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Hard Drive and IE problems

J

joel_029

Lead Guitarist
Well, this started a couple of days ago. My computer wouldn't start (using Win XP Pro) and I narrowed it down to the ntdll.dll wasn't loading. So I reinstalled, and after that being unsuccessful I actually formatted my partition and did a clean install. The HDD still continued to run very slowly so I took it off of the Primary IDE port and moved it to secondary. This actually allowed for my computer to boot albeit still slow when entering Windows.

I was able to move my DVD and CD roms to the primary IDE and they work completely fine. But it had problems detecting my HDDs and sometimes would refuse to boot, hence the reason I switched them. So is this a motherboard problem, or HDD related. I'm using a MSI 865PE - Neo2 FISR that I got last September and haven't had problems until now. And the HDDs are Maxtor. The main one in question is a 40GB 5400rpm, if that makes any difference to anyone.

My next problem is that Internet Explorer refuses to work. Most would say who cares, and for the most part I don't because I use FireFox. But with IE down it doesn't let me access Windows Update, or Hotmail via MSN-IM. I've reinstalled since and it still doesn't work. I'm running on a Cable Modem via a Linksys Network Hub. And I'm using ZoneAlarm, but I have allowed for IE to access internet, so I don't think that my firewall is the problem. Anyways, hope to get some help soon. Thanks.
 
OP
J

joel_029

Lead Guitarist
That's what I was thinking. They're still running fine as Secondary IDE though, but a little slow. Any ideas on the IE probelm. Also, ZoneAlarm keeps bringing up alerts about ports being scanned. I know that that can be normal and all but I've never had it come up before.
 
Doomulation

Doomulation

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Big problems. I suppose not even using windows explorer allows you to access internet? Btw, windows update is something I'd stay away from ;) well, just my IMO.
About the ports, perhaps you've simply disabled the firewall so it don't alert of port scans before. Because they are common.
 
RJARRRPCGP

RJARRRPCGP

The Rocking PC Wiz
May be a motherboard problem. If overclocking the FSB, you likely overclocked too much, assuming no PCI and AGP frequency lock. Time to get a better motherboard if overclocking the FSB or lower the FSB frequency if overclocking the FSB. If overclocking the FSB, be wary of possibly the following warning signs, even when I never had these signs (Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Windows 2003):

1.
Windows starts giving you disk errors in the system event log and drops your HDD transfer mode to PIO mode, Windows automatically disabling UDMA for the HDD.

2.
Some files suddenly start getting corrupted. A Windows system file, including the registry may suddenly get corrupted, or you're greeted with a file corrupted error message.

3.
Chkdsk starts displaying lots of errors on your HDD, and Chkdsk may display false bad sectors.
 
Last edited:
OP
J

joel_029

Lead Guitarist
ok, i've run some Windows Updates and IE is now working again. I have no idea why it wasn't but it's fine now. Any reason why I should stay away from the updates? Anyway, I put Norton 2004 on my computer last night thinking that perhaps I had a virus because I haven't had a scanner on for a while. I updated with LiveUpdate until it was all current and then ran a scan. And there was no virus. That was a relief except for the fact that I still don't know what's going on.

I didn't shut down all night because it takes forever to boot. The scenario is that when it hits the XP startup screen it takes a few minutes, the screen flickers, which used to mean that it was going into Windows, then it keeps going for a while longer. After that the screen goes black, then to a full black then finally enters Windows. Then I see the welcome screen for a little bit and it takes everything forever to load. So I'm thinking that this has to be a HDD problem. The reason why is because when it was on Primary IDE like I said, it sometimes had problems detecting them both, but not my DVD/CD Drives.

As for overclocking, I did do it through the BIOS a few months back and this is MSI with DOT (Dynamic Overclocking Technology), so it should be safe. I took it from 2.4 to 2.53 Ghz. And then didn't really like the fact that I didn't know what I was doing so I've had it at normal since. I also don't use DOT at all, I have it turned off. Although that could be a potential problem, wouldn't it have shown up a long time ago?

I've checked with chkdsk and it doesn't find any problems. I'll do a registry scan later to see if anything has been corrupted. So I don't think that OCing has caused any of the problems that you mentioned. Except I did notice a little while ago that my Slave HDD dropped into PIO mode how would I change that. I used to know how back in 98, but I haven't been able to find the settings in either Windows or my BIOS. So that might help if I could get a look at it.

Last thing I ask is if anyone knows of some diagnostic programs that I could run that might help out, I'd appreciate it. Well, back to work on this beast.
 
RJARRRPCGP

RJARRRPCGP

The Rocking PC Wiz
You're required to go to Device Manager, select uninstall for the affected IDE channel entry then reboot Windows XP:
 
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