Bus Drive Question

16 years ago

Help, please!! I'm going to give you the whole story to get to my question ... because I don't know what you need to know and what will be useless info.

On Sunday, after disconnecting & moving my desktop computer, it suddenly gave me an error message that "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: Windows\System32\Config\System. My computer is running Windows XP Home edition.

Being an applications person, not a person who understands what makes those applications work, I didn't know what to do. The error says I can attempt to repair the file by starting Windows Setup using the original Setup CD-Rom (not included with my package from 3 years ago because it was all preloaded) and to select 'r' at the first screen to start repair.

The 'r' didn't work, and I finally used the F10 and did a whole system restore. That's a miserable thing to have to do. I'd posted the problem on the Kitchen Table, and when I was going through the restore someone had replied, asking whether I could hear the hard drive start up, and suggested maybe I loosened the bus connection to the hard drive during the move. By the time I read that response it was too late, because I'd done the system restore.

Well, you guessed it ... it's happened again. Last night all was well and this morning I have the same error message. I haven't moved it again, by the way.

So my question is ... how (exactly because I don't know what I'm doing) can I check on this bus connection to the hard drive? What does it look like, etc? I really hate to call the Geek Squad to come out and do a 5-minute fix and pay them $200.

Any help would be tremendously appreciated. I'm off for the next five days and all I have to use is my office laptop, with a bazillion firewalls that won't let me do anything fun.

Patty

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Comments (3)

owbist
16 years ago
If you did a System Restore then it is safe to say the hard drive is being recognised otherwise how would you have been able to restore? Those restore files are stored on a separate partition of the hard drive. That means the 'bus connection' theory is not an issue here.

You said 'It happened again last night', are we to assume the computer actually runs sometimes but not on other occasions?

Do you have Service Pack 2 (SP2) installed? Not sure? Click Start/Control Panel/System and the 'General' tab will tell you. Do you have all the latest patches installed? Because now you have restored to the original factory settings you are 3 years behind in patches and hotfixes.

Also all your safety programs like firewall, anti virus and anti malware programs will be out of date if still installed even.

If you really feel the need to check the hard drive connections it is not difficult. Shut down, remove the power cord from the rear of the tower, remove the left side from the case. Now look inside and you will see probably 2 grey ribbon cables, one just over 2 inches wide and the other a bit narrower. We are concerned with the wider one of the 2. Check that it is firmly seated on the motherboard then follow along till it connects to the hard drive which is likely just behind the front panel of the tower. Check that this is nicely seated then notice it daisy chains up the the CD or DVD player, you might as well check that too for re-assurance.

While you are there look for dust and dirt, if there is a lot of it you need a pure bristle brush about half inch wide or so and brush the crud out. Look especially at the fan mounted on the motherboard because that is the one cooling the processor.

Replace the side, replace the power cord and fire up.
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Mystical Manns
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you for responding, owbist.

Clarification of what has happened since the system restore on Sunday. I immediately went to Microsoft website where a systematic review of my computer was done, and I downloaded service pack 2 plus a host of other upgrades. One session put in 17, I believe, then reboot and another 38 upgrades were installed. There may have been more, but I was a bit glassy-eyed by then. It took hours, it seems like.

My protection is via Comcast and McAfee, so that was my next stop, to reload and activate the entire McAfee package. It turns out that the system restore kept McAfee, but I don't know enough to get it back to where I can use it, so I just re-loaded the whole kit and kaboodle.

So yes ... I was using it again quite normally, re-doing all my settings and favorites and such. Last night it worked just fine, I set it to ... what's it called? I didn't turn the whole thing off, the word isn't hibernate, but it's just waiting to be brought back.

This morning I wiggled the mouse to "wake it up" it usually shows my desktop at this point, but this time it was as tho I'd done a re-start, it went to the HP startup screen and then came to the black screen with the error message.

I can't do a start/anything because it never gets that far; I get the blue HP screen and then the error screen. When it's shifting between the two screens, the computer does make some noise that it didn't used to do. I can press any key and it goes right back to the blue HP screen followed by the error screen.

We'll check the ribbon cable and see if that's okay, and use compressed air if there's dust.

Thanks again ... I'm really trying to avoid costly computer repair, so your help is much appreciated.
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randy_ca
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Just a couple easy things to start with.
While you have the case cover off, reseat the memory sticks.
They'll be green, not to large and are in slots with white snaps at the ends.

Might also press the F8 key while booting and choose Last Know Configuration that Worked or try to start in safe mode and do a system restore to an earlier time start/all programs/accessories/system tools/system restore.

Not sure the last two things will make any difference since you did a whole system restore.

It sure would be nice to have the cd-rom set up disk, then you could press r and use the commands in the recovery console to fix this.
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Bus Drive Question

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owbist

Mystical Manns
Original Author

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randy_ca

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Bus Drive Question

Comments (3)

owbist

Mystical MannsOriginal Author

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randy_ca

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Mystical Manns
Original Author