Windows locking up

[einstein_314]

I've been having this problem for a bit now and can't seem to solve it. Here's the deal.

When ever I cold boot my computer (turn it on after its been off for a while - like over night) after windows loads and logs in, it freezes. Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing. Just hard locks up. Also, the Hard drive light on my case comes on and stays on. (might have something to do with it?) So I hit the reset button on teh case, it reboots, and works fine until I turn it off and let it sit over night again. I can reboot as many times as I want after the initial one and it works flawlessly.

I've run prime95 on it (for 6 hours) and memtest (for 5 hours) and got no errors from either. I'm really drawing blanks here. I am planning on doing a reformat here soon to see if that fixes it but figured I'd see if anyone here has an answer first.

I'm running all the latest drivers (nf4 6.66, display 81.85). Anyone had a problem like this before or know what my problem is?

Also, another quick question. For some reason Windows detects my hard drives as removable storage. This both my C: and D: (boot and documents). The safely remove hardware icon in the task bar will let me safely remove my c: drive. Is this a good thing? Is there a way to turn this off so I don't accidentlly eject my c drive? I do kind of want to try and see what happens....

Thanks a bunch

[retsam]

I've been having this problem for a bit now and can't seem to solve it. Here's the deal.

When ever I cold boot my computer (turn it on after its been off for a while - like over night) after windows loads and logs in, it freezes. Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing. Just hard locks up. Also, the Hard drive light on my case comes on and stays on. (might have something to do with it?) So I hit the reset button on teh case, it reboots, and works fine until I turn it off and let it sit over night again. I can reboot as many times as I want after the initial one and it works flawlessly.
sounds like the drive is either not sitting right in the port or the drive it self is dieing ....i would check your cables...


Also, another quick question. For some reason Windows detects my hard drives as removable storage. This both my C: and D: (boot and documents). The safely remove hardware icon in the task bar will let me safely remove my c: drive. Is this a good thing? Is there a way to turn this off so I don't accidentlly eject my c drive? I do kind of want to try and see what happens...wow this one has me speechless....

[einstein_314]

sounds like the drive is either not sitting right in the port or the drive it self is dieing ....i would check your cables...

Yeah, I've checked all the cables numerous times. I suspect it may be a dying drive. Oddly enough, yesterday, it booted fine and didn't lock up at all. I played some BF2 for a while, did some homework, and some other stuff. Then last night, I tried to open "My computer" and it locked up. It's kinda weird.

wow this one has me speechless....

Lol, yeah I don't understand it either. But I did click on safely remove C: and it wouldn't let me. Which is good I suppose.

[zoomy942]

hmm, do you happen to have the nvidia ide software installed?

[Ancient]

Also, another quick question. For some reason Windows detects my hard drives as removable storage. This both my C: and D: (boot and documents). The safely remove hardware icon in the task bar will let me safely remove my c: drive. Is this a good thing? Is there a way to turn this off so I don't accidentlly eject my c drive? I do kind of want to try and see what happens....

Thanks a bunch
Wouldn't that be caused by the SATA ports, which are hot swappable on your M/B?

[einstein_314]

hmm, do you happen to have the nvidia ide software installed?
Hmm, yes I think so. I'll reinstall the nf4 drivers and make sure. I want them installed right?

Wouldn't that be caused by the SATA ports, which are hot swappable on your M/B?

Yeah, I think so. Turns out I can't eject them, it tells me I can't.

[crainger]

Sounds like the problem I was having. On a cold boot it would usually freeze just after login. Could only restart via reset. For me it was SpeedFan that caused the problems. I stopped it auto starting and all was right.

[Ancient]

Yeah, I think so. Turns out I can't eject them, it tells me I can't.
I'm not up on the technical specs concerning PCs as I used to be but, iirc, the hard-drive has to be hot-swap compatible as well as the chipset. Might be part of the SATA2 spec?

Edit: And I'd tend to agree with crainger. If it's freezing on login, you might want to suspect a startup program. Go into MSCONFIG to the Startup tab and shut off anything that's not absolutely necessary, then enable them one-at-a-time.

[zoomy942]

try uninstalling that nvidia ide stuff. i had problems with it a while ago. i havent since then, but i do remember something alot like what you are describing

[einstein_314]

try uninstalling that nvidia ide stuff. i had problems with it a while ago. i havent since then, but i do remember something alot like what you are describing
Good call on uninstalling the IDE drivers. It hasn't locked up now in 2 days. If that fixed it, that would be amazing. My boot drive is also no longer detected as removable media. Sweet. Thanks!!!