Problem with "oversize" HDD's ?

[RonnyB]

I have a problem since I ran the latest version of Ccleaner the other day on my fairly fresh install of WinXP SP2 ....

 

- can't boot

- can't repair/re-install WinXP SP2

- system seems to hang with XP doing "Inspectitng Hardware ... "

 

However Knoppix 4 will boot off the system fine and runs fine.

 

Some possible causes ?

 

- the motherboard is an older one: MSI K7T-Turbo with Duron 1.4

- the HDD is a new Seagate ATA 250GB

- the mobo only sees about 136GB

- WinXP SP2 install saw the whole thing, however.

- thte initial install of XP and various programs went fine.

 

Then a few days later I ran the new Ccleaner.

 

- it found 1.5GB of stuff to remove. Given how fresh the install of XP and programs was, that probably should have set off alarm bells ... but I let it go ahead.

- after rebooting, I can no longer boot ... or install XP from the CD

- but Knoppix runs fine ... so I think most of my hardware is OK

 

Any idea if this is a CCleaner bug ? My local hardware supplier suggested it could be due to Ccleaner basing it's actions on the HDD "as seen by the BIOS" and not by Windows. And that somehow WinXP can't even repair itself ... that the HDD is in some sort of limbo ... at least as far as XP is concerned ...

 

Comments ?

[lokoike]

My local hardware supplier suggested it could be due to Ccleaner basing it's actions on the HDD "as seen by the BIOS" and not by Windows. And that somehow WinXP can't even repair itself ... that the HDD is in some sort of limbo ... at least as far as XP is concerned ...

 

Comments ?

Well first off, I doubt that hardware supplier has ever used CCleaner, because to the best of my knowledge, CCleaner doesn't rely on the BIOS to remove files and such. It is programmed in Visual Basic, so I don't think it uses low level stuff like that.

 

The funny thing is, Windows XP takes almost exactly 1.5 GB. So here is a funny question: Is there any possible way that your Windows installation was not finished being installed, or somehow Windows was installed under the "temp" directory? That would be absolutely ridiculous if it was, but CCleaner unquestioningly removes anything found in the "temp" folder, so it is a possibility.

 

The only problem with CCleaner removing Windows is that Windows would have to have not been running for this to happen, since CCleaner can't remove files that are currently in use. And CCleaner requires Windows to work, so the problem you have is very strange indeed.

 

To get your Windows back on track, use an external disk formatting utility, such as a Win98 Startup floppy, and format your hard drive. Then you'll be able to reinstall XP at least. Once you have a fresh Windows install, reinstall CCleaner, and instead of using the "Run Cleaner" button, click the "Analyze" button instead. If it comes up with a huge amount of files to be removed again, copy down the files listed, and post them here.

[RonnyB]

Yeah, I am sure that this must be a fairly freak thing that has happened. There must be lots of copys of Ccleaner running on systems with large HDD's recognized size-wise by WinXP, and not the BIOS ... right ?

 

Anyway, I am inclined to (after talking to my sys admin friend) see if my mobo maker has a BIOS update ... so that it will handle 48-bit addresses .... and then blow away the partition with FDISK or similar ... and then reinstall WinXP SP2 ... and then run Ccleaner, before I go to the trouble of installing a lot of programs (like I did already ... :-( ) ... and see what happens.

 

What if there is no such BIOS update ? Well I'll cross that bridge later today ... or not.

 

-RS-

[RonnyB]

Just an update to say that I updated the BIOS on the mobo and after that, rebooted and immediately went into the BIOS ... and I could see that it now saw the whole 250GB ... and then let it reboot ... and XP came up and everything seems to be there and OK ... well, CorelDraw 12 would not really run, so I uninstalled it and re-installed it and it seems to be OK now. There may be other things that were lost during the Ccleaner action that I will discover.

 

But has anyone heard of anyone else having a similar problem ... where the BIOS didn't really recognize the drive over 137GB, but WinXP SP2 did ... and an install took place ... and Ccleaner somehow clobbered the system?

 

[Eldmannen]

I never have heard of anything like that.

And I dont see how CCleaner could cause that damage, because CCleaner dont really care how little or how big your disk is, it checks if files or registry entries are present, and if they are it removes them.