Help! Software problem? or worse...

[NeoNight]

Ok well... yesterday I was playing a game using my ps2 controller via a USB adapter as I normally do. During game play I had did something that seemed to have caused the game to freeze. In which the controller would constantly rumble and the sound effects of the game would play over and over. I figured I would just kill the program via the task manager so I pressed alt-ctrl-delete.

Well I couldn't seem to get to the task manager menu screen. So I tired to see if I can close the program using alt-E (assuming that I was at the applications tab). That didn't work, so for some reason I pressed alt-u thinking it would just shut down windows. Instead it put my system in standby mode.

I then figured, ok well I’ll just hit any key on my keyboard or press the mouse buttons or move the mouse to bring it out of standby. For a minute or two nothing happened. I then tired pressing the sleep key on my keyboard thinking that would bring it out of standby. Instead it seemed to have sent my computer into hibernate. I then decided to just press the reset key. That’s when the problem started.

When my PC restarted I got a message stating Disk boot failure, Insert a system disc and hit enter. I restarted my computer and saw the same message again and again. The only reason am able to type this now is because I booted off the windows xp cd-rom. I have no clue why I keep getting that message. I thought it had to do with my floppy so I disabled it yet I still get the message. Also for some reason my sound isn't working anymore.


if it helps am using an
Asus A8N5X mobo
Windows XP sp2


edit: I think the problem is with windows boot.ini I remember making a back up of my boot.ini when i was experimenting with something. So ill try to copy that to the pc if that doesn't fix it does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Well I have a suggestion: next time your pc freezes playing a game for longer than 1 min. of waiting, just hold the power button for 5 seconds and hard boot it that way. I never had the problem you had by doing this, it's safer.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

What i would recommend is backup all your importent data and reinstall Windows. But like Deathmaster says next time a game crashes hard boot your pc instead of trying to get it to work again cause 9 times out of 10 you can't well for me anyway.

 

[The Brick]

lol nvm

 

[Asus]

Is there a way to enable Check Disk at startup, perhaps run it with the Windows CD? That has fixed hard drive issues similar to this for me in the past.

 

[NeoNight]

yeah, I just used it. It didn't say there was any errors. Yet I still get the same error message.

 

[Reaktor4]

Was the hard drive active when you pressed reset? Always wait untill its doing nothing..

Well I have a suggestion: next time your pc freezes playing a game for longer than 1 min. of waiting, just hold the power button for 5 seconds and hard boot it that way. I never had the problem you had by doing this, it's safer.

Why would it be safer?
Anyway in your case you should have pressed the power button and windows would have shut itself down. Sometimes it will seem to freeze during this, but thats usually an error message popping up that you cant see because the display isnt updating properly, so pressing enter lets it continue.
Use the windows recovery console to try to repair the boot sector. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058
If you end up reinstalling windows (without formatting), back up your registry beforehand so you you wont have to reinstall most of your games/programs.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

Have you got S.M.A.R.T HDD enabled in your BIOS settings?

It should tell you if you indeed have problems with your HDD.

 

[NeoNight]

After a bit of annoyance and some money spent problem solved! :bounce:

I ended up getting a new hdd (planed on getting one anyway just not this soon) did a fresh install of xp on that. Did a disk to disk copy of the stuff I wanted backed up and just now finished formating the old drive. Oddly enough after switching the old drive to slave and the new one to master/slave the old drive decided it felt like booting with no problems (before I formated it). Go figure :hmph: In any case thanks for the help and suggestions guys.