having problem with booting to recovery console

[ceez]

hey guys i have a computer which is freezing at the xp splash screen, it wont boot into safe mode either.

the computer is configured with RAID1 and the drives are healthy. I reinstalled winxp on this computer last week successfullly with no isues... yesterday the user calls and says that it froze....he has not installed any software other that his regular CAD and 3dmax software. He says he just rebooted the computer in the morning and that was the end of it.

I am booting with the xp cd, selecting the repair "R" option and select my windows installation. at the C:\windows\ I type fixboot and get the following:

FIXBOOT cannot open the partition

If I try fixmbr then I get the following:

The old master boot record cannot be found

If I try a chkdsk with the P or R switch then I get this:

The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable volumes

I am assuming this is because of the RAID1 configuration, how the heck can I diagnose a HD in raid!?!?!?, this computer is p***ing me off!

thanks for the help guys!

ceez

[jaclaz]

hey guys i have a computer which is freezing at the xp splash screen, it wont boot into safe mode either.

the computer is configured with RAID1 and the drives are healthy. I reinstalled winxp on this computer last week successfullly with no isues... yesterday the user calls and says that it froze....he has not installed any software other that his regular CAD and 3dmax software. He says he just rebooted the computer in the morning and that was the end of it.

I am booting with the xp cd, selecting the repair "R" option and select my windows installation. at the C:\windows\ I type fixboot and get the following:

FIXBOOT cannot open the partition

If I try fixmbr then I get the following:

The old master boot record cannot be found

If I try a chkdsk with the P or R switch then I get this:

The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable volumes

I am assuming this is because of the RAID1 configuration, how the heck can I diagnose a HD in raid!?!?!?, this computer is p***ing me off!

thanks for the help guys!

ceez

I don't think that the issue can be because of the RAID in itself, are you sure you are loading the appropriate (F6) driver?

If yes, there is a probability that the drive ir RAID setup is corrupt.

We are talking about a hardware RAID, don't we?

I guess your next best bet is making yourself a PE of some kind (with the appropriate drivers).

Doesn't the motherboard or add-on board manufacturer provide "low-level" diagnostic tools?

RAID 1 should be a "total" mirroring solution, thus the two drives should be identical and each of them should be accessible separately as a "normal" disk, disabling the RAID setting in the BIOS.

Make sure however that you firstly inspect the uncoupled drive with a read only system.

jaclaz