boot failure yoyo (o looks like infinity symbol)

Hi all,
I have an xp home machine that wont boot.
It gets as far as checking the CD for a bootable disk and then fails on the
hard drive. The last line of the screen reads: yoyo

well not really yoyo . it looks like that , but on inspection the o in yoyo
is what looks like the infinity symbol.

I booted with XP cd and tried FIXBOOT but no joy
I tried a repair install of XP but the hard drive would not boot - same
message.

I connected the hard drive to another computer and have access to all the
files on it.

Any ideas?
cheers

"someone_else" wrote in
message ...
Hi all,
I have an xp home machine that wont boot.
It gets as far as checking the CD for a bootable disk and then fails on
the
hard drive. The last line of the screen reads: yoyo

well not really yoyo . it looks like that , but on inspection the o in
yoyo
is what looks like the infinity symbol.

I booted with XP cd and tried FIXBOOT but no joy
I tried a repair install of XP but the hard drive would not boot - same
message.

I connected the hard drive to another computer and have access to all the
files on it.

Any ideas?
cheers


First run a RAM test and the manufacture's harddrive diagnostic...
if your H/W is OK...

from the other machine...backup all your data
and confirm it's all there...and it's all good.


Now put the drive back in the original machine,
format it and perform a clean install.

On 12.10.2008 13:07, someone_else wrote:
Hi all,
I have an xp home machine that wont boot.
It gets as far as checking the CD for a bootable disk and then fails on the
hard drive. The last line of the screen reads: yoyo

well not really yoyo . it looks like that , but on inspection the o in yoyo
is what looks like the infinity symbol.

I booted with XP cd and tried FIXBOOT but no joy
I tried a repair install of XP but the hard drive would not boot - same
message.

I connected the hard drive to another computer and have access to all the
files on it.

Any ideas?

I am interested as well. I also see "YoYo" when trying to boot from
harddisk. My situation is a bit different though, as I cannot even log
in to the Windows XP Home installation using Windows Recovery Console.
If I do this, the system immediately reboots. I can boot with Knoppix
CD and access all files on all the disks. This is weird. It happened
after an upgrade of avast virus scanner, but I am not sure whether this
is really the culprit.

Things I tried in the meantime: disabling UDMA mode in BIOS, removing CD
burner and DVD reader from IDE channels, doing a complete virus scan
using Avira's recovery CD.

I tried a demo version of a hardware test tool but that did not reveal
anything substantial. Only noticeable thing is that it reports user
cancellation of the disk read test on the boot disk (hd0) although I did
not intervene. This does not happen on the other disk.

Again, any ideas?

Kind regards

robert


PS: Additional info: the system is pretty old, Pentium P4 1.8GHz, 1GB RAM.

"Robert Klemme" wrote in message
...
On 12.10.2008 13:07, someone_else wrote:
Hi all,
I have an xp home machine that wont boot.
It gets as far as checking the CD for a bootable disk and then fails on
the hard drive. The last line of the screen reads: yoyo

well not really yoyo . it looks like that , but on inspection the o in
yoyo is what looks like the infinity symbol.

I booted with XP cd and tried FIXBOOT but no joy
I tried a repair install of XP but the hard drive would not boot - same
message.

I connected the hard drive to another computer and have access to all the
files on it.

Any ideas?

I am interested as well. I also see "YoYo" when trying to boot from
harddisk. My situation is a bit different though, as I cannot even log in
to the Windows XP Home installation using Windows Recovery Console. If I
do this, the system immediately reboots. I can boot with Knoppix CD and
access all files on all the disks. This is weird. It happened after an
upgrade of avast virus scanner, but I am not sure whether this is really
the culprit.

Things I tried in the meantime: disabling UDMA mode in BIOS, removing CD
burner and DVD reader from IDE channels, doing a complete virus scan using
Avira's recovery CD.

I tried a demo version of a hardware test tool but that did not reveal
anything substantial. Only noticeable thing is that it reports user
cancellation of the disk read test on the boot disk (hd0) although I did
not intervene. This does not happen on the other disk.

Again, any ideas?

Kind regards

robert


PS: Additional info: the system is pretty old, Pentium P4 1.8GHz, 1GB RAM.

sorry I lost track of this thread ... but F.Y.I. .... I saved all the data
on the drive by attaching it to another system using a USB caddy . then I
carried out a clean install of XP .. and restored the user data .. now all
is well. I still don't know what the problem was, but I speculate maybe the
user installed a root kit which failed. just a wild guess.

On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:25:17 -0000, "who?"
wrote:


sorry I lost track of this thread ... but F.Y.I. .... I saved all the data
on the drive by attaching it to another system using a USB caddy . then I
carried out a clean install of XP .. and restored the user data .. now all
is well. I still don't know what the problem was, but I speculate maybe the
user installed a root kit which failed. just a wild guess.



If I understand the situation correctly, that the failure
point was an inability to transition from the system bios
enumeration to finding the drive as a valid boot device to
even begin booting windows, is isn't likely to be a rootkit
since it could not have begun to load.

Assuming you have done the clean install of XP onto the same
drive, a few things remain (and possibly more I can't think
of at the moment).

A MBR virus might prevent booting, but given the yoyo it
would seem more likely there was either a electrical
connection problem (marginal data cable or intermittent
connection at either end of the cable), or the drive is
intermittently failing. The former is easy enough to check
by trying a different cable. The later might suggest
checking the drive with the HDD manufacturer utility to
confirm that it, at least for now, passes the tests.


IMO, this can be the worst kind of failure because if the
exact problem were found, clear steps to resolve it can be
taken, but without that resolution there is still potential
that it can happen again. I'd be extra diligent in making
data backups for awhile.

On 27.11.2008 19:12, kony wrote:
On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 13:25:17 -0000, "who?"
wrote:

sorry I lost track of this thread ... but F.Y.I. .... I saved all the data
on the drive by attaching it to another system using a USB caddy . then I
carried out a clean install of XP .. and restored the user data .. now all
is well. I still don't know what the problem was, but I speculate maybe the
user installed a root kit which failed. just a wild guess.



If I understand the situation correctly, that the failure
point was an inability to transition from the system bios
enumeration to finding the drive as a valid boot device to
even begin booting windows, is isn't likely to be a rootkit
since it could not have begun to load.

Assuming you have done the clean install of XP onto the same
drive, a few things remain (and possibly more I can't think
of at the moment).

A MBR virus might prevent booting, but given the yoyo it
would seem more likely there was either a electrical
connection problem (marginal data cable or intermittent
connection at either end of the cable), or the drive is
intermittently failing. The former is easy enough to check
by trying a different cable. The later might suggest
checking the drive with the HDD manufacturer utility to
confirm that it, at least for now, passes the tests.


IMO, this can be the worst kind of failure because if the
exact problem were found, clear steps to resolve it can be
taken, but without that resolution there is still potential
that it can happen again. I'd be extra diligent in making
data backups for awhile.

Exactly. For me it is the second time the issue comes up. First time I
assumed a software issue but since it happened again after upgrading a
different piece of software I rather suspect an issue in the HD
controller, especially in write mode. The disk test utility did not
find anything, no entries in S.M.A.R.T. nor any failures during stress
test (read only though). Another reason might be a broken UDMA mode in
the controller since the test utility apparently does not use UDMA.

MBR and boot sektor seem ok, so this might rather be a corrupted
registry or something caused by the controller failure. Virus scanner
didn't find anything so that should not be the cause.

Kind regards

robert

On 27.11.2008 20:26, Robert Klemme wrote:
Exactly. For me it is the second time the issue comes up. First time I
assumed a software issue but since it happened again after upgrading a
different piece of software I rather suspect an issue in the HD
controller, especially in write mode. The disk test utility did not
find anything, no entries in S.M.A.R.T. nor any failures during stress
test (read only though). Another reason might be a broken UDMA mode in
the controller since the test utility apparently does not use UDMA.

MBR and boot sektor seem ok, so this might rather be a corrupted
registry or something caused by the controller failure. Virus scanner
didn't find anything so that should not be the cause.

Just a quick summary: turns out my on board IDE controller is defect.
Reading works properly but during some write operations it fails.
Apparently this messed up my Windows installation during upgrade of my
virus scanner. Bought an IDE controller card and after going through
some hoops (needed to flash the controller BIOS because that was too
old), did a Windows repair installation and all is well again.

Kind regards

robert