by a hard drive that contains a copy of my old hard drive failed also. Found no virus on any hard drive.

Hope this is short enough now.

GL

You did not cross post; you multi-posted, which is very poor netiquette.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossposting

"weird" is also the wrong word. You're off to a bad start it seems.

I'm not going to read such a missive as this one is. Learn to cross-post and to bullet details in order to get more responses.

GL wrote:
Here is a problem I find very intriguing and extremely frustrating on
an Acer Aspire 1692 laptop running XP. I apologize if the description
is long, but believe me, its just a summary. Sorry for cross-posting.

I began receiving BSOD errors a few weeks ago on my laptop (0x000000F4
(...)). Because it only happened a couple of times and because my
computer was still able to reboot perform a chkdsk and start Windows
properly, I didn't pay a lot of attention to them. Later, I boot my
computer and it simply couldn't make it passed the Windows splash
screen. It would freeze right before the logon screen. Also, it
wouldn't make it into safe mode. I did all the troubleshooting I
could think of, from a chkdsk to all the disk checking tools you can
find on UBCD4Win, to memtest, viruses, adware, searching google with
the BSOD error codes, etc. I tried a system restore from the f8
screen and a complete repair of my Windows installation without
success. It simply wouldn't go passed the XP splash screen. Once in a
while, it would boot and the bios wouldn't find the hard drive at all
(OS not found). So I suspected my hard drive was bad even though the
diagnostic tests were telling me otherwise, or some system files were
corrupt.
So, I got tired of trying and bought a new hard drive and used the
Acer recovery cds to get a completely new installation on a fresh
drive. Here is were it gets interesting... after a few days of the
new system functioning properly, I got some BSOD again (0x000000F4
(...)), and once in a while the bios wouldn't see the hard drive at
all. Sometimes, Windows would tell me that the delayed writing to the
disk had failed (e.g. "delayed writing has failed writing c:/$mft)
before I got a BSOD. Other times, the system woudl work perfectly for
several hours. So I flashed a new bios, fixed the Acer lunchapp.ocx
bug, tried scanning for viruses with the latest updates, uninstalled
Norton, did some more chkdsk (with /f /r), some more memtest... with
no success. So if everything stayed like that, I would have to
conclude that some intermittent hardware problem, for example cables,
is the source of all this grief.

Here is where it gets esoteric. Before I installed the new hard
drive, I put my old hard drive in an external enclosure and copied
all the files on it to a spare and empty hard drive on a desktop. By
the way, my old hard drive was working fine in an enclosure. I did
not open or execute any file on the desktop. A few days later on that
desktop (while it was idle), I see an error message "delayed writing
has failed writing f:/$mft ..." f: is the drive on which I copied my
old hard drive! I reboot the desktop and the BIOS couldn't find the
drive! Exactly the same symptoms as on my laptop...!????

Either this last part is an amazing coincidence, or there is a
software/hardware interaction I do not understand, or Sigmund Freud is
making fun of me...

Please help me before I start believing in aliens!

Guillaume



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