STUCK On "Checking NVRAM"

Still flailing away, I see.

When Automatic Update is not enabled, Windows Update displays a progress
bar -- not a timer -- on the bottom. Above the progress bar is an open
area that tells you when each update has downloaded and when each has
installed. No window displays when you select Automatic Update. (Updates
download and install in the background at the time you choose.)

---
Leonard Grey
Errare Humanum Est

CmosDriver wrote:
Alister,

I went to "OnChip S-ATA Controller" and "disabled" within the BIOS. The
Maxtor HD has no OS on it and got the same results (NVRAM) when I tried to
run just the HD and the XP disk. It totally bypasses the cd drive, it's not
even looking at it. - - - I may be offbase w/my suspicions but I have never
seen a "Windows Update pop up window" w/a countdown timer in it. I don't know
how, but I believe something had to have crept onto my computer. Are you or
anyone else out there familiar wthat sort of window from Microsoft pertaining
to updates??

Hi Wayne,

Well that is progress of a sort :-)

Couple of things to point out:

Firstly, when the computer is showing the "Checking NVRAM" message,
what it is doing is comparing
the list of hardware it stored last time it booted, with what it can
find connected - thus it will normally say
Update Success or something similar when it has finished doing that.
Now because you reset the CMOS
that list is probably blank.
The second thing is that a lot of SATA motherboards won't ignore a
SATA channel if it is enabled in the BIOS
unlike IDE where they are always enabled but it just ignores them if
nothing is found.
If your SATA channels are enabled, it expects to find something on
them and throws its toys out
of the pram if it can't find any.

Could you disconnect all your drives, and go into the BIOS and disable
your SATA channels, and then
just connect your Maxtor as Primary master on the IDE with no CD / DVD
drives and try a reboot.

What we are trying to do is get it to successfully pass the "Checking
NVRAM" stage.

Did you say there was an OS on the Maxtor or is it blank?

I think your problem is possibly the SATA connections - could be a
faulty mobo still but
lets rule out that it's not just your drives.

Alister

On Nov 14, 6:36 pm, CmosDriver
wrote:
Alister,

I went to "OnChip S-ATA Controller" and "disabled" within the BIOS. The
Maxtor HD has no OS on it and got the same results (NVRAM) when I tried to
run just the HD and the XP disk. It totally bypasses the cd drive, it's not
even looking at it. - - - I may be offbase w/my suspicions but I have never
seen a "Windows Update pop up window" w/a countdown timer in it. I don't know
how, but I believe something had to have crept onto my computer. Are you or
anyone else out there familiar wthat sort of window from Microsoft pertaining
to updates??



If you had Automatic update enabled, you would get a taskbar
notification (on a yellow background) that an update had taken
place which required a reboot, but this would not include a countdown
timer, or you may get a similar message that windows
had rebooted itself, but again that would not contain a timer.
Windows update does not use Popup Windows, although it does sometimes
use a standard grey message box.
On that basis, I agree that your suspicions could be correct, and that
you could have been infected with a virus / malware of some kind.

It is possible - though rare - for a virus to corrupt the Flash BIOS,
which would give similar symptoms to those
you describe - and then the only remedy is to replace the motherboard.

However, the symptoms you describe are much more likely to be as a
result of a hardware error.

The things I have been suggesting you do have been to try and identify
whether you had such an error.

If it is a virus, it could well have wiped the Master boot record of
your hard drive - making it unbootable,
but the majority of your data will still be intact and recoverable by
using fixboot and fixmbr utilities.

Alister

Unfortunately it seems that FLaiLiNg is the only thing left I have to resort
to. :-) I haven't had this mobo and the first SATA HD a good month and a
half and now I might have to toss the mobo. I just bought the 2nd SATA drive
(500gig) for extra storage 4 days ago on the 10th. I'm (NOW) thinking in the
back of my mind that maybe all of this has something to do with that drive
but... I've had no problems at all until that strange countdown update window
popped up the other morning. I just had XP to initialize it and off I went.
Didn't load anything from the disk that came with the drive. I'm about ready
to throw my hands up and write a concession speech.


"Leonard Grey" wrote:

Still flailing away, I see.

When Automatic Update is not enabled, Windows Update displays a progress
bar -- not a timer -- on the bottom. Above the progress bar is an open
area that tells you when each update has downloaded and when each has
installed. No window displays when you select Automatic Update. (Updates
download and install in the background at the time you choose.)

---
Leonard Grey
Errare Humanum Est

Some talking points for your concession speech:

"How To Keep Your Computer Malware Free"
http://www.howtodothings.com/compute...r-malware-free
---
Leonard Grey
Errare Humanum Est

CmosDriver wrote:
Unfortunately it seems that FLaiLiNg is the only thing left I have to resort
to. :-) I haven't had this mobo and the first SATA HD a good month and a
half and now I might have to toss the mobo. I just bought the 2nd SATA drive
(500gig) for extra storage 4 days ago on the 10th. I'm (NOW) thinking in the
back of my mind that maybe all of this has something to do with that drive
but... I've had no problems at all until that strange countdown update window
popped up the other morning. I just had XP to initialize it and off I went.
Didn't load anything from the disk that came with the drive. I'm about ready
to throw my hands up and write a concession speech.


"Leonard Grey" wrote:

Still flailing away, I see.

When Automatic Update is not enabled, Windows Update displays a progress
bar -- not a timer -- on the bottom. Above the progress bar is an open
area that tells you when each update has downloaded and when each has
installed. No window displays when you select Automatic Update. (Updates
download and install in the background at the time you choose.)

---
Leonard Grey
Errare Humanum Est

From: Ian
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2008 Time: 13:14:31

From: Leonard Grey
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 2008 Time: 22:07:36

Ad-Aware and Spybot (S & D) are consistently rated near the bottom for
effectiveness in test after test.

Hmmm. Can you point us to instances where people have said that?


As I suspected. Unsubstantiated bluster!

Sigh.

--
Ian