[Pilot_dc]

Hi all. Before I throw my computer out the window I thought I'd see if there was anyone who knows of a fix for this.

I built this system a few months ago and everything has been running fine since. This all started after an optional windows update of my NVIDIA Sata drivers. This was done 12 May 2008. Update finished, system rebooted fine and ran for hours, no problems. I went to be, leaving it running, in the morning I had a blank screen. Tried to reboot and...

The issue:

Vista will simply not boot. In safe mode it halts loading on crcdisk.sys
I was running raid 0+1 and thought it might be the raid controller. So I have since ended up deleting and rebuilding the array, with no change...
When attempting to boot from the CD it stops after "windows is loading files..."

What I've tried so far:

I've googled far and wide and found many ref to crcdisk.sys and similar problems with many suggestions, none of which have helped.
I've connected an IDE CD drive and tried the windows cd in there, no luck.
I've connected a working IDE drive with XP installed and attempted a boot from that with no success.
I've disabled raid and tried a single HDD.
I've removed one of my graphics card, 3 of my memory, and my soundcard.
I've disabled everything from usb to firewire to raid support in the BIOS.
I've reset the CMOS.
I'm about to start sacrificing goats...


I don't care about the data on the array (it's already lost since I've deleted and rebuild the array) so if anyone can think of a way to get a fresh intall working...


System specs:
EVGA 780i mobo
Intel Q6600 (no overclock)
Kingston HyperX (4x1Gig) All but one stick now removed
EVGA 8800GTS 640 x2 (now just running 1)
Razor Barracuda AC-1 (removed)
PC Power $ Cooling silencer 750W
4x Wester Digital Caviar 500G Sata

[pat cooke]

As you've discovered this is a common problem and quite difficult. I've found a number of debates about it online - this one seems very promising - I copy and paste it for what it might be worth:



I had a similiar problem that non of the Recovery CD or installation CD works. The problem happened after a resize in a linux as 2nd/3rd OS on my PC. Linux works fine but Vista stoped booting and alway stuck at crcdisk.sys (seems that way but actually problem is not).

After many googlings and tries, finally I got it resolved this way:

* Disconnect the hard drive connector (SATA or IDE cable, but keep the power connection). This is neccessary in my case where

o Vista DVD won't boot,
o Norton Ghost won't boot,
o Manufacturer's Recovery CD won't boot.
o Ultimate Boot CD boots but lack of useful tools for NTFS chkdsk.exe
o -- very helpless situation, right?

* Boot from an installation CD/DVD, in my case, I used Vista installation DVD.
* Once it boots, connect the hard drive cable.
* Now, find out the hard drive letter from Repair console, in my case it is H:
* Launch Command Console (DOS)
* Do a CHKDSK/F H:
* Reboot after it finishes

Now the Vista is back to normal. It took me quite a while to get this recovered. Now I have a triple boot machines with Vista, Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 right before Thanksgiving. Great!

[Pilot_dc]

Thanks but no dice. Vista DVD won't boot even with all drives disconnected....

[Fat Jonny]

Try booting with this:

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

There's quite a few useful tools that could help.

[Pilot_dc]

Well, it does boot with UBCD4WIN but I can't see any drives.

I since managed to get into XP setup and even managed to format a connected IDE HDD. But now when I get to setup my keyboard goes dead. Right on the screen where it says press enter to setup, r to repair etc.

[BluesCruzer]

Have you tried to change from Sata to IDE in bios ?

[cyclic]

Have you got a USB keyboard ?

[Pilot_dc]

Yes I'm using a usb keyboard....

Well, I managed to get XP to see and start setup with RAID disabled (RAID Enabled causes a BSOD). After the first reboot I get a black screen that just sits there which is what I got when this whole mess started.

I think it's safe to say at this point that it isn't the BIOS (I've updated that) and it isn't software.

It isn't memory as I've tried different sticks and run memcheck on them with no issues.

It isn't the drives cause the BIOS see and Idents them fine (and it's HIGHLY unlikely that 4 SATA drives plus an IDE drive that wasn't connected when the trouble started, would all fail.)

It isn't the GPU cause I've tried two different ones with no change.

So.... Motherboard I guess? Though there are no post codes coming up...

Other than the BIOS, is there anything flashable that could have been corrupted on a EVGA 780i ?

It's so strange that after an update called NVIDIA SATA drivers that I'd have trouble like this within hours, and yet if it's just OS specific drivers why can't I do a fresh install?

What are the odds that something on the board fryied that same day for some totally unrelated reason? Any more ideas guys, thanks for the suggestions so far!