Random BSODs and loss of IDE devices from My Computer

[The PIT]

What happens if you just connect one drive.

[Goc]

I think there's nothing wrong with IDE drivers and software. It's a hardware problem because during post mobo is unable to find any of IDE devices. It probably isn't one of the drives because only devices that are on that specific IDE channel would be affected so the devices on the other channel would post without a problem. I'd go for the mobo.

[The PIT]

Goc strange things happen. It could even be a short under the motherboard. First process is elimination. So just try one device and see how it goes.

[daemorok]

The PIT: I have been meaning to try it with just he primary HD attached but I havent gotten around to it yet. It is very difficult to do since, the crash sometimes wont occur for 9-10 days (no reboots). So its kinda annoying not to have a CDRW or a DVD rom for that long.... still i should try to do it eventually.

Goc: I really thought it was the mobo too, untill i replaced it.
I went from the a7n8x 1.06 standard to the a7n8x 2.0 standard, I wanted to 200 fsb, of course I havent even gotten around to playing with the CPU or OCn yet so it was kinda a waste.
Also I am pretty sure that if a driver or something causes the drive to stoop responding, a reboot wont restart it.

[VJ]

Is there anything in the log files ?
(event log)

Jörg

[Fred H]

A wild idea, not too unbelievable:
Some spam programs, especially when they write to the scheduler and you run broadband with permanent online can overload the machine. The overload can go to be very heavy, causing crashes, computer freezing etc.
Uncontrolled play with the registry can also lead to crashes.
Do the crashes come in DOS mode? (Start with a Win98 boot diskette)

Fred H

[Fred H]

Once again a reboot gets to the bios and will not detect IDE devices and a shutdown and power up fixes the problem

Hmmm... BIOS problem? System battery issue? (Is the system clock OK after several crashes, I mean does it hold the right time?)
Fred H

[daemorok]

VJ: i am not very familiar with the event log, and i may have even disabled it, i turn a lot of services off when i install win2k.
Could you maybe give me steps, where to look, what to look for etc.

Fred H: I run ad-aware and a virus scan usually every other week.
If ad-aware finds things i run a reg cleaner(jv16 power tools) after ad-aware is done. I havent tried for crashes in DOS mode because, as i stated before it might take 10 days to crash =\
Also the system clock has never gotten messed up after a crash.

[The PIT]

Turn event viewer on it can be very useful at times. If you haven't got it listed under your start > programs you can find it under control panel adminstrator tools.

[Fred H]

For a couple of months ago, JV16 and/or “Pest Patrol” caused a total crash of my XP. My fault, but I was forced to re-Ghost my system disk to repair.
And, as I said before a faulty IBM HD caused the same intermittent & random issue, by locking up, crashing the system or simply the BIOS didn’t recognize the device, also randomly. Only a new HD cured the problem.

Just ideas...
Fred H

[Helevitia]

Maybe I missed it, but did you try one memory stick at a time, different memory, check the voltage rails to make sure they aren't fluctuating, taking out all of your non necessary hardware?

To me it appears you have faulty hardware or your NTFS or FAT table could be corrupted(requires clean install).

Dave

[Kurt]

If it won't show at POST, it has nothing to do with Windows. One (or more) of the drives is either failing or not playing nicely with the rest of the config.

It could very well be a drive that refuses to work on the same ATA specification than another on the same cable (I'm thinking the CD drives...), or they're buggy or the cable is not good...

[daemorok]

I started playing with event viewer and I noticed that the error i get the most is from DCOM ... anyone know what service this is ?
The error just says that it cant start a service.

An update to my problems.. comp has been up for 1 week so far so good.

[VJ]

If I'm not mistaken, DCOM has to do with network...

Hmm, no other errors on the harddrive or the controllers... Sounds to me that it is some hardware-issue, causing Windows to "lose" the drive, therefor not being able to access the drive. If it were software I'd assume there to be error messages (e.g. that Windows cannot write to the disk using this or that application)...

Check the PSU connector on the harddrive (it was the cause on my computer for strange behaviour, pushing the cable slightly to one side disconnected the drive, pushing to the other side made it spin up again).


Jörg

[The PIT]

It's possible that you've disabled it and service is trying to run that requires dcom. Also msblaster I think can produce that error but not 100% sure on that. I'd go for disabled service.