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#1
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Asus X550J laptop
I've found this problem talked about online, but no
help. System claims to analyze disk at boot, then repair starts, then screen goes blank. BIOS accessible. Unable to boot from CD. Very few options in the BIOS. I don't know where to start. Sometimes I get a disk inaccessible error. Other times not. Mybe the laptop has been dropped? |
#2
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Asus X550J laptop
Mayayana wrote:
I've found this problem talked about online, but no help. System claims to analyze disk at boot, then repair starts, then screen goes blank. BIOS accessible. Unable to boot from CD. Very few options in the BIOS. I don't know where to start. Sometimes I get a disk inaccessible error. Other times not. Mybe the laptop has been dropped? https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/X550JK/specifications/ Storage 1TB HDD 5400 You should be able to pull the drive, and work on it in your technician machine. It's likely to be a 2.5" SATA with standard SATA connectors. Check the SMART stats on the hard drive. See if the partitions that should be visible, have files showing. If the owner has valuable data on it, back up first, before charting a course of action. The temptation to run CHKDSK is probably overpowering, but see if you can back it up first. Paul |
#3
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Asus X550J laptop
"Paul" wrote
| You should be able to pull the drive, and work on it | in your technician machine. It's likely to be a 2.5" | SATA with standard SATA connectors. | It's been backed up. No problem there. I plugged it in with a USB adaptor to my XP machine and disk manager says it's healthy but it doesn't show up in My Computer. I can't boot a CD in the laptop. I'm guessing this is possibly encrypted and certainly NTFS. What do I need to see the files on that? I have WinXP and Win7-64. Should 7 see it if I just plug it in as a data drive? | Check the SMART stats on the hard drive. | | See if the partitions that should be visible, have | files showing. | |
#4
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Asus X550J laptop
Mayayana wrote:
"Paul" wrote | You should be able to pull the drive, and work on it | in your technician machine. It's likely to be a 2.5" | SATA with standard SATA connectors. | It's been backed up. No problem there. I plugged it in with a USB adaptor to my XP machine and disk manager says it's healthy but it doesn't show up in My Computer. I can't boot a CD in the laptop. I'm guessing this is possibly encrypted and certainly NTFS. What do I need to see the files on that? I have WinXP and Win7-64. Should 7 see it if I just plug it in as a data drive? | Check the SMART stats on the hard drive. | | See if the partitions that should be visible, have | files showing. | Best practice, is for the encrypting party to have a "password floppy" or equivalent. You can make a kind of recovery media, that allows decrypting the partition in question. With full disk encryption, the tiny partition containing /boot and the BCD file, is not encrypted. Therefore, enough software must be present in there, to support decryption before hand-off to C: . It's your job, to find the password media the owner was supposed to use, for just such emergencies. Presentation of the password disc, should enable you to convert the disk back to plaintext. Some of these schemes, there can be error multiplication. A single error in storage, can cause a larger chunk of info to be errored, by schemes such as encryption or compression. In the case of BitLocker, there is the Elephant Diffuser in earlier versions. Microsoft made the Win10 version less secure by removing the Elephant Diffuser. As long as the encryption scheme is file based, perhaps the most damage a storage error could do, is severe damage to the file the error is in. If the encryption scheme were to work at the sector level (as if it was a large TAR file), then one error in storage, could be spread all over the place. The manual shows it has Secure Boot. You would think the choices would be "Yes" or "No", but AptIO apparently supports "Custom". The Key Management field populates if you switch it to Custom. The reason I'm looking in this area right now, is for signs the box has a TPM chip. TPM can be used by BitLocker. Or as a root of trust for Secure Boot or something. http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/X550JD/0409.pdf https://www.manualslib.com/manual/80...4.html?page=93 Platform Key (PK) Key Exchange Key database (KEK) Authorized Signature database (DB) Forbidden Signature database (DBX) That doesn't necessarily mention TPM. If you set Secure Boot Control to [Disabled], as seen on page 81 of 0409.pdf, then maybe you can get your OS media to boot. For whatever thing you have in mind. If it's a UEFI BIOS, then perhaps you'd want to try OS media which is Hybrid and supports both Legacy and UEFI. On your Win7 disc, you might want to try an SP1 flavor of disk, as it might stand a better chance of working. I don't know the status of Windows 7 when it comes to booting on stuff like this. I sure hope the owner read the "best practice" for whatever crypto is in usage. It could be BitLocker. It could be TrueCrypt for all I know. I don't really know what to look for, when it becomes apparent crypto is involved. Would the method print on the screen "I am BitLocker, and no you may not come in" ? Or would it fail silently ? You may have Win7 media, because you bought a retail disc with license key. In which case there is a Microsoft web page to download media (i.e. a more recent Win7 disc with SP1 on it). If you got the Win7 non-SP1 media at a fire sale, with no key, then you can use the Heidoc URL generator software, to make Microsoft cough up a download for you. The reason it has "steep requirements", is it uses Internet Explorer to carry out a transaction with TechBench, which coughs up a download URL, without the presentation of your license key. You use the "Copy to Clipboard" button in the panel, them flip over to any browser (Firefox) and paste in the download URL. The download URL is valid for 24 hours, so don't attempt a DVD download over dialup, as it might stretch past 24 hours. Any sort of broadband internet, should be able to complete the download in less than 24 hours. https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/techno...-download-tool You only need to download something, if you can't get your existing media to work. With Secure Boot turned off. Paul |
#5
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Asus X550J laptop
"Paul" wrote
| Best practice, is for the encrypting party to have | a "password floppy" or equivalent. You can make a | kind of recovery media, that allows decrypting the | partition in question. | I don't have any reason to think it's encrypted. But up until now I've managed to preety much avoid NTFS and newer boot systems. If I hook up a FAT32 disk to any computer I can read it. This disk is not showing up. So I'm wondering what system/software I might use just to check for valid partitions and test the drive. It has to be on a system, since the DVD drive boot is not working. What would the tech people who retrieved personal files used? | The manual shows it has Secure Boot. You would think the | choices would be "Yes" or "No", but AptIO apparently | supports "Custom". I didn't notice such a field. I guess I need to get up to date on these newer complications. | If you set Secure Boot Control to [Disabled], as seen on page 81 | of 0409.pdf, then maybe you can get your OS media to boot. For | whatever thing you have in mind. If it's a UEFI BIOS, then | perhaps you'd want to try OS media which is Hybrid and supports | both Legacy and UEFI. On your Win7 disc, you might want to try an | SP1 flavor of disk, as it might stand a better chance of working. | I don't know the status of Windows 7 when it comes to booting | on stuff like this. | I have a Win7 disk. But I'm not clear how that might be useful. Boot it in the DVD drive and then...? I *don't* have a Win8 disk and so far the owner hasn't found an activation key, so I'm not sure I could reinstall that way, even if I get the DVD boot working. (I thought the "genuine license" sticker was always on these things, but this laptop doesn't have it.) What about the phenomenon of gettting bumped? The boot typically goes through checking for disk errors, fixing errors, etc. but then either goes blank or goes to BIOS. At that point the hard disk has, at least sometimes, disappeared from the BIOS. Is it possible that's actually a boot or software issue and not a faulty SATA connection? |
#6
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Asus X550J laptop
Mayayana wrote:
"Paul" wrote | Best practice, is for the encrypting party to have | a "password floppy" or equivalent. You can make a | kind of recovery media, that allows decrypting the | partition in question. | I don't have any reason to think it's encrypted. But up until now I've managed to preety much avoid NTFS and newer boot systems. If I hook up a FAT32 disk to any computer I can read it. This disk is not showing up. So I'm wondering what system/software I might use just to check for valid partitions and test the drive. It has to be on a system, since the DVD drive boot is not working. What would the tech people who retrieved personal files used? | The manual shows it has Secure Boot. You would think the | choices would be "Yes" or "No", but AptIO apparently | supports "Custom". I didn't notice such a field. I guess I need to get up to date on these newer complications. | If you set Secure Boot Control to [Disabled], as seen on page 81 | of 0409.pdf, then maybe you can get your OS media to boot. For | whatever thing you have in mind. If it's a UEFI BIOS, then | perhaps you'd want to try OS media which is Hybrid and supports | both Legacy and UEFI. On your Win7 disc, you might want to try an | SP1 flavor of disk, as it might stand a better chance of working. | I don't know the status of Windows 7 when it comes to booting | on stuff like this. | I have a Win7 disk. But I'm not clear how that might be useful. Boot it in the DVD drive and then...? I *don't* have a Win8 disk and so far the owner hasn't found an activation key, so I'm not sure I could reinstall that way, even if I get the DVD boot working. (I thought the "genuine license" sticker was always on these things, but this laptop doesn't have it.) What about the phenomenon of gettting bumped? The boot typically goes through checking for disk errors, fixing errors, etc. but then either goes blank or goes to BIOS. At that point the hard disk has, at least sometimes, disappeared from the BIOS. Is it possible that's actually a boot or software issue and not a faulty SATA connection? About the only reason for booting the faulty computer with an installer DVD, would be to get to Command Prompt so you can run CHKDSK. At the moment, there's no reason to be running offline DISM or offline SFC scannow. You can also use BCDEDIT, and do repairs to the BCD table if it is damaged. So far, none of your symptoms suggest booting to a Command Prompt is going to help. It almost sounds like it's hitting a bad spot, and going crazy (or freezing). You can pull the drive and put it in your technician machine - the machine with the clean power and working interfaces. Then you can test there, to see if the symptoms are machine-related. A disk drive can go "insane" if the power requirements are not met. On a 3.5" drive, if the 12V rail hits 11V, the drive will spin down and spin up again. A bit of droop is enough to cause the processor to stop responding on the disk controller card. If the drive attempts to update the Service Area (=SA or Track -1), and is unable to write, then it might try a few "seek to zero" style head resets (clicking/ticking sound), then give up and stop responding. ******* On a Windows 8 laptop, the key is stored in the BIOS. Each BIOS chip has a unique key (which is unlike the scheme used on previous generations). The key is stored in the ACPI table "MSDM" (you can fetch this in Linux). There's really no particular reason to extract it, as a Win8 retail disk, if you install it, it will automatically activate, using the MSDM key. No other version of OS, will activate using that key (directly). The "free upgrade" to Windows 10 would have worked. But that's not a normal promotion. Win8/Win10 use MSDM. Since the key is stored in the BIOS chip, there is no reason to print a COA sticker for the outside of the machine. For Win7 or older, the SLIC table in the BIOS, contains information to support activation of "royalty OEM" OSes. The SLIC table says "I'm an Asus", and if the OS is an Asus OEM OS, it can be activated. The SLIC table would activate WinXP/Vista/Win7, so if Asus had three OSes for download, you could multi-boot with them. On SLIC machines, the license key used by the OS is "generic". A COA sticker with an emergency license key on it, allows the owner to install a retail OS later, if the hard drive fails. So SLIC is not a key, but it aids activation, and the SLIC needs a COA to complete the package. Paul |
#7
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Asus X550J laptop
"Paul" wrote
..... Secure boot seems to be at least part of the problem. With that turned off I'm getting either a login to reset or error c000021a. Ophcrack can't find a password needed for the reset. But it's progress. Thanks. I never would have thought of secure boot acting like the hard disk is loose! |
#8
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Asus X550J laptop
Mayayana wrote:
"Paul" wrote .... Secure boot seems to be at least part of the problem. With that turned off I'm getting either a login to reset or error c000021a. Ophcrack can't find a password needed for the reset. But it's progress. Thanks. I never would have thought of secure boot acting like the hard disk is loose! http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm "0xC000021A: STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED This occurs when Windows switches into kernel mode and a user-mode subsystem, such as Winlogon or the Client Server Runtime Subsystem (CSRSS), is compromised. " If you're getting that far along, then maybe it's a malware problem ? Or perhaps, an AV program has quarantined a file (false positive), trashing the machine. If you know an AV is present, see if you can figure out where the quarantines go. Alternately, if you know the AV used, check the news and see if a recent update caused mayhem amongst the user population. A false positive usually makes a big stink when a critical system file is moved. ******* You can use DISM and SFC, both in offline mode, to try and shore up system files. Normally, on a modern OS, DISM can chech on the Internet. If your Win10 booted, these can verify the content of WinSXS (for system stuff). The first checks a flag. The second does a read only scan. The third is read/write. You're supposed to try them in sequence for some reason. Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth Life is tougher of you're running DISM from a WinPE boot disk and a Command Prompt window. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...0a77fc1?auth=1 Bleckfield replied on November 11, 2015 mkdir c:\mount DISM.exe /mount-Image /ImageFile:d:\sources\install.wim /index:1 /mountdir:C:\mount\ /readonly # That would mount the WIM as a file system, within C:\mount # as the mount point. The mount point is merely a reference for # the beginning of the file tree mounted on top of it. DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth /Source:c:\mount\windows /LimitAccess # You can see that attempts to use the Windows folder on the # mount point, as a "reference" for restoration. It should be # able to restore any WinSXS files that happen to be on the # installer DVD version. It would help (obviously) if you use # a Win 8.1 disc of recent vintage - using a Win 8.0 DVD image # on a Win 8.1 system, I bet it would complain. # # As for the LimitAccess option, this is what it does. # I don't know if the network is even up, if you're running # WinPE by booting the installer DVD to Command Prompt. "You can use /LimitAccess to prevent the DISM tool from using Windows Update as a repair source or as a backup repair source for online images" So that's a basic idea as to how you could repair WinSXS. It may need some adjustments on your part, to get that working properly. If that finishes properly, the next thing is SFC, which checks that the System32 files are OK. You would do this in the same session. The trick here, is identifying which drive letter is which. I hate that, in this environment. Normally, X: is the Command Prompt OS partition. The C: partition could actually be C:, or in some cases it might be D: . I have to list disk contents until I'm convinced I'm pointed at the right partition to fix. The same issue arises, even with the previous command sequence - you have to positively identify your partitions, to pick "good" places to work :-) sfc /scannow /offbootdir=d:\ /offwindir=d:\windows So those two, would be intended to fix corrupted system files. This would be on a system that has already passed CHKDSK. And we all know, that using CHKDSK is a double-edged sword. It can fix stuff, or it can break stuff. It's nice to have a backup of the target, just in case you're not born lucky. You will need to salt these commands to taste. The above is merely some leads on what the commands *might* look like. Note - Eternal September has an incoming feed problem right now, which is damping the responses you might normally get. Good luck, Paul |
#9
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Asus X550J laptop
On 10/24/2017 8:47 PM, Paul wrote:
If the owner has valuable data on it, back up first, before charting a course of action. The temptation to run CHKDSK is probably overpowering, but see if you can back it up first. Â*Â* Paul I discovered the hard way that Win8.x disregards CHKDSK (!), and SMART eventually killed the drive's boot sectors with a similar experience as Mayayana's. So, it may be that if the notebook drive is old enough that SMART was relatively "new", it may not be 100% compatible with Win8.x, either. I booted the computer from a Linux thumb drive to get what I needed off of it and one of these days will install Linux on it, since the drive appears to be otherwise OK. -- best regards, Neil |
#10
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Asus X550J laptop
"Neil" wrote
| I discovered the hard way that Win8.x disregards CHKDSK (!), and SMART | eventually killed the drive's boot sectors | Could you explain that? I thought SMART was just a way to communicate diagnostic data from the drive. It's been decided to get a new disk. The old one is a WD10JPVX. I thought it was a hybrib but it seems to be just a normal moving disk type. Do you have any links to info that might be relevant? I'm trying to talk my friend into an SSD, but they're still very expensive. |
#11
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Asus X550J laptop
On 10/28/2017 9:40 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Neil" wrote | I discovered the hard way that Win8.x disregards CHKDSK (!), and SMART | eventually killed the drive's boot sectors | Could you explain that? I thought SMART was just a way to communicate diagnostic data from the drive. It's more than just info. SMART is a disk management tool built-in to the drive's firmware that performs the same kinds of functions as CHKDSK; it notes bad sectors, uses a portion of the drive's track to store that info, reassigns the data to sectors on a different track, and so on. The issue I ran into is that bad sectors that should have been isolated by CHKDSK was disregarded by Win8.1 and kept writing to those sectors until it exceeded the SMART's track allocation space. Do you have any links to info that might be relevant? I'd suggest doing a search to find info that best fits your level of understanding of the hardware. -- best regards, Neil |
#12
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Asus X550J laptop
"Neil" wrote
| | I discovered the hard way that Win8.x disregards CHKDSK (!), and SMART | | eventually killed the drive's boot sectors | | I don't understand. I very, very rarely run CHKDSK, so I don't see why it should have a big effect. | The issue I ran into is that bad sectors that should have been isolated | by CHKDSK was disregarded by Win8.1 and kept writing to those sectors | until it exceeded the SMART's track allocation space. | | Do | you have any links to info that might be relevant? | | I'd suggest doing a search to find info that best fits your level of | understanding of the hardware. You have no corroborating docs for your theory? Then how do you know that's what happened? |
#13
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Asus X550J laptop
"Neil" wrote
| So, it may be that if the notebook drive is old enough that | SMART was relatively "new", it may not be 100% compatible with Win8.x, | either. A follow-up note: The disk is only 3 years old. It's an Asus laptop that came with Win8. So I'm assuming it was a lemon disk. But I also wonder about frivolous disk activity. There seem to be an increasing number of programs that will keep accessing the disk as part of the always-on service model. The average person has no way of knowing that's happening. Also, this is my first time with a UEFI BIOS and I didn't know the details. An aspect that no one else seems to have caught: It turns out that UEFI is still transitional. BootIt and UBCD won't boot without the CSM module loaded. Memtest86 will. Win8 install DVD will boot with CSM but won't access GPT partitions unless booted with UEFI. Then there's also the SATA vs IDE emulation. The different settings cause different versions of drives -- or no drive at all -- to show up in the BIOS boot order. And there's no helpful message when things are incompatible. It would be nice if it showed something like: "Disk in DVD drive is not UEFI compatible." Instead, the drive just disappears from the boot order or fails to respond. That's crazy that the drive should disappear entirely from the BIOS boot order. It took me a long time to figure out that it all depended on a combination of SATA/IDE and UEFI/CSM variations, and the various disks I was trying to use. That led me on a wild goose chase of suspecting loose motherboard connections. |
#14
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Asus X550J laptop
Mayayana wrote:
"Neil" wrote | So, it may be that if the notebook drive is old enough that | SMART was relatively "new", it may not be 100% compatible with Win8.x, | either. A follow-up note: The disk is only 3 years old. It's an Asus laptop that came with Win8. So I'm assuming it was a lemon disk. But I also wonder about frivolous disk activity. There seem to be an increasing number of programs that will keep accessing the disk as part of the always-on service model. The average person has no way of knowing that's happening. Also, this is my first time with a UEFI BIOS and I didn't know the details. An aspect that no one else seems to have caught: It turns out that UEFI is still transitional. BootIt and UBCD won't boot without the CSM module loaded. Memtest86 will. Win8 install DVD will boot with CSM but won't access GPT partitions unless booted with UEFI. Then there's also the SATA vs IDE emulation. The different settings cause different versions of drives -- or no drive at all -- to show up in the BIOS boot order. And there's no helpful message when things are incompatible. It would be nice if it showed something like: "Disk in DVD drive is not UEFI compatible." Instead, the drive just disappears from the boot order or fails to respond. That's crazy that the drive should disappear entirely from the BIOS boot order. It took me a long time to figure out that it all depended on a combination of SATA/IDE and UEFI/CSM variations, and the various disks I was trying to use. That led me on a wild goose chase of suspecting loose motherboard connections. That's not how it's supposed to work. My newest motherboard, when in UEFI+CSM mode, offers *both* legacy and UEFI boot devices in the list. In fact, if media is hybrid and supports both modes of booting, there are *two* entries in the popup boot menu, one for the CSM instance, one for the UEFI instance. If I wanted a UEFI/GPT install of Windows 8, then in the BIOS, I would select the UEFI instance of the DVD drive on the first boot. I can boot anything I want as a result. Both ecosystems are supported simultaneously. If I want a UEFI only environment, I can disable CSM and only UEFI things happen. I've only done that the one time, for a series of experiments, because my attempts to do the same in VirtualBox, revealed the UEFI BIOS in VirtualBox is terrible. My BIOS is also smart enough to search the disks and find the first bootable one. When I have a data drive and an OS drive connected, I don't even need to interfere with the machine, and it just does the right thing. A good BIOS makes a big difference. Paul |
#15
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Asus X550J laptop
"Paul" wrote
| My newest motherboard, when in UEFI+CSM mode, | offers *both* legacy and UEFI boot devices in | the list. In fact, if media is hybrid and supports | both modes of booting, there are *two* entries | in the popup boot menu I have something lik that. The DVD drive can have up to 3 prepends in the boot menu: UEFI:, P2:, SATA:, and there can be up to 2 instances, depending on settings. But there are also instances where it disappears. In any case, I didn't know about UEFI/CSM and no one told me. It took awhile to figure out that there can be many variations. Many boot disks won't boot to UEFI. But if it's already UEFI, with GPT partitioning, then Windows can't install with it set to CSM. Lots of details. I mention it here because I expect there are a lot of people who are not aware of just how quirky the system is. I'm inclined to re-install to MBR. It's limited to 2 TB, but I don't expect to be worrying about that anytime soon. In the meantime it's got much better general compatibility. |
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