I'm at my wit's end. My computer is giving me a real headache. I've had it in the shop twice, Windows xp reinstalled and repaired. I've reinstalled XP myself once. All to no avail. It works for a couple of weeks fine then suddenly the cursor disappears and my computer freezes. I reboot, everything is fine, then it starts to happen more and more often until I can't stand it anymore.

I check the event viewer and there are tens of error messages most saying "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D, Event ID 11." Source Disk.

or " A parity error on \Device\Ide\Ide Port 2." Event ID 5 source ATAPI

Eventually Chkdsk starts on its own after a reboot and it starts removing files and finding orphaned files. The computer never dies altogether it just freezes so often you can't stand it anymore. A check with Microsoft's website tells me that the error message indicates that the cable to the harddisk is failing and to replace it, but the computer shop people don't think so. I've tried updated drivers old drivers it doesn't seem to matter. Is it a hardware problem? Software? No one seems to know. I had a new hard drive installed and that didn't solve it either.

I'm typing this out of frustration as I don't expect anyone to be able to correct this problem. It's just Therapeutic sharing my woes with my FT friends. Sigh

Could be a number of things.

The cheapest possible fix right now would in fact be to try a new hard drive cable. Do you have an IDE drive or a SATA drive?

It could also be a bad primary IDE or SATA controller on your motherboard. I would suggest updating your motherboard BIOS and installing the most current motherboard drivers.

It could even be as simple as editing a registry key or changing pagefile location. Lots' of possiblities.

Please let us know the make/model/etc. of your computer. The more information you can give, the easier it will be to help. Also, please include the size of your hard disk and how much free space is left on it.

I'm not sure if this is the info you need but here it goes.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name RON-A15AA9C0918
System Manufacturer AWARD_
System Model AWRDACPI
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 15 Model 44 Stepping 2 AuthenticAMD ~1599 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 9/6/2004
SMBIOS Version 2.2
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name RON-A15AA9C0918\Ron
Time Zone Central Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 1,024.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 118.78 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.10 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys


The info that came with my computer, locally built, no name type, indicates that it has a WinFast 760XK8MB series motherboard. With a SiS 760GX + SiS 964 Chipset. I have an 80 GB harddrive with 58.8 GB free. I have a IDE drive.

Just a couple of days ago I was on the Pogo.com game site and I suddenly got a blue screen. (I wish now I had taken a photo of it or copied down exactly what it said) but the gist of it was that windows had detected a fatal error and had shut down to protect the computer. If it was the first time this had happened just reboot, but it also stated that I should perhaps check the bios and update it or disable caching or shadowing. The other info that was there mentioned ATAPI.sys which from what I understand is a controller for the disk drive. Perhaps I do need to update my bios, but I wouldn't have a clue on how to to that. Any help would be appreciated.

There are a few things you can try:

1) Do you have any media readers attached to your PC via USB? For instance, a CF card reader. If so, disconnect that.

2) In BIOS, disable SCSI terminal.

3) In BIOS, disable S.M.A.R.T for all drives.

4) Open up your case and look for white printing on your motherboard. You want to look for a specific model and version. Then visit the manufacturer website and update all drivers for your motherboard.

It's a hard problem to diagnose without actually being able to see your PC up close and personal to understand how it's put together.

It looks like it would be a hardware fault. How old is the computer? A friend of ours had computer problems that gave various seemingly unrelated symptoms. This turned out to be faulty electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard. By the time I got to look inside it, some of the capacitors had actually bulged and leaked. A white deposit could be seen around the bases of them. The stage before that is usually just a slight bulge in the top of the capacitor's metal case. I don't know if this might be repairable but I'll have a go at it one of these days. It could mean a new motherboard.

So, have a look out for that, just in case. The trouble is that it could be something other than that (hard disk?). Very difficult to say for sure. Anything is worth a try and daboosh has already given a few pointers. If the computer doesn't work properly and even the professionals can't seen to get to the bottom of the problem, then there's perhaps nothing to lose by trying them.

An alternative would be to take the computer back to the repairers and let them keep it for a week or so. Sometimes faults can appear to be cured when they are still lurking in there waiting for you to take the computer home. The fault(s) may show up again for the repairers if you let them keep it for a while.

Thanks Daboosh and TW. I don't mind looking inside the case, I'm always careful regarding static shocks etc. but I'm not very computer literate when it come to bios and such. I did do a complete fresh install of Windows and was surprised at how easy it was as long as you were careful to read before you clicked on anything. And I did get my most recent video drivers and such so perhaps I can try some of the things you mentioned. The computer is only 3 years old, which I dont think is old but I know in the computer world that could be considered a dinosaur.

Thank you again for the help and I'll let you know how things go.

Well I've had another BSOD but this time I took a photo of it. Prior to it happening my computer froze up about 3 times. I reboot and it starts fine. I was using it for about 1/2 an hour when the blue screen came up and this is what it said:

photo here

Similar as the last one except the last one stated ATAPI.sys was the problem.

I've tried to get to my bios to try the things daboosh told me but I can't get it to come up. I hit F8 as it starts but I just get the screen for safe mode. I checked the manual that came with the motherboard and it tells me when the following message briefly appears at the bottom of the screen during the POST press DEL key, to enter the BIOS CMOS setup utility. No message appears at the bottom of the screen and I press the delete key during start up and nothing happens. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Pressing the 'Del' as the option appears during boot-up should be how your enter the BIOS if thats what the manual says. It may be a case of holding the key down for a second or two when you see the message.

I've not read of any cases where the BIOS can't be entered because there is no option given to do so. I wonder if you seeing the entire screen. Does it look like any lettering could be hidden because it doesn't fit into the screen? If you would like to pause the boot-up process at that point (so that you have time to look around), hover your finger over the 'Pause Break' key ready to press it before the screen shoots by. While paused, see if you have a button on the monitor that automatically sets monitor resolution. The lettering may resize to fit the screen. Press 'Enter' to continue booting. If that was the cause of not seeing the 'Del' option, press the key next time the computer is booting.

BIOS starts before anything else in a computer. If the computer doesn't behave properly at this stage, I'd say you can eliminate any software as being the cause of the problem (including the operating system, especially since you've reinstalled it anyway). It could be the motherboard itself but I think you have to attempt to eliminate everything else before declaring it faulty. It could possibly be something attached to it. A few things could be eliminated by unplugging them. It should be possible to run without any CD/DVD drives, sound card or any additional cards plugged in. That would just leave memory modules, the hard disk, the graphics card or the motherboard. Hard disks can go wrong.

If you're not comfortable about trying these things, I would suggest another trip to the repairers. They have the probable advantage of having a few spares and diagnostic methods that can be tried when determining what problems are. We don't have that. We have to take a chance when suspecting a component. Nothing worse than ordering something only to find it isn't that.

Presumably you paid for the repairer's last attempts at the fault? Perhaps they will take that into account when having yet another try. Maybe insist they try a number of reboots and long periods of running time before declaring the fault fixed.

That's a good screenshot argus.

I had thought perhaps your pagefile was corrupt but after seeing that the error was in nonpaging memory, we can scratch that.

I suggest that you start by checking your memory for errors. You can use DocMemory available here: http://www.simmtester.com/default.asp but you will need to become a member for free.

You may also try the Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic tests at http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

When your computer blue screens like that, it creates minidump files that log the problems. If you can either post the contents of 2-3 of those minidump files, or upload them somewhere so I can download them, we can look inside and track down the problem.

Run a search on your computer for *.dmp

TW I got into the bios, many thanks, if daboosh and I run into a dead end taking it back to the repairers may be what I will have to do.

Daboosh, I used the microsoft memory tester and everything came back Ok. I found a dmp file using search and there was only one called user.dmp. It was located under Users, application data file, microsoft file/Dr Watson. It is 32 KB in size and was created on Mar 5 which would be the right date. I cannot open it as it requires either a Microsoft Dumpflop utility or Windows Debug Tools or Windows Kernel Debug tools. Could I copy it and e-mail it to you? I don't know if that would be the right thing to do. Let me know.


I don't know how driver's work, since I reinstalled Windows a couple of times and got the latest video and other drivers wouldn't that fix any problems with them? I'm beginning to think it might be a hardware problem, perhaps with my CD-Rom drive. The last time the system acted up my daughter left a cd in the drive without me knowing it and I cold booted the computer. Windows started up as the cd was not a bootable one but the drive made a funny noise. I didn't think anything of it at the time as Windows booted okay but it was just a little while later the cursor disappeared and the system froze and I had to reboot several times before the system would stay online. Then it was about an hour later that I got the BSOD.

Well I have installed a new harddrive cable so we'll see if that puts this problem to rest. Keep you're fingers crossed.

Well it's been 10 days now and my computer is just humming along nicely. I think the new cable has done the trick. Yah!! Thanks to TW and daboosh for the help.

Most of the above might as well be written in Chinese for all it means to me - and no offense intended to those who can read Chinese but well done to both TW and Daboosh for apparently solving this complex problem. Letting the repairers keep your pc for a while was mentioned in the thread, but the thing which bothers me about this is having so much detailed personal information becoming available to the employees of such companies. I suppose you just have to take a chance and trust them

I would trust them ..up to a point. I'd look for personal recommendation before considering taking the computer anywhere. This might help dispel worries over prying eyes.

As a matter of good practice, I password protect files that I wouldn't want people to see. For instance, Repairers could look through my photo folders if they could be bothered. They could even read quite a few written documents. However, they couldn't look at login details to financial sites such as banks.

Documents containing these details are kept on the computer because I tend to copy and paste passwords into place rather than type them. It's more convenient. However, nobody would know where to look for these documents. Even if they did seek them out, the password protection is in place. As an added measure, private files or folders might be named something totally irrelevant to what's in them. Repairers aside, another reason for doing this might be in case the computer is ever stolen.

Perhaps it's always worth asking ourselves just how compromised we'd be if that unfortunate event were to happen.