BOOTMGR Corrupt + Can't Boot from Disc + Lots of Random Errors

[Appletax]

Got an HP desktop here that came with Vista and was upgraded to 7. This is my third time working on it.

- Either doesn't load and says BOOTMGR is corrupt or loads for a few seconds and then displays a random blue screen.

- Receive various errors when trying to boot from a new Windows 7 DVD, such as winload.exe or arcsas.sys missing or corrupt. It usually shows a different filename each time I try to load the DVD.

- Several times in a row the system wouldn't boot. It gave one short beep and one long beep, which indicated a memory error. Pulled out 3 of 4 sticks of RAM and it booted. Put RAM back in and it still booted and the issue hasn't returned.

- Ran MemTest overnight. Seven passes completed with no errors.

- Tried loading the Win 7 DVD from my external optical drive, but the same errors persist. I disabled the computer from booting from the hard drive and sometimes the optical drive won't load at all and will display the BOOTMGR is corrupt message.

I am lost and don't know what else to do. There must be a hardware issue given that I can't even load a DVD.


HP a6333w

http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/si...ac.admitted=1401034515919.876444892.492883150

 

[NYJimbo]

"Got an HP desktop here that came with Vista and was upgraded to 7. "

That machine does not have support for Win 7. Drivers, BIOS, etc. You are on your own.

 

[Markverhyden]

I think that may be a Wally world machine. It lived a good life. Time to move on. That being said you could try reflashing the BIOS with the current version 5.27

 

[ohio_grad_06]

It should run Windows 7 though. Realistically, Vista and 7 are nearly the same, like Windows 98 and Windows 98se. You sure the motherboard is solid? Any bulging caps or leading ones? Memtest bring any errors? Did you test the hard drive to make sure it's not failing? If you still keep having issues time to get a new system.

 

[Larry Sabo]

CMOS battery voltage? In addition to the other suggestions, I'd try with a known-good PSU and different KB for completeness. Disconnect all peripherals and try to boot from USB optical/flash drive, perhaps. Probably not worth all the effort, except I hate when it sneers at me so hate like hell to give up.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Also, try this, pull all except one stick of ram, start memtest. So this for all 4 sticks, do them one at a time. I've had times where memtest seemed to show things as being ok, but then when I tested things separately as above, then found I had a faulty stick.

 

[Appletax]

>>> Can skip to bottom

"Got an HP desktop here that came with Vista and was upgraded to 7. "

That machine does not have support for Win 7. Drivers, BIOS, etc. You are on your own.

--- This is very untrue. There's lots of computers that came with XP that can run Windows 7. The OS worked fine for awhile.

I think that may be a Wally world machine. It lived a good life. Time to move on. That being said you could try reflashing the BIOS with the current version 5.27

It should run Windows 7 though. Realistically, Vista and 7 are nearly the same, like Windows 98 and Windows 98se. You sure the motherboard is solid? Any bulging caps or leading ones? Memtest bring any errors? Did you test the hard drive to make sure it's not failing? If you still keep having issues time to get a new system.

--- The caps looks fine.

--- Windows Vista was notorious for having bad driver support. It runs pretty good now with all the latest updates. Windows 7 runs on a lot of older systems.

--- I unplugged the hard drive and it still says that the BOOTMGR is corrupt.

CMOS battery voltage? In addition to the other suggestions, I'd try with a known-good PSU and different KB for completeness. Disconnect all peripherals and try to boot from USB optical/flash drive, perhaps. Probably not worth all the effort, except I hate when it sneers at me so hate like hell to give up.

--- Same issues with a brand new power supply
- Tried a Win 7 ERD DVD - The file is possibly corrupt. The file header checksum does not match the computed check sum.
- Tried a Windows XP disc and it works!
- Tried a Win Vista x32 recovery disc - BOOTMGR is corrupt.
- Tried a Win Vista x64 recovery disc - DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.

>>> Tried SARDU on a flash drive
- Linux Mint shows a blinking underscore
- Hiren's Boot CD - The file NVRD32R.SYS is corrupted. Press any key to continue.

**************************************************************************************
!@**!# GRAWR I removed 3/4 sticks of RAM and now everything works!! DANG YOU MEMTEST.

Now how do I figure out which RAM is bad or if the board has bad mem slots? MemTest ran all night and found no issues.

UPDATE: The desktop took awhile to load and then the mouse and keyboard froze.
UPDATE2: There's currently only 512 MB of RAM so I can't expect Windows 7 to run nice lol.

 

[Appletax]

Also, try this, pull all except one stick of ram, start memtest. So this for all 4 sticks, do them one at a time. I've had times where memtest seemed to show things as being ok, but then when I tested things separately as above, then found I had a faulty stick.

THIS.

For how many passes will I need to run Memtest? I assume that the passes will occur faster due to there being less memory?

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I've honestly done this for just even a minute or 2, and it usually would start spitting out errors pretty quickly if you just had one bad stick.

Just pull all 4 sticks, put one in the first slot for example, run it for say 5 minutes, pull it, set it to the side and go to the next one till you reach one that gives errors. If none do, might have to assume the board is bad, but acting strange on all operating systems, you probably have one stick of ram but since you have 4 sticks it might be able to mask itself to memtest.

 

[HFultzjr]

Sounds like you are already on the track with ram issues.

Need to do more testing.

Do you have any extra ram to "swap" or borrow.

Clean the ram slots, I've had dirty ones do some strange things.

Seems like you are trying everything via CD/DVD.

Try another option such as bootable USB.

Lots more to try before giving up.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Yep, just put stick 1 into slot one, memtest for 5 minutes, see if it gives errors, if not, set it to the side, stick 2 into slot one, memtest 5 minutes, see if it gives errors and so on. If you get one that does give errors, ding ding, pull that stick, see if it runs good, and either replace stick with new/spare or leave it out. Been down similar roads a time or two. They are frustrating.

 

[Appletax]

I cannot figure out which RAM is bad.

• All RAM together passed 7 Memtest passes
• Slot 1 passed 17 Memtest passes
• Slot 2 passed 2 Memtest passes
• Slot 3 passed 29 Memtest passes
• Slot 4 passed 9 Memtest passes

Slot 1 and 2: 1 GB PC2-5300
Slot 3 and 4: 512 MB PC2-5300

Slot 1 is on the left and slot 4 is on the right

I booted the machine 4 times for each of the following RAM combinations:


RAM in slots 1 2 3 4
- 1: rebooted, 2: BOOTMGR corrupt, 3: BOOTMGR corrupt, 4: froze at the boot logo
- Other times it's given various blue screens


RAM in slots 1 4
- 1: worked, 2: froze at the boot logo, 3: rebooted, 4: worked


RAM in slots 2 4
- 1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked


RAM in slots 3 4
- 1: froze at a black screen, 2: worked, 3: blue screen error, 4: worked


RAM in slot 1
-1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked


RAM in slot 2
- 1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked


RAM in slot 3
- 1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked


RAM in slot 4
- 1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked




I feel as though the RAM in slot 4 is the problem. I am going to place it in different RAM slots:


RAM slot 4 in 1 and slot 1 in 4
- 1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked


There's just no clear indication

 

[Megaarch]

I cannot figure out which RAM is bad.


Slot 1 and 2: 1 GB PC2-5300
Slot 3 and 4: 512 MB PC2-5300

Slot 1 is on the left and slot 4 is on the right

I booted the machine 4 times for each of the following RAM combinations:


RAM in slots 1 2 3 4
- 1: rebooted, 2: BOOTMGR corrupt, 3: BOOTMGR corrupt, 4: froze at the boot logo
- Other times it's given various blue screens


RAM in slots 1 4
- 1: worked, 2: froze at the boot logo, 3: rebooted, 4: worked


RAM in slots 2 4
- 1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked


RAM in slots 3 4
- 1: froze at a black screen, 2: worked, 3: blue screen error, 4: worked


RAM in slot 4
- 1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked


RAM in slot 1
-1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked


RAM in slot 3
- 1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked


RAM in slot 2
- 1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked

• All RAM together passed 7 Memtest passes
• Slot 1 passed 17 Memtest passes (ran overnight)
• Slot 4 passed 9 Memtest passes

I feel as though the RAM in slot 4 is the problem. I am going to place it in different RAM slots:


RAM slot 4 in 1 and slot 1 in 4
- 1: worked, 2: worked, 3: worked, 4: worked


There's just no clear indication

I would first get a 2/4 gb known working module and try it in slot 1. if it doesn't work put it in slot 2. .. If that doesn't work it's not the ram.

Forgive me if i'm reading this wrong, but it sounds like you are testing the ram by which slot the ram came out of? Anyways do the following
1) take out all ram.
2) insert 1 of the 4 ram modules into slot 1.
3) run memtest, for 5 min.
4) if it passes put it in the pass pile.
5) insert the next ram module in slot 1 run for 5 min.
6) repeat steps with remaining 2 ram modules, in slot 1.

If it is a bad ram module it doesn't matter what slot is used, it should error.
If no error sounds like a bad slot.

Another thing if the ram modules are not the exact same they could be conflicting. All ram should be same company, speed, specs, identical

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Exactly. Put 1 stick in slot 1, no team in any other slot at all. You want to test each independently. Put the second stick in slot one, repeat same test and so on.

Also as stated above make sure they are same brand same speed and size etc. Not all are that way but have seen some some systems very picky about that stuff.

 

[coffee]

Take the board out of the computer and set it on a solid level surface. Then look at the bios chips, and any other plugin chips (not solderd in) and make sure they are seated. Reseat them because chip creap from heat/cold will cause problems.

Next, Inspect the underside of the board for possible problems. This is an old board and you could have bad solder joints near or at the ram. I kind of doubt it but could be the case.

Next, Take a womens nail file and run it just a few times in the memory buss slots. After that, Take a pencil eraser and use it to clean the ram chips gold connectors. Make sure the mem slots are clean and no obstructions.

Reseat bios to defaults.

Not all memory is equal. Some manufactuer memory doesnt like certain boards. Make sure the speeds are correct and if at all possible swap out all the memory for some known good memory and test again.

Drive cables - Replace / remove drive cables and boot from a USB stick if possible.

Still not working even with known good memory? --- Replace MB.

coffee

 

[Appletax]

I have repaired over 100 systems and have not had one that had bad capacitors. When one of you told me to check for bad caps, I thought that I was looking for caps that were leaking electrolytes. I took another look and saw that a bunch of caps were very flat and a bunch were bulging. Upon Googling what a bulging cap looks like, I discovered that these must in fact be bulging caps.


Here's a picture of one of the bulging caps on the board:

 

[Appletax]

The customer will not want to invest in a new board and labor so I will have to tell her to purchase a new system. Since I diagnosed the issue and can fix it, I think it would be proper to charge a diagnostic fee or offer to keep the computer in exchange. I think $20 would be appropriate?

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Sounds like you have a lot of time invested. I charge 40 for diagnostics. You charge like 20 bucks sounds like you are priced to low in my opinion.

 

[altrenda]

Instead of just $20, I would pull the drive, put it in a $15 enclosure, tell the customer what I found, here are all your files, and charge at least $50.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Here's a picture of one of the bulging caps on the board:

Yes, that would do it (cause erratic behaviour). If the system were newer or had irreplaceable software that would be lost in a system change, it might be worth replacing the caps, but I doubt it in this case.