Hello,

The other day using my laptop (running XP) i got the blue screen of death out of no where and since then have not been able to reboot into windows. Just before it goes to show the desktop it shows the blue screen then restarts itself.

I was able to access safe mode, but the menu showing me what options were available(e.g. Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, etc.) was messed up. words were mispelled and characters were all over the place. For example it would show 'Safe Mode with Nasfafadsda' which is suppose to say Networking. This happens on all screens available to me including the RAID utility, the BIOS screen is the only normal screen.

I have since formatted and reinstalled windows only to find that when i went to restart, i was shown the same blue screen and was back to square one. I have also deleted the RAID array from the utility (which still has wierd spellings) so does not recongise windows.

Now when i reboot i am faced with a screen talking about some error:
PXE-E61: Media test faliure, check cable

as well as some other info, followed by "check boot media", witht the word 'boot' spelt 'bggt'

I have never come across anything like this before where i presume the problem could lie within the boot sector.

My laptop is a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M3438, with 2 60GB SATA HDD running RAID0.

Any help would be much appreciated, i am going nuts.

Regards
Nick

Hi Nickm687,

Welcome to the forums.

First thing I would check is that all the cables attaching the drives to your board are in snugly. Otherwise, I'm thinking one of your drives are going south on you. Otherwise, again, you could be looking at the sings of early board failure. I'm hoping it's just a drive cable.

Is it only Windows related Items that are messing up or is your POST getting wierd spellings too.

HI double_a_ron,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I was hoping that it was more software related than hardware, but that seems to not be the case. Im quite experienced with computers, but have never come across aything like this before.

All screens come with distortion apart for the BIOS screen, i do not beleive its windows related. as i have deleted the RAID array it will not be reading the OS on it.

One thing that does seem wierd is that the spelling mistakes are the same each time i reboot.

For the RAID utility to be messed up as well seems like a major problem. Where would this be stored, on the hard drive or the motherboard?

Nick

If it's an onboard RAID controller, the utility would be on the board with it. What happens when you disable the raid controller in the CMOS...anything Different? Otherwise, all I can recommend is disabling onboard devices one at a time, then features, then, well everything you can while still seeing a POST Screen. If your POST is garbled/distorted/corrupted, I'm afraid it's likely this could end in tears.