T60 hangs on XP boot

[lordsnipe]

Hey guys,

Just wondering if anyone has had a similar issue to me and fixed their T60. I have a T60 widescreen which no longer boots into XP.

Symptoms:
- Goes to show the XP boot animation and hangs.
- Booting into safe mode hangs at mup.sys
- Booting a XP CD (to try and get into the recovery console) hangs at the "Starting Microsoft Windows" prompt after loading drivers.
- Booting into the R&R environment will hang at the "Please Wait" prompt.

I pulled out the hard drive, put it into a caddy and ran a chkdsk over it, with no errors. I then copied over mup.sys in a few locations on the drive which didn't fix anything.

With the hard drive pulled out, I tried to load the Mini XP environment on a Hirens 9.8 CD and that hangs at the same place (going to show the boot logo), so I know it's not HDD related.

I've also tried loading defaults on the BIOS. No luck. BIOS is 1.19.

Anyone experienced the same issue and fixed it?


Cheers in advance

Alex

[RealBlackStuff]

What you see in save mode is the last driver that loaded successfully (mup.sys).
It's the stuff after that, that's failing (and therefore you don't see it).
Check this out: http://www.aitechsolutions.net/mupdotsysXPhang.html

[lordsnipe]

Thanks for that RBS...

* Hard disk failure or corruption
Can't be as Hiren's Mini XP environment also doesn't boot with the HDD removed.
* A corrupted registry or registry hive
See above.
* New hardware has been installed but not did not completely "Register or re-Register" correctly
* New hardware has been installed but it is faulty or failing
* The new hardware's driver or windows itself has been compromised (Disk data corruption or by a virus) or (rare) needs to be updated
No new hardware has been added.
* The power supply is marginal in output or failing (Common per user feedback)
I've used the power supply from a T60p I keep at home and is the same.
* BIOS\ESCD\Motherboard chipset driver conflict with a component, its driver, or its registry data
* Existing hardware including the motherboard may have failed in a specific way but not catastrophically.
Looking more like the case....

It says to try and clear the ACPI/ESCD data.. is this possible with the Lenovo BIOS? Otherwise it mentions to try and reflash which I might try and do, but seem skeptical...

This machine is kept at my parents place .. it was working one night, I shut it down, and a few days later, would no longer start.

[RealBlackStuff]

Run PC Doctor: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=DS000722
Also, try another power supply, resp. try another outlet in another room.

[ajkula66]

Flashing BIOS on an unstable machine is something I'd avoid...at all costs.

How's your main b attery?

Have you tested the RAM thoroughly?

[lordsnipe]

Thanks for the suggestions guys .. appreciate it .. here's some replies:

Run PC Doctor: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=DS000722
Also, try another power supply, resp. try another outlet in another room.

Will give PC Doctor a run and see what it comes up with. I have tried another power supply. I have a T60p at home and I use this particular T60 and my parent's place. After it stopped booting, I've since taken it home and am using the T60p's power supply and is doing the same. And it is in another outlet in another room, in another house

Flashing BIOS on an unstable machine is something I'd avoid...at all costs.

How's your main b attery?

Have you tested the RAM thoroughly?

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I also tried pulling the battery and booting the machine, with no success. In regards to RAM, I haven't run a full memtest86 but it ran through the first few tests fine to which I then stopped it...

[TuuS]

I'd remove all cards and drives, insert known good ram and optical drive and boot disc. If it won't boot, change your system board.

You've pretty much ruled out everything else, but you may try a new cpu first. They rarely fail, but if one did, this wouldn't be inconsistent way for it to present.

[davidgurvich]

Identical problem. Hard drive failed smart test and failed manufacturer quick test. Multiple bad sectors. Replacing with a good drive fixed the problem.

[TuuS]

Identical problem. Hard drive failed smart test and failed manufacturer quick test. Multiple bad sectors. Replacing with a good drive fixed the problem.

Not Identical problem, similar symptoms perhaps, but in his case, it does this with no harddrive installed, so it's definitely not just a bad drive.

[lordsnipe]

OK,

memtest86 went through a 100% pass with no errors, so memory is good.
PC Doctor didn't really say anything was wrong.
Reflashing BIOS didn't do anything.

I was able to boot my XP CD (not R&R) by pressing F5 on the 'RAID driver' prompt and then selecting a 'Standard PC'. This doesn't use ACPI drivers I presume which is what I suspected is now faulty on this machine. Running a chkdsk on the recovery console came back with no errors.

I've reinstalled XP using a retail CD and hitting F5 as described above. I could setup the PC again, but I'm not too sure how much longer it'll last if the ACPI is already dodgy. Looking at the cost of replacement motherboards, I'd say it's probably easier/more convenient and not much more expensive to buy another complete laptop.

[RistoE]

I was able to boot my XP CD (not R&R) by pressing F5 on the 'RAID driver' prompt and then selecting a 'Standard PC'. This doesn't use ACPI drivers I presume which is what I suspected is now faulty on this machine. Running a chkdsk on the recovery console came back with no errors.

Have you been playing with BIOS settings? Windows XP does not know SATA mode "ACHI" by default.

[lordsnipe]

Not when it first started playing up but I changed it afterwards and it made no difference.

[MaxRoy77]

I wonder how it end up since I have the same problem on Win7 x64 with T60.