Hi,

I came to my PC this morning and was faced with this error message on boot "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM". So i went down the NTDLR fix route, with no joy, I've tried a lot of other things to try and get up-and-running again, all with no joy. In my BIOS, however, my secondary IDE Slave/Master shows as NONE where is would normally list my 2 hard-drives. Both drives are less than 6 months old so i think it shouldn't be them.

My Specs are as follows:

Hard-drives: 2 x 250 Seagate SATA
Motherboard: ASUS P5NE SLi
Processor: Intel Core Duo 6400
Memory: 2 x 1 Gig
GFX Card: NVIDIA Ge-Force 8800 GTX
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2

Another thing to note is my monitor won't come on, for the first few hours i was at a loss till i realised i could try the HDMI cable plugged into the back of my TV from my gfx card and it worked. I hope this sheds some light. Does anybody have any ideas?

I posted on another forum and i got nowhere with it so i'm posting here and few other forums in a final attempt to fix this myself. Here is a link to that thread so you can see what i have tried so far http://www.computerhope.com/forum/in...c,55955.0.html

Regards

Rizla

Two SATA drives in a striped array?

Why do you say: " In my BIOS, however, my secondary IDE Slave/Master shows as NONE where is would normally list my 2 hard-drives."?

SATA drives are not IDE. You also say in your other thread that the BIOS POST shows your SATA drives?

Are the drives seen in the BIOS Setup?

How did you setup the RAID? Is it hardware or software?

Are you saying that everything was fine when you last shut down the computer and all of the sudden this happened? Nothing else happened?

Originally Posted by jephree

Two SATA drives in a striped array?

Yes.

Originally Posted by jephree

Why do you say: " In my BIOS, however, my secondary IDE Slave/Master shows as NONE where is would normally list my 2 hard-drives."?
SATA drives are not IDE.

This is an error by me, it used to say SATA1 and SATA2 with each drive listed.

Originally Posted by jephree

You also say in your other thread that the BIOS POST shows your SATA drives? Are the drives seen in the BIOS Setup?

Yes, on one of the POST screens it says:
Detecting array....
Healthy Nvidia Stripe 476.56
Press F10 to enter RAID setup utility.

The drives only show up in my BIOS under SATA1 & SATA2 if i disable SATA :S

Originally Posted by jephree

How did you setup the RAID? Is it hardware or software?

Not sure what you mean, this was the first time i setup a RAID, so please forgive my ignorance.

Originally Posted by jephree

Are you saying that everything was fine when you last shut down the computer and all of the sudden this happened?

Yes.


Another thing to note, is that i tried a hard-drive diagnostic tool from Seagate that runs in DOS mode, this shows the drives as all working perfect. I also got my monitor working aqain by removing and replacing my motherboard battery so don't know if this was related or just coincidence.

Regards

Rizla

Most RAID setups are software. Meaning you set it up during the install of the operating system.

A few motherboards or controller cards control the RAID via the hardware ports.

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com...1-5715216.html

Either way the setup is entered into the BIOS.

I also got my monitor working aqain by removing and replacing my motherboard battery so don't know if this was related or just coincidence.

What you did here was wipe the BIOS settings.

The BIOS settings depend on that battery. By replacing it you reset the CMOS.

I will download that manual and see if it offers any remedy short of reinstalling the operating system.

Hi again.

Thanks for all your time and help. However, how would i be able to reinstall my operating system, as when i try a repair or full installation it says something along the lines of "no drives found." The only other way i can see to tackle this, is, in the RAID setup utility (F10 @ POST) i have an option to either a. Clear disk data or b. Delete array. I haven't tried either of these yet as i'm sure this means all my important files are going up in smoke when i do.

Regards

Rizla

There would be no smoke involved but yes you would lose your data either way.

A Repair Install from Windows would be the only hope but again it is not possible if Windows cannot see the drives.

Did you load the SATA/RAID drivers at the F6 prompt of a Repair Install attempt?

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If you setup a RAID 0 array those hard drives are tied together meaning there is no way to use them independently without removing the array.

You could try a Linux Live CD such as UBUNTU in order to try and access your data.

Of course the BIOS would need to recognize the array in order to do this.

Originally Posted by jephree

Did you load the SATA/RAID drivers at the F6 prompt of a Repair Install attempt?

I've just tried loading the Jmicron RAID drivers at the F6 prompt. It loads them from the floppy i have them on, goes through the motions and ends up saying "Setup did not find any hard disks installed in your computer make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected and any disk-related hardware config is correct. This may involve running a manufacturers supplied diagnostic or setup program. Setup can't continue. Press F3 to quit."

I just can't work out what it could be, the RAID utility lists the drives fine; the Seagate DOS tool lists the drives fine; but my damn BIOS won't pick them up, or rather, will pick them up but only when i disable RAID!

I hope somebody can help with this one.

Regards

Rizla

I had an idea,

I tried disabling RAID in my BIOS so that it lists the drives. I then tried to do a repair/reinstall of Windows. I get further than i have before as i get to format the drives ready for a clean install. However, when the pc reboots to start the install of Windows i get a new error message of "Problem loading operating system."

Does this shed any more light?

Regards

Rizla

Here is the MS info on that error:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326676

If you were/are going to Clean install why not Delete the array in the BIOS Setup?

You might also want to run Kill Disk for a clean start:

http://www.killdisk.com/

Again all data will be lost.

I really see no advantage for a PC to run a RAID array except as a "Mirror" in which case two drives are written to as a backup utility. Striped arrays in general would only be an advantage on a server.