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by clarkietii

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Hi all,

I have a small mail server running on WinXP, and has wingate as proxy server and mdaemon as the mail server. The problem am experiencing is that its restarting itselp haphazardly. At times when it restarts, it doesn't detect the hard disk. I have to switch it off for a few seconds the turn it on as if to clear the buffer.

I have checked for virus but non has been found.

What could be causing this problem and how can I solve it. Its a PIV generic computer.

Help!!!

Clark

10 replies

by hal 9000

How long has XP been installed on this unit?

I know it sounds silly but I've seen numerous install problems with XP and what you are describing is one of them.

The only real solution is to totally erase the HDD and start from scratch again. There are quite a lot of problems that happen with a bulk install of XP which is what Microsoft supply us dealers to cut back on time needed to build and deliver computers.

First backup any data that you have on the unit and then attempt to download a utility from Maxtor that writes zero's to every section of the HDD and build a floppy from that program and then run a Windows Boot Floppy and the place in the utility and run it to wipe the drive.

You could attempt to reinstall Windows over you're existing installation but in my experience it doesn't solve any of the problems that you originally had.

Good Luck. If you want any more info you can contact me through the "Peer Listings" and I'll attempt to help you as much as humanly possible.

Col

by hal 9000

If you have any problems my e-mail address is colinluck@quicknet.com.au and I'll do all I can to help you out in this problem.
But as I'm in Australia there may be a bit of a delay owing to the different time zones but good luck and I hope everything works out perfectly for you.

Col

by dicklaw

For two years I fought a similar problem. After about a week I would again get everything loaded up and have strange things start happening. the most frustrating was download of SP1 consistently failing. I found a bad Fujitsu HD (the model which put them out of that business) but my new Maxtor (which I cleaned as above suggested) did not change things. Even BCM Diagnostics showed everything OK. Out of desperation I finally bought a new computer from a discounter (Fry)for $200, It came loaded with a version of LINUX which I discarded and reloaded all of my 9+ Gigs of stuff.
So far I have been running for about 6 weeks solidly. I even then loaded DOS and a real LINUX version through "Virtual Machine" which I am playing with in addition to my usual WinXP Pro.

by clarkietii

I did re-install the operating system but I latter realized that the really issue was the controller port.

The primary IDE slot on my motherboard was not ok. I changed to Secondary and things are working out fine. Auuooch! How sad that I had to go alonger way than first testing everything. I just hope it the right solution that I did otherwise I will be dead if it recurs.

Col thankx for the asistance

Thanks all other too

Clark

by hal 9000

But I got the idea that this was a new machine to start with so I didn't think along those lines. I've seen numerous compatibility problems introduced with SP1 and I really would not like to revisit any of those again it comes to memory a computer built with XP Pro installed and when SP1 was installed all the partition information on the HDD disappeared that one took about a week to sought out but eventually it was the DVD drive that was the problem even though it worked perfectly with the original installation of XP Pro.

Silly me had disconnected the CDRW instead of the DVD as I already knew that those gave a lot of compatibility problems but in this case it was the DVD drive that caused all the problems and even though I threw every XP compatibility utility at this computer it constantly insisted that everything was perfect for XP. So much for Microsoft's testing utilities I no longer use them and just flash the firmware in every thing possible it saves a lot of time and effort.

But you do raise a good point that if this unit has been upgraded to XP from something earlier then almost anything could be causing the problem but generally compatibility problems either cause the unit not to work at all or are far more frequent events than what was first described.

Col

by greggen

Your PC is rebooting and not detecting the harddrive? This sounds more like a hardware problem than a software or OS problem. I would look at the Powersupply first.

by clarkietii

Greggen I think you are right. I was a hardware problem. The Primary IDE slot was faulty. I changed to Secondary and things are working out fine but not after doing all the software thing.

Thank

Clark

by hal 9000

In this case just how old is the M'Board?

Have you tried Flashing the BIOS as that could also be the problem?

If not then if the Primary IDE port has failed then it is a certainty that the secondary one will not be far behind at least in time anyway.

Col

by clarkietii

Col,
Ur right. Today the server restarted once with the same problem of not detecting the hard disk and had to go thro' the usual routine. The motherboard is close to two years old. How do I go about flashing it?

Clark

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