Held up at crcdisk.sys

[gt183]

Ok, so I have these two computers that I'm doing work on for a friend that are just being super annoying now. I upgraded the RAM on the first one (Gateway GT5404) about two weeks ago with two Kingston Hyper DDR2 6400 2GB sticks. The other one they have started to generate BSOD errors again (0x0000001a). So I decided to take a stick of RAM that I put in the GT5404 and put it into the computer that was generating the BSOD. Now the GT5404 wont start!

It gets to the green windows loading bar and then restarts and continues in that loop. When I try to run Safe Mode, it gets held up at crcdisk.sys. I tried doing a Windows repair using the CD, but I get the message that Windows can not repair this problem automatically. It then tells me these details:

Problem Signature
Problem Event Name: StartupRepairV2
Problem Signature 01: External Media
Problem Signature 02: 6.0.6000.16386.6.0.6001.1800
Problem Signature 03: 6
Problem Signature 04: 196611
Problem Signature 05: Corrupt Volume
Problem Signature 06: Corrupt Volume
Problem Signature 07: 0
Problem Signature 08: 1
Problem Signature 09: Chkdsk
Problem Signature 10: 0
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Local ID: 1033

After I saw this I took the Hard Drive out and put it in my External Enclosure. I then performed a Check Disk with no problems. Yet, when I put it back in the computer it has the same problem.

The computer currently has the old RAM in it that came with the same computer, which didn't fix the problem. I also already tried taking out the CMOS battery. Any suggestions?

 

[NYJimbo]

You SERIOUSLY need to work on your diagnostic skills. This kind of "troubleshooting" accomplishes nothing. You are just shooting fish in a barrel.

ps - saying that computers are "....just being super annoying now" is painful for any tech to hear from another "tech".

I swear to God, I am going to put a bullet in my head.......

 

[gt183]

You SERIOUSLY need to work on your diagnostic skills. This kind of "troubleshooting" accomplishes nothing. You are just shooting fish in a barrel.

ps - saying that computers are "....just being super annoying now" is painful for any tech to hear from another "tech".

I swear to God, I am going to put a bullet in my head.......

CALM DOWN THERE JIMBO! I was just venting by saying that because of the hell I've went through trying to fix these two machines, every time I fix something with the one, something happens to the other one. Just a little humor, thats all. I believe I'm following the correct diagnostic steps here, but if I'm wrong correct me. I always expect you and ACG to reply first, and I appreciate that, but don't post something unless you want to help. Thats what this forum is for I thought. I'm an A+ Tech, thats it. Thats why I'm inquiring from others that have more experience then me.

 

[gt183]

If you put the new memory back into it, does it work fine?

No I tried this too. I even tried the memory I thought was bad from the other machine. I also saw a post you submitted a while ago, where you thought a crcdisk.sys stop could be linked to the hard drive. Thats where I got the idea to mount it on my system to run the chkdsk.

 

[gt183]

You said you upgraded the memory in the GT5404 right? Then you took 1 stick from the GT5404, and put it in the other machine, right? So now you're saying that even if you put back that new stick into the GT5404, you get the crc error?

That is correct. Sorry if what I wrote got confusing.

 

[NYJimbo]

CALM DOWN THERE JIMBO! I was just venting by saying that because of the hell I've went through trying to fix these two machines, every time I fix something with the one, something happens to the other one. Just a little humor, thats all. I believe I'm following the correct diagnostic steps here, but if I'm wrong correct me. I always expect you and ACG to reply first, and I appreciate that, but don't post something unless you want to help. Thats what this forum is for I thought. I'm an A+ Tech, thats it. Thats why I'm inquiring from others that have more experience then me.

Are you venting or asking a question? How is this a little humor ?. I just dont understand why people have been posting "help me" threads like this when as a TECH you really dont do normal diagnostics. You swap out ram from a working machine and now the machine you swap out from fails and your confused. Sounds like you are not diagnosing this correctly.

ps- An A+ cert is just a test. A test to get a certificate from a company that sells certificates. They brag about global this and that and that it donates money worldwide to certain concerns, but Comptia is just a company that has come up with a lame test to show you can do basic repair skills, just like a MCSE. Looks great hanging on the wall, but there a millions of them out there and anyone can get one with a few weeks of book reading and about $200.

Work on your skills. A functional machine you pull one stick of ram from should not start failing. Think about it.

 

[gt183]

Are you venting or asking a question? How is this a little humor ?. I just dont understand why people have been posting "help me" threads like this when as a TECH you really dont do normal diagnostics. You swap out ram from a working machine and now the machine you swap out from fails and your confused. Sounds like you are not diagnosing this correctly.

ps- An A+ cert is just a test. A test to get a certificate from a company that sells certificates. They brag about global this and that and that it donates money worldwide to certain concerns, but Comptia is just a company that has come up with a lame test to show you can do basic repair skills, just like a MCSE. Looks great hanging on the wall, but there a millions of them out there and anyone can get one with a few weeks of book reading and about $200.

Work on your skills. A functional machine you pull one stick of ram from should not start failing. Think about it.

Did you even look at the post above you? The first thing I did was put the RAM back. Then I tried another set of RAM, then I tried the original RAM that came with the computer. Now that dosn't work, obviously I'm going to be confused. Now at the "Windows did not shut down correctly" screen, its telling me that some type of hardware or software has changed causing this problem, sorry I forgot to include this. So underneath that it tells me to try doing an OS repair using the CD. That didn't work, so I look at the log and thats where I got the information I listed. All I saw was 'Corrupt Volume' and 'chkdsk', and that made my small little tech brain think hard drive. Is a long shot, but maybe, just maybe something could of happened with the hard drive since every piece of this machine has been going bad. Huge coincidence if it was true, but I had to try that step anyway. What would you like me to do differently O Great One?

 

[NYJimbo]

Did you even look at the post above you? The first thing I did was put the RAM back. Then I tried another set of RAM, then I tried the original RAM that came with the computer. Now that dosn't work, obviously I'm going to be confused. Now at the "Windows did not shut down correctly" screen, its telling me that some type of hardware or software has changed causing this problem, sorry I forgot to include this. So underneath that it tells me to try doing an OS repair using the CD. That didn't work, so I look at the log and thats where I got the information I listed. All I saw was 'Corrupt Volume' and 'chkdsk', and that made my small little tech brain think hard drive. Is a long shot, but maybe, just maybe something could of happened with the hard drive since every piece of this machine has been going bad. Huge coincidence if it was true, but I had to try that step anyway. What would you like me to do differently O Great One?

Let me see if I got this right:

1) GT5404 was upgraded and then it was working correctly.
2) pulled ram from GT5404 to put in another machine and now GT5404 fails
3) put original ram that you pulled back into GT5404 and that machine still fails

Am I on it so far?. If so then what do you think went wrong. I mean any guess you can post would really help us as I dont think you are breaking this down at all and as I said before, just shooting fish in a barrel. I know that sounds harsh, but you are ruining machines that worked moments before and arent even trying to figure out why.

Doing a ram swap out and in on the same machine seems to have screwed it up so you went for a software reload ?.

 

[gt183]

Let me see if I got this right:

1) GT5404 was upgraded and then it was working correctly.
2) pulled ram from GT5404 to put in another machine and now GT5404 fails
3) put original ram that you pulled back into GT5404 and that machine still fails

Am I on it so far?. If so then what do you think went wrong. I mean any guess you can post would really help us as I dont think you are breaking this down at all and as I said before, just shooting fish in a barrel. I know that sounds harsh, but you are ruining machines that worked moments before and arent even trying to figure out why.

Doing a ram swap out and in on the same machine seems to have screwed it up so you went for a software reload ?.

You hit the nail on the head. My best guess would be SOMEHOW taking out the RAM and starting it up with only one stick corrupted something in the BOOTSECTOR, maybe somehow corrupted crcdisk.sys. The software reload that your mentioning is just the Repair option on a Windows Vista OS Disk. I've only used this a few times, but would much rather have Recovery Console, but from what I understand they did away with that for Vista and just left this automated option.

 

[studiot]

At the risk of a third spiteful comment from New York,

gt, I don't know your particular Gateway - and I abhor them as a company,

but

Some pcs throw a wobbly if you change hardware and don't allow the BIOS to catch up, before trying to load the OS again.

This applies particularly to drives and memory. Even more particularly if you have split a beautiful (dual channel) partnership.

 

[gt183]

At the risk of a third spiteful comment from New York,

Don't worry about them, I'm an Islander just like Jimbo. This is just how we talk to one another ;-)


Some pcs throw a wobbly if you change hardware and don't allow the BIOS to catch up, before trying to load the OS again.

I did think about the BIOs, thats what prompted me to take the battery out. I tried going in there to take a peak and it did catch up every time. As far as the dual channel partnership, it crossed my mind but I dismissed it since I didn't think this was a problem with DDR2.

 

[studiot]

thats what prompted me to take the battery out

No I meant enter the BIOS on next boot and make sure memory, drives etc are correctly identified.

 

[gt183]

No I meant enter the BIOS on next boot and make sure memory, drives etc are correctly identified.

Yea sorry, thats what I meant by taking a peak in there. It recognizes the exact memory thats in there, as well as the drives every time. It also tells me when I put a lower amount of memory in there then was there on the last boot, and it tells me to press f1 to confirm.

 

[gt183]

I am just going to throw this out there, but have you thought about ESD? Was the machine on when you pulled the RAM? I hope not, but I have seen some people do this...

Excellent thought, but no it wasn't and I was wearing my ESD bracket and had it attached to the computer at the time. I also touched the inside of the computer case too before I started doing any work.

Is there any way for me to repair this crcdisk.sys file? Say I mount it again on my machine, and go in and replace it using the disk. Is this worth a shot?

 

[studiot]

What OS did you run Check Disk with?

I prefer to use Vista with Vista, as I've seen things go wrong with earlier OS.

 

[gt183]

A long shot here, but have you tried moving the cable for the HDD to another port on the board, or swapping the cable out completely? chkdsk can suck sometimes at finding and fixing hdd errors. Have you had at it with a manufacturers test? Which switches did you sue for chkdsk anyway?

I just tried every port on the board, but no such luck. The only spare SATA cable I have is in my personal computer, but I'll give that a shot if you think its worth it. I ran a gateway test on it from UBCD, but was thinking about running the WD one since that is the company that makes this drive. I just ran chkdsk from windows with both boxes checked when the drive was mounted on my machine, didn't bother to run it from command prompt.

 

[gt183]

What OS did you run Check Disk with?

I prefer to use Vista with Vista, as I've seen things go wrong with earlier OS.

I will try this, because I used my netbook to run chkdsk and obviously it has XP.

 

[studiot]

Don't forget that everytime Windows boots it rebuilds.

The cyclic redundancy check error is telling you that something recorded on the hard drive in Windows is no longer true.

This is either because there is an error in the record (fixed by check disk) or because there has been a change to the hardware / software environment (or both).

This problem has caused much upset.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...p/thread/86ef2cea-808a-40ec-bc30-7a426577f48d

 

[jbutler9]

A couple of things you could try:

Run Memtest on the ram just to be sure(using another spare compatible computer)

How long did you allow the computer to sit when it loads on Safe Mode and displays the crc file as loading? try letting it sit for about an hour, take a break and get something to eat.

read this link here sounds like the same thing you are going through:

http://www.techsupportforum.com/mic...6-safe-mode-not-working-hangs-crcdsk-sys.html

Hope this helps.

 

[Doctor Micro]

May be a dumb question, but I have been under the impression that when windows hangs during load in safe mode that the module that was really hanging was whatever comes next after the last thing shown on the screen. Can anybody confirm this or offer up the straight dope?