PC freezing during POST

[visagephoto]

A few weeks ago my CD & DVD Rom drives on my desktop became uninstalled, I reset the data cable onto the MB and everything was fine, it happened again, but this time however, after resetting the cables the PC is now freezing during Post, There is some hard drive activity, then the booting sequence halts at & displays "verifying DMI pool data". I've tried removing and replacing HD & CD data cables, but nothing seems to work.

 

[visagephoto]

OK! I managed to get XP Pro. loaded.

I set and reset IDE & SATA cables along with multiple system reboots etc. The system finally reckognised both DVD drives and the HD and loaded windows normally. There was a slight glitch where there was no signal being sent to the monitor, but this was sorted with a final reboot.

Are the above errors symptoms of an impending failure, should I look into replacing cables, drives or maybe even the whole system.

 

[Lanarkshire IT Services]

Hi There

I would confirm the hard drive manufacturer and then download the appropriate diagnostic tools.

There are loads of hardware tools on my site, saves you looking all over the place.

I would also test the memory and power supply. You can find tools for this at my site too.

Also might be worth setting your BIOS to Fail Safe Defaults and see if that clears the DMI message.

Let me know how you get on.

Regards

 

[visagephoto]

Ok I finally got everything running again, however the first DVD I tried to burn was "Halted with errors" and the DVD drive disappeared from the system again (ie. no longer listed in device manager).

I decided to firstly replace the cable, and then maybe remove my CD-ROM drive which is on the same EIDE cable, then if necessary replace the drive (from EIDE to SATA),so I went in to a local computer shop to buy the cable and was given some really strange advice.

(1) Devices dissapearing from the system is a common problem which is caused by the device driver, it can only be solved by wiping the HD and reinstalling windows. (surely I could just install an updated driver? answer: No)

(2) The "Halt with write errors" are occurring because there are two CD/DVD drives on the same EIDE channel, ie. data blocks are being sent to the wrong drive because they're both sharing the same cable. (I've never had a problem with this type of setup before)

(3) Another option would be to replace the (EIDE) DVD writer with a new (SATA) DVD writer, where it would have it's own cable connecting it directly to the MB. (at today's prices, I'm considering this)

 

[Lanarkshire IT Services]

Hi There

See these "format and reinstall" people they really get on my wick.

That's crazy advice on all points - which shop was this?

Here try this script for CD / DVDs NOT appearing in My Computer / Device Manager and post the results.

Regards

 

[visagephoto]

Ok I decided to replace the offending drive with a new SATA pioneer DVD 216D, and this seems to have sorted the issue, furthermore my PC now boots up in under 40s, as opposed to around 80-90s when the old drive was installed.

As my old software doesn't reckognise the new drive, I was looking to upgrade to a more recent version of DX Recorder (Sonic),or Nero, however I've came across a coverdisk with "Ashampoo Burning Studio 2010" for a Fiver, shurely that's got to be worth a try?