Hey Fella,

Dont know if you have resolved your problems or not, but I had similar issues but not on a media centre, It turned out to be a couple of duff sectors on the HDD where the PC was doing something and lost power so corrupted that small portion of the drive, Use drive fitness test or something along those lines this program will move any duff sector areas to the end of the HDD table so Windows wont address them and cause a BOD, the tool is a manufacturer tool so dependent on the make of your drive go see if there are any low level tools you can use I know there to be a tool for each of the major manufacturers out there, If you cant find them post here and I will sedn you the links.

Also as Samker and yourself highlighted although the memory sticks are working I have seen issues with work machines where one of the Memory sticks may be droping a I/O bit due to power isssues or more likely the age of the stick espcially if the machine gets hammered being a Media centre I guess it does streaming e.t.c so I would consider it a "Work Horse". it's the same as our work machines they get left on 24/7 hence why they develop these stange little faults although it does make for interesting fault finding!!!

Hope this helps...Any updates let us know we may be bale to assist further...

Hi Samker.. I think it might be hardware related. 

I took all the RAM out but one stick and it finally installed the Windows and booted up... But I tried each different stick in there and they all worked.. so none of them failed by themselves.

I am wondering if it might be power related or if one of the slots is faulty. I don't know what to do now.. but it's working just with less RAM.

I tried to take the harddrive out again and hooked it up using USB adapter and I tried to reformat it and correct any errors with the tune up software.. then tried to reinstall the software. Now when I try to install my PC is freezing WHILE the software is installing every time. 

Oh yeah.. there is another thing I forgot to mention.  When my PC originally started to freeze up I tried to go to an earlier restore point because I thought it might have been a Windows update causing the rpoblem.  When I did this and then rebooted a message came up in the right corner that I think said a driver for the Harddrive was being installed...

I also had a similar kind of thing happen when my other harddrive started having problems before this new issue --- it was the secondary internal auxiliary harddrive at that time -- the PC kept treating that harddrive like it was a new device or something.. the "autoplay" thing would come up asking what I wanted to do with the drive and that drive was running really slow and I think it was causing my PC to freeze before I disconnected it. That's when I reformatted my primary drive and it was working ok for a couple weeks until this new issue.

Quote

Quote

Is there some chance to We test RAM??

How do I do this?  Buy some more Ram?  How much would that cost roughly?

No, I think it's better to try/test some RAM from some other PCs (from friend for example)

Also, here is another clue... I tried to reinstall again and bootup and it failed again the same way.. but there was this message I saw before too.. I will try to write out the gist of it here...

Problem detected -- Windows shutdown to prevent damage


Page fault in nonpaged area

Check new hardware

if continues disable remove new hardware

disable bios memory options - - caching, Shadowing

use safe mode to disable components

*** stop: 0x00000050 (0xFFFFFF86, 0x0000001, 0x8449DB35, 0x00000000)

This info. give me some new idea about this problem:

1. Try to clean your Registers with Tune Up

2. I also suggest trying the following methods to troubleshoot the issue:

Method 1: Startup Repair from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)

============================================

1. Insert the Windows Vista installation disc into the disc drive, and then start the computer.

2. Press a key when the message indicating "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD …". appears.

3. Select a language, a time and currency, and a keyboard or input method, and then click Next.

4. Click Repair your computer.

5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, choose the drive of your Windows installation and click Next.

6. At the System Recovery Options Dialog Box, click on Repair your computer.

7. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.

8. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Startup Repair.

 

Method 2: Rebuild BCD

============================================

1. Put the Windows Vista installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.

2. Press a key when the message indicating "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD …". appears.

3. Select a language, a time, a currency, and a keyboard or another input method, and then click Next.

4. Click Repair your computer.

5. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.

6. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.

7. Type Bootrec /RebuildBcd , and then press ENTER.

 

Method 3: Use the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to run System Restore ============================================

1. Insert the Windows Vista installation disc into the disc drive, and then start the computer.

2. Press a key when the message indicating "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD …". appears.

3. Select a language, a time and currency, and a keyboard or input method, and then click Next.

4. Click Repair your computer.

5. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, choose the drive of your Windows installation and click Next

6. At the System Recovery Options Dialog Box, click on System Restore.

7. Follow the System Restore Wizard instruction as usual and choose the appropriate restore point.

8. Click Finish to restore the system.

Hope it helps??

Here is my computer...

http://www.retrevo.com/search?q=HP+M8300F&rt=sp

One thing kind of odd about this PC.. it doesn't have a true graphics card I guess.. it's built onto the motherboard or something like that. So maybe this is why it is having issues?

Nope, I don't think that it's "graphics" problem... Your PC specs. is very good.

Is there some chance to We test RAM??


Did you try my other suggestions related to formatting problem?


P.S.

Do you have on that HDDs Master-Slave pins? Check that!

I was also need to wait ("long" time) before Vista start first time at my PC.

Mine seems like it's frozen though.. there is that little thing that moves in a circle to indicate the PC is working and it has frozen.. and then when I try to restart I get a message that says windows can't continue installing because the PC shutdown during installation. I am wondering if it might be the graphics card because of how it is acting.

Please provide us your PC configuration: RAM, Processor...?? Maybe RAM or Graphic card cause all this, do you have possibility to test that with some other memory?

I am not sure if there is anyway if I can use different memory -- I have another HP PC but it's older and different model I think. Could it possibly still work? I am leery of messing with this other PC too much though because it's not mine -- Girlfriends.

As I understand you have possibility to add this HDDs to another PC for example like disc D:, E: ?? In that case try Tune Utilities and Disc Doctor tool.

I tried this with the drive that DBAN wouldn't work on with the error code and the problem I have with this is WINXP says it doesn't recognize the drive or it' not working. and if I try to create a file in that drive it says it's not there. Sometimes it will show up in Disk management and then I try to format and right when it gets to the end it says it failed.

Is it possible somehow the BIOS got messed up? Hacked or Malware? The thing is.. I had another older PC that was on this network in my home die as well.. it has harddrive problems now too and won't bootup. But I don't know if this s just a coincidence.. but also.. I do have reason to suspect that someone on a messageboard I went to either hacked my PC or sent me Malware somehow.