OK, I can't get my computer to boot up. I see the DOS stuff loading up, but when I get to the Windows loading screen it'll hang, or if I can get passed to enter a password, my computer will freeze soon anyway. This happened yesterday but I restarted a few times and it worked fine all day. Today, I am getting the blue screen of death. This this is what it says: "A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. PAGE_Fault_In_NONPAGED_AREA Check to make sure hardware and software is properly installed. ... Disable or remove any newly installed software or hardware ... *** STOP: 0x00000050 (0x00000000, 0x8052D78D, 0x000000000) *** PartMgr.sys - Address BAB30000 base at BAB30000, DateStamp 00000000" That's the BSOD I'm getting. I got a second one telling me to check video adapters and other hardware components, but my computer rebooted itself before I could take a picture. Then, when it rebooted I got this awesome message, not in blue screen, but MS-DOS style: "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER." I press enter and that message just appears again and again. When I was able to get into my computer, I checked the event viewer and found an error: "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D" Even ID 11. Listed was also a warning that said: An error on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation." ID 51. My D: drive is where I store all my media downloads, movies, music, etc. I also ran /chkdsk /f /r or whatever, but it didn't really tell me anything. When it was finished it just restarted my system, which worked fine. I didn't restart before it scanned partition - I didn't know it needed to. After many restarts and getting in, I tried to do a system restore to Friday's checkpoint. It said it couldn't complete the system restore. I haven't installed any new hardware. A few weeks ago I switched cases and installed new RAM. I did have issues with video display at the switch, but got it resolved. (See my last couple posts!) I can't think of any new software I've installed lately except the World of Warcraft patch a few days ago. So, what's the verdict guys? All I can think is my HDD is dead and I'm screwed. I appreciate any help!

Got a bit lost in all the description! What's the situation now? (you appear to have got back in after having problems - are you still getting the invalid system disk?). I'd guess you either have a problem with the system hard drive or its controller - not necessarily catastrophic. If you have access to another machine and are able to run backup software (eg, ghost, acronis true image) to another - eg external hard drive, then first I'd do is try that (to see if you can back everything up). Often paging/controller/bad block errors can stop windows working - but if you restore images back to fresh hard drives, usually ok. But as I said - got a bit lost in the blurb, so not sure where you are now.

I don't understand what there is to get lost in. When I turn on my computer, a) it doesn't finish booting and gets stuck, b) it boots but freezes, c) I get a BSOD or d) sometimes it turns on OK but still takes longer than usual to boot up. Either way, something is wrong and needs to be fixed because my computer is not working properly. When I explain I have a problem here, I usually have people asking me for event viewer information and telling me to try certain things, so I told you exactly what information I received and what I have done. I don't know what that means, paging or controller. I did look up my event ID numbers and some people got the error and fixed it after replacing their HDD enclosures. But it sounds like some stemmed from other things, like empty card readers or bad HDDs. I'm not sure. I'm trying to see if this is hardware or software. I got a repeated BAD_POOL_CALLER BSOD a year or two ago and the people here helped me figure out it was a bad driver and I was able to update whatever the bad driver was. All the stuff I have now seems to be pointing to the disk, but I'm not sure in what capacity. Is my HDD failing or is it likely something else?

ktm are you complaining about the quality of the free help you are getting?

???? Um. No? I didn't say that. I said I didn't understand what was confusing and I was just trying to explain everything to make it easier for everyone. And I actually complimented everyone here for helping me with the last BSOD I experienced. Now, anyway. BACK TO THE TOPIC AT HAND: What can I do to stop the problems I am having? Please see the first post in this thread. Thanks very much.

KtM: Since you switched cases, maybe the cable from the hdd to the Mboard, or the cable from the hdd to the power supply, is loose. If that's OK, I would downlaod the manufacturer's utility and run diagnostics on the hdd. "Please see the first post in the thread"-While we could all search computing.net for that thread, perhaps you could post the link for us and save us the trouble.

Something was loose. Nothing felt or looked loose, but I just went in there and pressed on all the connections and *poof* magically the problems are gone and my computer works fine again.