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I posted this in technical support, but due to relatively low-traffic in that part of the forum, and due to its possible relevance to geist geld, I decided to also post this here.

Ok, so I'm not sure if this is a coincidence or not, but I downloaded geist geld (the new cryptocurrency) and my computer failed that very night (2 nights ago).  Now, I can't even boot to windows.

Here's what happens.  Let's say I start my computer normally.  The computer gets to "starting windows" (before prompting me for my user password) and then automatically shuts down and/or resets depending upon what it feels like doing.  If I insert the Windows 7 CD, it won't even boot from the disc.  It does the same thing...shuts down when trying to start windows (this occurs whether or not I boot from the hard drive or the optical drive). 

Now, let's say I unplug the SATA cable from my hard drive.  Then, it boots from the optical drive!  It then asks me if I want to install windows or repair my computer.  At this point, I have to re-plug in my SATA to the harddrive so that I can select where to install it.  It however won't let me install it.  It says "make sure your disk controller is enabled in BIOS" or something, but I can't find anything about this in BIOS.

I used a SATA/USB cable to transfer essential data (wallet.dat, etc.) to a laptop.  I then reformatted the hard drive in an attempt to start fresh.  But this doesn't work either.  It still tells me I can't write to that disk because I need to "make sure my disk controller is enabled in BIOS."  Now that the hard drive is formatted, I tried restarting the computer normally with both SATAs plugged in (to hard drive and optical drive).  The computer still decides to shut down while trying to boot windows from the CD.  It only boots from the CD when the SATA to the hard drive is unplugged.  Also, I should mention that I received a message at some point telling me that there was some kind of error while trying to boot windows (prior to formatting the drive).

Does anyone know what the hell is up with this?  Is my hard drive done for?  Can hard drives spontaneously just crash out and cause some kind of interference from other processes starting up (e.g. prohibiting windows from booting from the optical drive even though there's no longer any data on the hard drive)?  Can viruses do something like this?  I ask this last question due to the fact that I downloaded geistgeld the same night that this happened.

Any help would be immensely appreciated!

Edit:  Keep in mind, I was able to transfer data from my hard drive to my laptop successfully.

Hm, maybe a faulty motherboard ?

Did you try other SATA ports on the MB ?

Yeh I tried switching the SATAs from the optical drive to hard drive and vice versa.  When I did, the optical drive still booted-up fine while the hard drive was disconnected.

Can you punch BitcoinExpress for me?

Edit:   Hmmm I notice BitcoinExpress's post just got deleted...

I bet you don't know what the problem is.  I'm not saying "geist geld" did it, hence the parenthesis and question marks in the subject heading.  But the timing was rather peculiar.

Did you tried booting in safe mode ?
That "disk controller" thing, I think changing the "Native IDE Mode" in BIOS options may solve the "booting from CD" problem. Good luck.

So you reformatted your hard drive?  I assume you did that with your laptop.  If so then I guess your HD is OK.  Not sure.  Did you do a "quick refromat" or a "long reformat"?

Never ever plug in internal equipment to a running computer!  You run the risk of frying the hardware (as have happened to me) besides, the BIOS detects the HDs, CD drives at boot time.   It's too late to try and plug in an HD after boot.

I suggest you check your BIOS and make sure it is set to auto detect hard drives at boot, or if you have an older BIOS - set the type of HDs/CDs you have plugged in.

I actually booted in safe mode to begin at one point.  Interestingly, I had taken out my graphics card at a point of simply trying to eliminate possibilities (I had been using it to mine consistently for a while).  While the graphics card was out, safe mode started successfully one time only  It was the only time I was successfully able to get back into the computer.  I took care of a couple simple things before I realized I couldn't connect to the internet to do anything fancy at that point like start sending my emails essential files.  I then tried to restart it normally, and it died again.  Then I tried safe mode again, and it died again and wouldn't come back.  

Another thing I had noticed:  The longer I left the computer off before trying to boot it again, the farther it would get through the boot process.  Sometimes it would die upon "windows starting,"   some other times it would die right after prompting me for my password. I know this sounds a bit conflicting with what I said in the OP, but I was condensing at that point.  Regardless, I never had gotten to the desktop except through safe mode that one time.

Hm, I'll try that Native IDE mode thing.  I assume that that has something to do with allowing the computer to be influenced by other drives upon startup?  

Generally, it would be interesting to see if it behaves this way with other, known-good hard drives.
 

I was able to reformat the hard drive by first disconnecting the SATA from the hard drive, then booting windows from the cd, clicking install, then reconnecting my SATA to the hard drive.  After I did this, I could hit 'refresh' on the drive menu list (this is when it asks me where I would like to install Windows) and my hard-drive would pop up.  But, I couldn't install it on the drive because of the disk controller issue.  I was, however, able to reformat it.  

I thought that would fix it since after a few hours of messing with stuff, I thought there was a good probability that the boot files had been corrupted somehow, and that this was the reason that I could still access the other files on my hard drive and transfer them.  It wasn't the hard-drive SATA port, it wasn't my graphics card, it wasn't any of the wire connections (tested all those).  This is when I was beginning to think that giest geld might have had something to do with it.  I think this would be a natural suspicion at that point.  

I'm still not convinced it's a hard drive issue since I was able to successfully transfer other data.  I will try the other dude's "disk controller" solution.  Maybe something's wrong with the motherboard too.  Those are my best guesses.

Edit:  By the way, thanks for letting me know it might fry, but honestly, it worked.  I was able to plug it in at that point, hit "refresh," have the drive pop up, and then even search through the files and folders on it.

Unfortunately, I don't have any spare hard drives floating around.  I didn't even have a USB/SATA cable until I bought one today.

Hot plugging SATA drives only works with AHCI enabled in the bios and an AHCI aware OS.  Just as a FYI.

What BN said.

Try switching the controller to IDE mode and see if that helps.

So, you booted in safe mode - so HDD should be fine, I assume. The point was, that you could reFormat your partition with Command Prompt...

 It really wouldnt have been too hard to fix that, had you been patient.


But I will share a story with you. An elderly lady who is a friend of the family calls me panicking that she broke her internet. See she was sending a rather large photo that she had downloaded from a bird watching site, that "was bigger than her screen" and right when she hit send her entire internet went down "not just emails".


I told her to calm down. And I would help her figure it out. SO the first thing I did was call road runner to see if there was a problem in her area. Sure enough they had a recording on the tech support line.. ~"if you live in such and such area.... you internet is down...blah blah blah we are fixing it"

So I call her back and say "yeah dont worry about it, I called road runner and  the net is down for the entire neighborhood." She is silent for a bit too long and then in a quiet cracking voice, she says "they are going to be so mad at me". I'm a bit confused so I ask her what she means. "my neighbors, I didnt realize I broke it for them as well". I still laugh at that.


TL;DR

coincidences happen, and it is rush to judgement when you have little facts and a lot of ignorance(not to be taken as a pejorative), like you did, that gave us shit like "if a crow flies south that means you neighbor city state is planning to go to war with you"


For sure ask, and for sure tell people "I just installed this client geist geld" but otherwise it is dangerous to assume when you have little knowledge and little information.

Could this be a problem with the BIOS battery perhaps? I know a machine I was mining with died and failed to boot in a similar manner to you describe. After the bios battery was replaced, everything was hunky-dory.

Nice point, but unfortunately, it doesn't apply here.

It's been 2 days.  I fiddled with it for hours.  I consulted my brother by phone who knows computer hardware very very well...he's building a supercomputer for IBM.  Obviously it was on the phone, but still, he wasn't sure either.  I talked to tech guys at tiger direct.  They were just lame.  The Geek Squad was coming this Saturday because I am a student and need my computer for school regardless of having access to certain passwords.  I ruled out a virus by formatting my HDD (really wasn't a huge loss anyway, I transferred the important stuff).  And, if it had worked, I would save $130 instantly by cancelling a Geek Squad appointment.  I don't mind sacrificing 2 hours to re-install any drivers/programs if it means saving $130.  It's not like Bitcoin guys are a guarantee.

Also took out the graphics card, swapped sata cables, inspected (and cleaned) everything in there to make sure nothing was disconnected, fiddled with multiple BIOS settings multiple times, etc.  Thanks anyway.

Several things:

1. Can you get into safe mode via F8?
2. When you are in the BIOS has it shutdown on you? If so, your CPU could be in need of some thermal paste. Could be overheating.
3. If you've tried a different hard drive then and you tried #1 and #2 has not happened I'd say you got possibly a bad motherboard.
4. Have you tried flashing the BIOS and setting it to the manufacturer defaults?

More things to try:
- Delete all BIOS settings (use "CLEAR CMOS" Jumper on Mainboard). Default Settings must work.
- Remove Lithium Battery for a Minute and put it back.
The Battery Trick saved me after crashing a Notebooks BIOS by doing the "Hackintosh"... a dangerous Experiment.

What brand of HD is it?  I'll link you to an .iso you can burn to test it.

Here's an update.

I fiddled with the BIOS some more.  There was no 'native IDE' option per say, but I did find an option that would enable/disable writing to the sata drives.  It was already enabled, but, for the hell of it, I disabled them, then re-enabled them.

For whatever reason, Windows decided to allow me to install itself to my harddrive, and it also allowed me to boot from the CD while my hard drive was still connected.

ALMOST.

After installing and expanding the files and rebooting to finalize the installation process, the computer now decides it wants to shut down while completing the installation process.  It's done this several times consistently now.

So, here's what I know.  Whereas earlier this did not happen, I can now have both my opitcal- and hard-drives connected and boot from the Windows CD.  I can also begin the installation process.  I cannot however complete the installation process.  Keep in mind this is on a completely formatted hard drive. 

Any new ideas?  Should I still try resetting BIOS to factory presets?

At this point, I'd just take it to an expert to have a look at it. You seem to have done a lot already to no avail. If you need it back up and running soon for college purposes and whatnot, just pay someone who knows what they are doing to fix it.

Can you not return it to the manufacturer for repair? Or have you voided your warranty by all that tinkering around?

Oh yeah, and btw, I mentioned it already but something similar happened to an old machine i was using to mine. Crapped out, wouldn't boot from HDD or CD, so a friend of mine who is an electronic engineer looked at it and said that the BIOS battery had been fried. He replaced it and everything was working fine again. Maybe not relevant to you, but just thought I'd pop it in since you are running out of ideas.

A dead Battery should lead to "BIOS Checksum Error" and wrong Time/Date.