Black-Screen-of-Death with XP on Gateway laptop

[glricht]

Went to a customer today that had a Gateway 450ROG laptop with XP Pro that was getting a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper-left of the screen immediately after post (KSOD). No Windows loading screen. About 2-3 seconds after the Gateway logo disappears, all you get is the blinking cursor.

Customer says the HD was replaced less than a year ago, so one wouldn't think the new HD has gone bad, but then you never know.

Pressing F2 goes into BIOS (all looks good). Pressing F10 allows setting the boot drive and it works too. F8 for safe mode does nothing.

Took a backup of the HD and booted up a live CD and the PC and HD appear OK. Did a Fabs 4 and copied all the user's data (plus some other folders) to an external drive, so at least I've got the data.

The HD is 120GB with a single partition (no RP).

Here's what I've tried, but can't get past the KSOD:
1. Using UBCD4WIN, did a CHKDSK /F; a few errors found, but still KSOD
2. Did BOOTCFG /REBUILD using recovery console, still no change
3. Ensure the system partition was marked active, no change
4. Did FIXMBR using recovery console, still no change
5. Copied NTLDR from another XP Pro, still no change
6. Removed the HD and slaved to another PC and did a full CHKDSK /F /R; found some bad clusters, but still got the KSOD
7. Did a full virus scan while the HD was slaved, but still no change

Not much else that I can think of short of a repair install or a N&P; but I'm not ready to do either just yet.

Am I missing something?

 

[OldSchoolPC]

6. Removed the HD and slaved to another PC and did a full CHKDSK /F /R; found some bad clusters, but still got the KSOD

Am I missing something?

The only thing that I think you are missing is to look at all the information you have, and come to the conclusion that the hard drive itself is faulty. I mean, if you are getting a black screen of death on a different computer with the HD slaved (if I am understanding you correctly) then clearly it's hardware or firmware. Additionally, you said it had bad clusters but is a newer drive. That is also a tell-tale sign of it being faulty.

 

[Knightsman]

This happened to me a few times, most of the time it ended up being bad hardware. The last time, it was a bad mouse.

Disconnect things one by one and see if it still does it.

 

[OldSchoolPC]

A bad mouse? Wow, never had that issue with a mouse. Learn something new every day.

 

[ATTech]

I mean, if you are getting a black screen of death on a different computer with the HD slaved (if I am understanding you correctly) then clearly it's hardware or firmware.

Not necessarily. That rules out other hardware issues with the original machine, it doesn't rule out software issues.

 

[OldSchoolPC]

Not necessarily. That rules out other hardware issues with the original machine, it doesn't rule out software issues.

If he is booting from his master HD with the questionable harddrive slaved, and getting a KSOD what "software" could be the issues? Perhaps I misunderstood the OP?

 

[PR Tech]

Give SeaTools a try. Run a short and a long test. See what it reports back.

 

[ATTech]

If he is booting from his master HD with the questionable harddrive slaved, and getting a KSOD what "software" could be the issues? Perhaps I misunderstood the OP?

He's not booting with it slaved and it KSODs, he slaved it and ran chkdsk. He then tried again, and no luck.

 

[glricht]

6. Removed the HD and slaved to another PC and did a full CHKDSK /F /R; found some bad clusters, but still got the KSOD
7. Did a full virus scan while the HD was slaved, but still no change

Maybe I wasn't clear as some of you are misunderstanding. For 6 & 7, I removed the HD and slaved it to another PC, did each item, then put it back into the original laptop to see if it still got the KSOD. In each case, it did.

Gonna give SpinRite a try ... will let you know.

 

[red12049]

Technically, most would not call this a KSOD. The usual definition of a KSOD is a black desktop with a freely moving mouse pointer.

What you have is a boot problem caused by a file system/hard drive problem. Easiest fix is a repair install, although I'd suggest you not be too surprised if the XP CD does not find the original installation due to partition problems. When you had the hard drive slaved, could you see the files on it?

Rick

 

[glricht]

Technically, most would not call this a KSOD. The usual definition of a KSOD is a black desktop with a freely moving mouse pointer.
...

Wasn't aware of the distinction. In the many searchs I've done, the distinction didn't come up and what I was seeing was often referred to simply as a KSOD. Something to remember for the future. Thanks.

... When you had the hard drive slaved, could you see the files on it?
Rick

As mentioned in my original post:

... booted up a live CD and the PC and HD appear OK. Did a Fabs 4 and copied all the user's data (plus some other folders) to an external drive, so at least I've got the data.

 

[glricht]

Closing the loop: it's a bad HD

SpinRite failed complaining about hw problems.

To see if it was a HD or a MB/controller problem, I swapped HDs with another old laptop I had in the corner and ran SpinRite on both. The problem stayed with the HD and not the MB.

Will call the customer to see what she wants to do (it's a medium-old laptop).

Thanks for everybody's ideas.

 

[red12049]

Wasn't aware of the distinction. In the many searchs I've done, the distinction didn't come up and what I was seeing was often referred to simply as a KSOD. Something to remember for the future. Thanks.



As mentioned in my original post:

Sigh. I can read, honest. Remembering what I read is another story. Sorry.

Rick

 

[osho741]

There is a new rootkit out as well that will not allow a change to the boot sector no matter how many times you rewrite the mbr to the partition. But ms says it can only be fixed with a reinstall of the o.s to out of box state. Least you got the data so u can put it back after the o.s install