A
Andrew
Hello.
I have a Compaq Presario 2100 laptop with Windows XP Professional
Service Pack
1a and an Intel Celeron 1.6GHz processor. I have set up a dual-boot
system
with Linux (Debian Etch 4.0r1). I used Debian for a few days before
requiring
to use Windows XP again. During those few days my compact disc drive
died and
I had to replace it. I also used my Linksys WPC54G v3 Wireless LAN
CardBus PC
Card.
One point I would like to make (that I don't know if I can rectify) is
that
during Debian's configuration, the systemroot moved from partition #2
to
partition #1. The old partition #1, a FAT32 volume of 500 MB that was
empty was
removed -- I believe it was used for a Linux/Windows share at one
time. This
caused me to change the boot.ini. The problem did not occur before
the
installation of Debian, however so many things changed that I don't
know where
to begin repairing.
When I booted the system into Windows XP I was greeted by my normal
startup
sequence my PIM (Above and Beyond 2004), Google Talk, Windows Live
Messenger,
and the QuickTime system tray icon loaded. I opened iTunes and bought
a song.
However, when it began to download, iTunes locked. I opened Task
Manager and
attempted to use End Task, but it would not End Task. After trying
End Task a
number of times, I decided to use End Process. This failed many times
as well.
I assumed it was a fluke, and attempted to power off the machine. It
shut
almost all the way down, but stayed on the blue background with a
mouse cursor
(the "Windows is shutting down..." dialog was finished). After many
minutes
waiting for it to power off, I used the power button to manually power
off.
(I later find out the reason for this behaviour.)
The next day, I opened iTunes. I subscribe to a podcast, and a new
episode was
out. When it attempted to download the file, it again locked. I was
able to
pin this behaviour to the download mechanism. After checking the
permissions
and doing some tests on the iTunes Library folder, I concluded that it
may be a
program glitch.
To my dismay, while attempting to remove it, msiexec locked as well.
This
piqued my interest. This had happened many months ago on a QuickTime
install I
had. A resolution was to move the QuickTime folder to the Recycle Bin
and do a
clean install. So, I attempted to do this with iTunes. The change
was that
now the iTunes installer also locked.
Opening Task Manager, I realised that ALL of the msiexecs were
running, with 0%
CPU usage and minimal memory usage, and could not be killed. After
extensive
Googling I finally found out that this is caused by a wait in kernel-
mode for a
mutex lock to be released. I proceeded to download Debugging Tools
for Windows
(to run a kernel debug session). When I started the download,
however, Firefox
promptly locked. I run a beta version of Firefox 3, so I tried to use
Internet
Explorer it promptly locked on open.
I was able to download and extract (using msiexec /a
dbg_x86_6.8.1.0.msi /qd)
the files on a desktop machine. I have since been using WinDbg hosted
on a
network share from this machine, with Windows XP Service Pack 1a Debug
Symbols
installed.
After this, I ran WinDbg. I was able to get some debug information
onto the
clipboard, and pasted into Notepad. However, when I went to save it,
I opened
the "Look in:" drop down box. Notepad locked. I finally found the
"Write
Window Text To File" option in WinDbg, and was able to write it.
After many more days of using WinDbg, following its instructions about
how to
install a checked version of the kernel and HAL (halacpi.dll,
confirmed by
%systemroot%\repair\setup.log), and loading the checked version of
NTFS.SYS, I
have found a debug trace that shows where the NTFS driver seems to
hang itself.
I am hoping that this may shed some light as to what the problem is.
It
doesn't seem to respond to the pending IRP.
To be honest, I don't really even know what to ask anymore. The only
thing I
can ask is how can I possibly save this machine? I have no way of
backing up
my files, except through a parallel port data transfer cable with
almost 13
gigabytes of data to archive, this would painfully slow (and take
about 20 days
solid, without stopping).
If there is any further data you require about my situation or
configurations,
please let me know.
One other further note I recall: changing drives on the command prompt
cause it
to lock as well. The partition layout, as I recall, is similar to
this. I
can't obtain exact figures because diskpart reports "The disk
management
services could not complete the operation." (Disk Management in MMC
will not
run, either.)
partition #1 XP system/boot 13GB
partition #2 music 5GB
partition #3 misc 2GB
extended:
partition #4 Linux system/root 8GB
partition #5 Linux swap 500MB
I thank you for reading this post.
Andrew Wilcox
Debug logs: http://76.26.0.123/debug1.txt -and- http://76.26.0.123/debug2.txt
I have a Compaq Presario 2100 laptop with Windows XP Professional
Service Pack
1a and an Intel Celeron 1.6GHz processor. I have set up a dual-boot
system
with Linux (Debian Etch 4.0r1). I used Debian for a few days before
requiring
to use Windows XP again. During those few days my compact disc drive
died and
I had to replace it. I also used my Linksys WPC54G v3 Wireless LAN
CardBus PC
Card.
One point I would like to make (that I don't know if I can rectify) is
that
during Debian's configuration, the systemroot moved from partition #2
to
partition #1. The old partition #1, a FAT32 volume of 500 MB that was
empty was
removed -- I believe it was used for a Linux/Windows share at one
time. This
caused me to change the boot.ini. The problem did not occur before
the
installation of Debian, however so many things changed that I don't
know where
to begin repairing.
When I booted the system into Windows XP I was greeted by my normal
startup
sequence my PIM (Above and Beyond 2004), Google Talk, Windows Live
Messenger,
and the QuickTime system tray icon loaded. I opened iTunes and bought
a song.
However, when it began to download, iTunes locked. I opened Task
Manager and
attempted to use End Task, but it would not End Task. After trying
End Task a
number of times, I decided to use End Process. This failed many times
as well.
I assumed it was a fluke, and attempted to power off the machine. It
shut
almost all the way down, but stayed on the blue background with a
mouse cursor
(the "Windows is shutting down..." dialog was finished). After many
minutes
waiting for it to power off, I used the power button to manually power
off.
(I later find out the reason for this behaviour.)
The next day, I opened iTunes. I subscribe to a podcast, and a new
episode was
out. When it attempted to download the file, it again locked. I was
able to
pin this behaviour to the download mechanism. After checking the
permissions
and doing some tests on the iTunes Library folder, I concluded that it
may be a
program glitch.
To my dismay, while attempting to remove it, msiexec locked as well.
This
piqued my interest. This had happened many months ago on a QuickTime
install I
had. A resolution was to move the QuickTime folder to the Recycle Bin
and do a
clean install. So, I attempted to do this with iTunes. The change
was that
now the iTunes installer also locked.
Opening Task Manager, I realised that ALL of the msiexecs were
running, with 0%
CPU usage and minimal memory usage, and could not be killed. After
extensive
Googling I finally found out that this is caused by a wait in kernel-
mode for a
mutex lock to be released. I proceeded to download Debugging Tools
for Windows
(to run a kernel debug session). When I started the download,
however, Firefox
promptly locked. I run a beta version of Firefox 3, so I tried to use
Internet
Explorer it promptly locked on open.
I was able to download and extract (using msiexec /a
dbg_x86_6.8.1.0.msi /qd)
the files on a desktop machine. I have since been using WinDbg hosted
on a
network share from this machine, with Windows XP Service Pack 1a Debug
Symbols
installed.
After this, I ran WinDbg. I was able to get some debug information
onto the
clipboard, and pasted into Notepad. However, when I went to save it,
I opened
the "Look in:" drop down box. Notepad locked. I finally found the
"Write
Window Text To File" option in WinDbg, and was able to write it.
After many more days of using WinDbg, following its instructions about
how to
install a checked version of the kernel and HAL (halacpi.dll,
confirmed by
%systemroot%\repair\setup.log), and loading the checked version of
NTFS.SYS, I
have found a debug trace that shows where the NTFS driver seems to
hang itself.
I am hoping that this may shed some light as to what the problem is.
It
doesn't seem to respond to the pending IRP.
To be honest, I don't really even know what to ask anymore. The only
thing I
can ask is how can I possibly save this machine? I have no way of
backing up
my files, except through a parallel port data transfer cable with
almost 13
gigabytes of data to archive, this would painfully slow (and take
about 20 days
solid, without stopping).
If there is any further data you require about my situation or
configurations,
please let me know.
One other further note I recall: changing drives on the command prompt
cause it
to lock as well. The partition layout, as I recall, is similar to
this. I
can't obtain exact figures because diskpart reports "The disk
management
services could not complete the operation." (Disk Management in MMC
will not
run, either.)
partition #1 XP system/boot 13GB
partition #2 music 5GB
partition #3 misc 2GB
extended:
partition #4 Linux system/root 8GB
partition #5 Linux swap 500MB
I thank you for reading this post.
Andrew Wilcox
Debug logs: http://76.26.0.123/debug1.txt -and- http://76.26.0.123/debug2.txt