Need Some Help With My Comp

[zhelynd]

hi people, i need some advice here.

my computer is very very unstable after i added a brand new maxtor ultra fast 80gb harddrive. after i installed the harddrive, i partitioned it with the old f-disk tool from a win98 bootdisk(i done this many times before partitioning other hd), and i made it 55gb (c:\) and 25 (e:\), in addition i also have a quantum 40gb harddrive which takes the d:\ drive slot.

everything went quite smooth after winxp pro was installed to c:\, and all my other apps like office, photoshop, nav, were installed smoothly, had a few virus attacks but was safely recoverred by Norton AntiVirus 2004 Pro and i always have auto protect on.

now here is the problem, about one week after everything was installed, my winxp pro crashed when i was browsing internet, and it automatically rebooted by the crash, after the reboot, i was not able to access my harddrive again, it said "invalid system disk"....

i wasn't thinking much at the time so i reformmated the computer, spent another 3 hours to install all the stuff again, everything went smooth like the first time

2 weeks later, same stupid thing happend again without even a sign, i was browsing internet and computer crashed. auto reboot lead me back to the "invalid system disk" message...

i dont really wanna format my computer every week or two, this is too annoying, i hope to find the source of this problem, can anyone give me some input? thanks

[abu_has_the_power]

u used partition magic rite? try doin it in dos. or wat i would do, since u got 2 hds, just leave them as 2 hds. u can install ur stuff on 1, and store ur stuff on the other. saves time, and effort

[zhelynd]

hi abu, i never use partition magic, i used the fdisk.exe utility provided in a win98 bootable floppy, and it worked fine before when there was only one harddrive, i had a 40gb and i was just made it 20/20,

now i have 2 hard disks but i thought maybe it's safer to spilt one of them and make 3 harddrives on my computer, but besides un-partition my 80gb, do you think Norton System Works will give me some more security?

[Virtualbody1234]

First of all, when you partition and format, don't use f-disk. Use the Windows XP CD rom itself. Before the setup starts there are tools right there to partiton and format. Use NTFS format.

As for what is causing your PC to reboot, start by disabling "Automatic restart". Start>Control Panel>Switch to Classic View>System>Startup and Recovery - Settings>Remove the [ ] Automatially restart checkmark and click 'ok'. Now when you have an error you will see the error message instead of your PC restarting.

[zhelynd]

virtualbody

hi, actually when the computre rebooted, it was just like the pushing of the reset button, no sign of any error messages, it just rebooted, and it never got back in to windows again, it was more like a hardware failure

[Virtualbody1234]

Ok, read the post next time before responding.

I just posted information for you to disable that automatic restart feature.

Only once you do that will you get an error message. Get it?

[lynx]

I think you are not telling us the whole story, although you may believe you are.

A Win98 boot disk does not recognise drives above 32GB, so you can't have partitioned the drive to 55/25GB with that. Could it have been a WinME disk? If not then you have done something extremely strange, which may be the source of your problem.

Other than that, follow VB's advice.

[zhelynd]

yea virtual, i understand that, but even if i disable auto reboot via winndow settings, would the system still running under such condition? or would it be jammed and i would still have to reboot manually?

[zhelynd]

Lyxn, yea, the win98 boot disk didnt recognize the 80gb harddrive, it was showing 12gb, but it still allowed the partition process go thru. all i needed to do was to punch in the percentages of each partition, then it would go ok, the volume figures like harddrive size in fdisk were strange, but when i restarted the computer, the hd size was exactly what i wanted it to be.

[zhelynd]

anyways i wanna thank you all for the input,

what i am gonna do is use windows cd to format and partition my hd, and enable the setting suggested by vb, but one more question, do you guys recommend Norton System Works to monitor the integrity of the system to prevent such disaster to happend again?

[Virtualbody1234]

Originally posted by zhelynd@7 November 2003 - 20:44
anyways i wanna thank you all for the input,

what i am gonna do is use windows cd to format and partition my hd, and enable the setting suggested by vb, but one more question, do you guys recommend Norton System Works to monitor the integrity of the system to prevent such disaster to happend again?
I don't use NSW myself. I use Norton Internet Security 2003. Nothing to disturb the settings in Windows XP. I keep my own system in order 'by hand'.

[zhelynd]

virtual, yea? so what do you think of the program?

[Virtualbody1234]

Norton Antivirus is IMO the best antivirus. Norton Personal firewall is what I use for online security. I also have a hardware firewall for added protection.

Both those programs are in Norton Internet Security and I like them (recommend). :)

[lynx]

Originally posted by zhelynd@8 November 2003 - 01:38
Lyxn, yea, the win98 boot disk didnt recognize the 80gb harddrive, it was showing 12gb, but it still allowed the partition process go thru. all i needed to do was to punch in the percentages of each partition, then it would go ok, the volume figures like harddrive size in fdisk were strange, but when i restarted the computer, the hd size was exactly what i wanted it to be.
I've done that once with a Win98 boot disk and had severe problems later, so that could well be your problem, but I've never bothered to work out what was wrong (I was not aware of the 32GB limit at the time).

Norton Windoctor is great for keeping your system tidy, and it can fix some problems, but it won't actually prevent problems like the one you've experienced. I haven't used Norten System Doctor for more than a short while, I could see little value in it.

[Evil Gemini]

Just use the normal windows XP Partition setup and it should work out fine.

[johnboy27]

Personally I won't bother to use Norton System works with my XP machine. I installed it once and it worked like hell with XP so I just decided to do the work myself.It is good for windows 98 as it could help to prevent some of the crashes if you run it regularly.

[Smith]

hmmm could be a hardware problem, faulty cables and such. open her up and take a look