Well. I unplugged the pc I was going to use to backup my HDD and let it set for 20 minutes. It started up OK. Reconnected my HDD to my old pc and used the datalifeguard software CD that came with the HDD to fix the boot record. It started up OK. Everything is OK at this point. I'm going to look for a bios update before adding a bigger drive.

after 23 attempts to bringing my machine back to life, IT'S ALIVE!!!!
attempt #
23. replaced all hardware at one time
Antec Sonata II w/ 450w PSU --> no change
AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800 --> no change
ECS nForce4-A939 1.0 (1.1a) --> no change
Kingston KVR 1GB dual (2x512) --> Corsair Value RAM 512mb (pc2700)
2 Seagate 200GB IDE --> 1 Seagate 40GB IDE
1 Hitachi 200GB IDE --> removed
1 Pioneer DVR-108bk (DVD-RW) --> Philips DVD-ROM

Fired up, loaded Windows XP install files, reboot = GOOD TO GO...
replaced all original hardware back in place, fired up, loaded Windows XP install files, reboot = GOOD TO GO!!!

I Don't really now how or why it is working again and it still perplexes my mind, but at least i have a working machine. I'm sure the problem will occur again, but until then this was my story. now, back to business....BF2 here i come. I also need to re-install my tv tuner card...hopefully it won't give any problems.

Jim thanks for your input it helped me keep my sanity. Thanks to all others who've posted here as well, i've read the entire thread, and it allowed me to keep my mind open and take steps i would have not have taken or forgot about.

Glad to hear you got it working. Sure would like to know what the problem was! That was an odd duck, for sure...

I have been struck by the dreaded Mup.sys problem it seems. For no apparent reason my system just stopped working. I tried safe mode and as stated in earlier replies it hung after loading MUP.sys. My problem is that I have data on my disk that I need to recover.

My system is as follows:
Asus Motherboard A7V8X,
Memory 1gb ddr,
Processor AMD XP 2200,
Sata Raid Drive 2x200gb set up as mirror

I have reflashed by bios with no effect. Given that an earlier comment said that the drives should be ok as the OS has begun to load if I used a drive on one of my ide channels with windows on should I be able to read from my raid array and recover my data? I have such a drive and have tried using it. In device manager under drives there is my maxtor ide drive and it also lists 'Promise 1x2 Mirror/Raid1 SCSI Disk Device'. Under SCSI and RAID Controllers it lists 'Win XP Promise FastTrak 376 (tm) Controller', yet when I launch explorer all I see is my floppy drive, my ide drive C: and my DVD writer as drive D:. All Drivers and Drives according to device manager are working correctly yet I can't access my raid drive. Am I doing something wrong or is it a hardware issue?

Hope you can help.

Regards, Dave.

Yes, this happened to me.

No software changes. No hardware changes, one day XP just refused to boot. Safe mode suggested it was tripping over MUP.SYS.

Anyway, it was time for a clear down. I needed some files from the drive and I had to get back into it so I did a new install of XP into a new Windows folder. I got the files I needed and then restored a Ghost image. I've used this image in the past without any problems, but when I rebooted the machine still froze.

Odd.

I then went through my BIOS settings. Now, I very, very rarely wander into this area - if it's working then leave alone. However, it wasn't working so I thought I would have a browse. Everything looked fine, but then I noticed that the Hyper Threading was disabled. Previously this was definitely enabled. So I enabled it, rebooted, sat back and prepared to be disappointed.

It........ worked......


Now why the Hyper Threading should disable itself is another story.

BTW

XP Pro SP2, 3 gig Mesh Powerview notebook.

If my sata raid drives are mirrored would I be able to take the drives out and connect just one of them as a non-raid ordinary drive and be able to read the data on it before then reformatting and trying a reinstall?

Regards,

Dave

Here's one I haven't seen yet...

Fujitsu P1120 subnote: 800mhz Transmeta Crusoe, 256mb, single spindle.

Have been running XPSP2 since Day 1.

Recently put a 7200rpm Travelstar in, did a clean Install from Factory PQI XPP, loaded SP2/software - no worries.

HOWEVER: a ghost image of the above (6gb install) will not boot from either an 8GB SSD OR a 20gb 4200 rpm Travelstar. (stops after mup.sys) and hangs at the Blue Welcome Screen (after scrolling dots) I get an active Cursor but no Login.

Really weird. I'm going to re-ghost the good drive, but it certainly doesn't seem to be a MB/Bios issue on my end because I can drop the new travelstar back in and have no problems.

Just a note. I too have this problem, luckily I make multiple backups of all my data because as far as i've seen, this problem usually requires a complete format and reinstall. There are the few instances where a simple chkdsk or bios tweak fixes it but i think this is because the symptoms that cause XP to hang at mup.sys are near, far and in between. But, the one thing from googling that i've come to a consensus on is that it is nearly always a hardware error of some sort, whether that be faulty RAM, corrupt hard drive, mobo shot, cpu problems. Usually a chkdsk won't fix it.

For me i think i've finally cracked it for my instance. Was stopping at mup.sys as well, so i installed a copy of 2000 on a spare hdd (hate having to use recovery console or dos) to see if i could get access to my xp folders. XP was on a 160GB Maxtor (worked with maxtors before, every 2nd one seems to have issues, i will now stick to my seagates, which in the past 8 years i've never had an issue with) split 3 ways, my XP partition was intact, and my other 2 partitions where corrupt. So i formatted them and tried to boot into XP, no luck. Formated the whole drive, installed 2000, working fine for 5 -> 10 boots, then the same again. BSOD, some random, not helpful STOP error. reformatted completely again, this time went into bios and underclocked everything, installed windows 2000 again, and proceeded to do cold start after cold start for about an hour, no problems, keeps booting back into windows, no errors, no BSOD. So i reset my BIOS settings to "NORMAL" operating specs. System hangs, BSOD, STOP errors, missing *.sys files, corrupt data, you name it. So i underclock BIOS settings (i.e. CPU, RAM) boots fine, no issues.

Ok now this seems to have solved the problem for me, but hell if i'll know why. The machine was working fine being "OVERCLOCKED" for about a year, and now the old tart won't even puff up enough steam to hit 2Ghz. I guess it's my own fault, i was playing need for speed most wanted for about 8 hours straight, with everything overclocked and the side panel off my rig to reduce heat (i only have one fan, on the cpu) it coughed then shut itself off, i guess i burnt something out, and now it doesn't like high frequencies, maybe a chip for handling data on the mobo is a little fried and can only pass info at low speeds now, due to leakage, whatever... i'll never know.

Ergo: Go into your BIOS and turn your CPU and RAM speeds "WAY" down to below their normal clocks and test that. Worked for me... for now?

Rig:
2.4Ghz AMD
ECS (don't ever buy one of their boards, just type their name into google and look at their problems) K7S5A Mobo
1GB Corsair RAM
160GB Maxtor (go with Seagate, more reliable)
loads of peripherals (digi cam, usb hub, scanner, printer, web cam, bluetooth, wireless mouse/keyboard)
WAS running XP/SP2, now Windows 2000 (come on vista)

I managed to bring this error on all by myself, thank you very much. *takes bow*

I'm trying to figure out why an ATI card running at AGP 8x makes my system (actually my video) freeze up after an hour or two of running the Marine Aquarium screen saver (that's my idea of a burn-in The bubbling sound does continue however, so that made me realize that the *entire* system was not locking up.

so as I'm playing around with BIOS settings I see that the ACPI power-management functions are ON, and the screen blanking method is set to VSYNC OFF.... so I disabled ACPI completely and this caused XP SP2 to stop booting -- no splash screen, no nuthin'. I then try safe mode, and see that it's hanging at everyone's favorite -- Mup.sys.

I go back in to the BIOS, re-enable ACPI, set my video to Always On, and now things seem to be rockin'.

I hope this helps someone.

Cheers!

Chris

Biostar M7VIT mobo
1 GB DDR400
Kaser 128 MB Radeon 9250

When Windows XP installs, it detects whether your mobo/BIOS supports APCI or not, and installs the appropriate Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) to match. If, after WindowsXP is installed, the APCI settings in the BIOS are changed, then the HAL may no longer be compatible with the system and the Windows boot will fail. This is apparently what happened to you.

You may or may not be interested, but this MS Knowledge Base article (which is not particularly user-friendly) talks a little about how the Windows installer tool detects the APCI compatibility of the system and how the installation might be affected by the APCI config: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314088/en-us

Glad you got your situation figured out. And thanks for posting!

Jim

I too am getting the dreaded mup.sys problem. I skimmed this rather lengthy thread and unfortunately, none of the suggestions I saw seem to fix the problem. I have a PC Chips M599LMR motherboard with the latest bios direct from badflash.com (another story). I have tried TWO hard drives, one with XP Pro and one with XP Home. The Home HD freezes in safe mode at mup.sys. The Pro HD reboots at the same point. I have unplugged all unnecessary items (including CDROM) and disabled anything I could in the bios. I ran memtest on the system for 2 days straight without error. I also tried running the 450mz AMD K6 at 166mz. The only thing I haven't tried yet is an OS repair as I know both hard drives are good (boot on other machines) and I don't want to risk messing them up. Has anyone figured out what causes this problem? Note that both hard drives were previously run on Intel machines, but I believe safe mode should not care.

I should mention I also tried a brand new 500w power supply and three different sticks of RAM. I also tried disabling USB (though I have nothing plugged in anyway - PS2 KB & mouse).

I think you missed my post at the bottom of page 15.

You can't take a hard drive with a copy of XP installed on a computer with a particular hardware config (mobo/processor/etc) and install it into a computer with a different hardware config and expect it to work. Previous versions of Windows could adapt themselves (they would boot, recognize the different hardware, and automatically adjust to the new config, perhaps prompting the user to insert the Windows install CD if required), but XP will not even boot if the hardware is different enough.

Perform a "repair installation" of WinXP to resolve this problem. If you do it properly, you will not lose any data or installed applications. (See this MS Knowledge Base article for instructions if you need them: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnm...oug92.mspx)

Edit: Here's another MS KB article that talks about how to replace a motherboard (essentially what you've done by taking the hard drive and moving it to a new computer), including instructions for the Repair Installation of XP (it includes the alternate approach of initiating an "Upgrade" reinstallation from within Windows and then swapping the mobo (or in your case, the hard drive) when Setup first reboots the computer): http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;824125

Jim

I don't know about the Home edition, but I have swapped motherboards numerous times with XP Pro, only needing to install drivers for the new motherboard/sound/video/USB/ATA/LAN. The CPU was the same, though. In this case I have gone from a 2.4gz Celeron to a 450mz K6-2, a much bigger difference, especially since I am going backwards. The Celeron motherboard decided to explode. Litterally. There is a melted spot and white dust on one of the chips on the motherboard. The person I am "fixing" this for has no money, so I found an old replacement mobo, but I am stuck with the damn muppet syndrome. I will try the repair.

Thanks,

-Mike

I don't know how different the hardware has to be before you'll see problems. My experience: Being used to the way Win98 automatically adusted itself to new hardware, I tried upgrading a machine from an ABIT KR7A-RAID/Athlon 1700+ to an MSI MS-7100/A64 3700+ without doing anything to the installed XP Pro OS. Powering up after the swap, as soon as the Windows logo screen appeared, it'd reboot. When I went to Google and searched for "XP upgrade motherboard", I realized that this behavior (XP not booting after a mobo/processor change) was no big secret. There are plenty of sites that suggest a Repair Installation of XP when doing a mobo swap.

Just an update. Turns out the OC'ing of my CPU wasn't the problem. The PSU was faulty, and whenever I tried requesting more power off it for the CPU to be OC'ed it would shutdown. Replaced the PSU and now everything is stable again.

I just purchase a new system with the following specs.

AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+
Asus A8N-SLI
2 gigs RAM
Maxtor 250 Gig SATAII HD
Saphire Radeon x1300 PCI-Express

I have tried installing Win XP Pro and Windows XP Media Center on it and with both installations the system locks up. I try booting to safe mode and it stops at the point of loading mup.sys.

any ideas what I should try, I have tried looking through all these previous posts but there is just so many of them that I can't find anything the looks related to my system.

Help Please

Guys,

I had this problem on two PC's over the festive period, the fix I used was the same on both machines and brought them back to life.

Insert the CD for the operating system you have installed (in my case I had one XP pro and one on XP home)
Boot from CD
select R for the recovery console when prompted
Enter Administrator password if prompted (if you do not know the admin password there are plenty of tools available on the net which will allow you to blank it)
type chkdsk /p and press return
type exit and remove CD once complete
Problem sorted.

Hope this helps. BTW - it would seem that with the PC's that I had that this problem is generally caused by either a power cut or failure or users of the PC not shutting down properly

Cheers
Ryan

The repair installation did indeed work! Thanks for making me do that. All settings still intact.

-Mike

I upgraded my motherboard and then I got this error. After a Repair install, everything is fixed. -Mihir