Well This SUX....

[HawaiianGhost]

I was just responding to a "thread" in the SGTeam forums just after I had repaired my "lost" network connection between my two rigs when all of a sudden (while I was typing the "reply" to rickoic) my my main rig just went BLANK - JUST A BLACK SCREEN - NO ERRORS!!! WTF???!!!

Tried rebooting, no go - black screen again once I select an OS (I dual boot btw and never had a prob for months until now).

Tried restoring WinMe with system restore, since this is where my OS selection prog is at, it booted all the way until the option to input a password. Then when I click "OK", it goes to a black screen again. This go for WinXP Pro w/SP1 when I select that option, except it black screens on me once I select it - I don't even get to the see WinXP logo.

No virus was detect with the boot virus protect enabled and when I did have WinXP running, Norton 2003 did not detect anything. I did not download anything or install anything prior to incident on my main rig (only drivers for Realtek NIC on 2nd rig from floppy which I doubt had anything to do with incident). I did run the Norton on 2nd rig and it found no infection - updated definitions received two days ago.

Tried to explore partitions and folders with VComm's Partition Commander v6.0 and noticed that in Window XP under the "Config" folder there was absolutely NOTHING to be seen, which there should be, I believe there should be a file that reads "config.sys" and many others....(?)

I also ran scandisk under WinMe and it found errors and lost clusters and supposedly fixed it but still the same thing happens. Is there a similiar tool in WinXP (within DOS) to do somekind of repair or chkdisk/restore? The ASR is not an option for me btw for I did not make an ASR backup disk.

Anyone got some kind of thought or response as to what the hell happened?

I am currently using DriveImage2002 to backup some 14GB'z of music on the RAID array (the RAID array is still "functional" btw, with no errors reported either)....still got about an hour to finish the Image copy....Oh well, I guess it's back to the "format C:\" option if no one has a good fix by the time I get done with the backups, thanx for any and all response(s)...

**Wasn't sure if this thread would've been appropriate in the Hardware, Software or even the SGTeam forum, as it seemed to involve all three subjects when the incident happened.

[The Dude]

I had a similar problem, Voodoo lost its mojo (http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101076&highlight=Voodoo) :(

[HawaiianGhost]

But still would like know if anyone out there has a possible solution to my prob, if any at all. I do no think my prob would be video card related though but we'll see once I re-format.
Still in the process of creating "Image" files just in case something worse happens. I have a strong feeling it is more of less "software" related, maybe to video drivers, but highly doubt it is mainly hardware related. I can run Drive Image with bootable floppy and System Commander v7.05 (SC7) from a floppy AND off the HDD without instabilities.
I'm able to switch resolutions in SC7 when ran off the HHD & floppy without a glitch, I just resized a partition to create more space for backup Image files on my backup HDD using SC7, no probs there.
So yeah I am stumped a little, but don't think it is hardware related. Plus I did mention that I noticed missing files in the "Config" folder (WinXP) when using Partition Commander v6.0 at boot.
So that leaves me with another 50mins to go for backups to complete and the it's to the old "FORMAT C:\" fix....boy this is gonna hurt...unless someone can come up with a fix for me in 50mins(???)...

[Sid]

NT doesn't use config.sys. Its an empty file. The reason I think its the video card is because it does it in both OS's. If you think its driver related then try to boot into safe mode vga only from the XP side and see if you can reinstall them from there.

[The Dude]

I wish I could have been more help. It does sound like your problem is software related, if that helps. I was really scratching my head when my system started to go down the toilet. I was sure it was software. Everything I tried just made things worse. In the end I had to byte the bullet and take a chance that it was the Video card, and not my motherboard that was pooched.:(

[HawaiianGhost]

Thanx guys, I think I'll give Sid's option a shot with the safe mode w/vga in XP. I think I already did that but I'll give it another shot, what's the worse that's gonna happen, Not boot?? Thanx again... I'll be back....

[HawaiianGhost]

Well safe mode in WinXP did not work, in fact every option in WinXP did not work. I.e.:

-safe mode
-safe mode with networking
-safe mode with command prompt

showed the following:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\system32\ntkrnl.exe
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\system32\kdcom.dll
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\system32\BOOTVID.dll
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\system32\config\system
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.log

Then it stopped and stayed that way, all other options just gave a black screen.

I used Partition Commander v6.0 to "view" RAID and non-RAID to verify that they were still present, which they were. Then proceed what I could accomplish with WinMe.
WinMe on the other hand, did enable me to boot in safe mode - so those that suggested that it was my vid card that died on me "fortunately" for me were wrong. I proceeded to troubleshoot WinMe as to why I got the black screens with no errors. I disabled several boot options in "msconfig" and re-booted. Finally booted into Windows, decently. I started to re-enable the boot options in msconfig slowly, pinpointing it to a ".vxd" - Viagart.vxd, to be exact. Everytime I enabled it, I got the black screen deal again. So I left that off for now and proceeded to open up Norton 2003 to search for virus'z - no virus detected.
I opened up My Computer, where there should've shown atleast 6 partitions, there were only 2(?) - My C:\ drive and the single Maxtor 60GB backup drive. Found that to be a little odd, but thought about it and realized that Norton 2003 did finish the scan quicker than I had expected. Most of my programs seemed to run fine, the one'z that I installed in WinMe anyway. Proceeded to do more troubleshooting with rest of the system, especially that viagart.vxd to no avail.
I then rebooted to Partition Commander to re-install the WinXP OS, well when I got into the program I noticed that all my partitions that dealt with WinXP were absolutely GONE!!!:( Only WinME partition was the only valid partition - it's a good thing I did the Backup'z when I did. But WTF happened is beyond me.... So I said screw it and just delete all the partitions and rebuilt the RAID array and I am currently re-installing everything again....

Sad story but I'll get over it. This was a first for me, I do thank all those that tried to help out though....

[ScottE]

Corupted Partition Table, friend of mine had a problem like this with XP kept loosing everything on his drives. I finally got it ironed out for him by completely erasing everything on the drive doing a Low level format. I've never had this problem though:rolleyes:

[HawaiianGhost]

Originally posted by agentbeast
Corupted Partition Table, friend of mine had a problem like this with XP kept loosing everything on his drives.

I've heard of that term before but never had the pleasure of experiencing it first hand until now. Oh well, there's always a first time for everything. What would 'cause that though? Would it have something to do with RAID arrays? -RAID array always booted up as "Functional" - Using on-board RAID controller in RAID "0"...Promise Inc. MBFastTrack133 "Lite".