Hello,
Here's an intro as I think it's pretty relevant, I'm sorry it's a bit on the long side, but I wanted to make sure everything was mentioned so please bare with me as I really do need some help with this. Especially from those who have experience with Hard Drive corruption and Windows CHKDSK problems. If you'd rather skip to the questions that I need help with then go to the end of this post, but for it all to make sense I’d recommend you at least scan the below info. Thanks in advance for those who can help.
Basically one of my systems (used by my sister) has had some semi serious problems for a good while now, every now and again it would get BSOD's on start-up and sometimes the Windows XP checker would pop up with the message "Drive C: needs to be checked for consistency". It would usually find a few problems, delete some corrupted files, recover a few and boot into Windows normally. Those problems and a few application/game errors were about it, no other major stability problems though.
So once first happened I of course suspected the Hard Drive cable first, tried another, didn't fix it, and scanned the hard drive several times with Western Digitals DOS based Diagnostic software, which it passed several times with no errors on both the quick and long scans. I did everything I could think of, memtest to check the Ram, Formatted and Reinstalled Windows but nothing seemed to sort it. Although I can't be certain I'm pretty sure that I even swapped out the hard drive in the end and that still didn't fix it, but my memory isn't what it used to be. Either way I assumed that the motherboard was faulty and planned a much needed upgrade replacing nearly everything with more trusted and powerful parts.
The problems were still happening but a few days ago I managed to get all the parts I needed and I therefore backed up her files on my main computer by transferring them over the network to a folder in the main C: directory. I then assembled the computer and nearly every part was changed Including Case, Power Supply, Processor, Motherboard, Graphics card etc. The only parts that were not changed were the Hard Drive, CD-Rom/Floppy Cables, Floppy Drive and the Ram. Even the hard drive cable was changed for something brand new, an Akasa cable that I use in all my other machines without any problems. Everything went fine, Windows installed great and I got all the drivers, Windows Updates installed. Installed some applications, games and the usual things she uses and everything looked great. I did a few stress tests, ATI Tool, 3DMark 05/06 and a game or two just to make sure everything was working fine and it was. The only slight glitch I had is hardly worth mentioning but I will for the sake of it, I used Riva tuner to lower the fan speed on the 6800 Ultra as it’s pretty loud and I think I went too low. The temp was only around 85c at load but ATI Tool still picked up some artifacts, either way I increased the fan speed and the problems went away. I then transferred back some of the backup's including e-mails, game saves and so fourth along with some file's that were backed up as well. After that the computer was shut down.
Now today I started it up but wasn't in the room when it did, I installed some drivers for printer and then rebooted. I watched the reboot process and to my horror the "Drive C: needs to be checked for consistency" message came up and it found a few problems as usual and started up. I checked the application logs in the Control Panel and found out that it had done that this morning as well, when I first started the computer up but this was the first time it happened. I then decided that I might as well run CHKDSK manually, so went to CMD, typed "CHKDSK C: /F /R", it needed to reboot and it ran it on start-up like the automatic test. Doing it this way however tests a few extra things so took longer, but it did find problems again as usual. I did this again and it found problems and the final time I did it, there were no problems.
So I thought great, however when I came back, expecting it to be sitting on the Windows Desktop there was the old "We apologise for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully... etc". Giving you a 30 odd seconds to select from the 3 types of Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration or to Start Windows Normally. None of which work, no matter which one you select and if you press enter or let the time run out the screen goes black and the system reboots. Just my luck!
As you can well understand I'm not sure what to think, if it was just CHKDSK checking the drive for consistency after I transferred her backups then I would have course think that they were corrupted on the old system due to the motherboard, but as I can’t get into Windows I’m really lost as to what could have caused it. I've just completed two runs of Western Digitals Diagnostic software with No Errors. The Windows XP SP2 installation CD is fine, as I've used it before with no problems. I’ve also done a few passes of MemTest with no problems, although I guessed that it would be fine. So I'm not sure what to do, anyways here are my questions, some I think you'll already of guessed.
Question 1: Is it possible for a hard drive to be faulty and yet pass the manufacturers own diagnostic scanner? Anyone had any experience of this? Especially if the drive turned out to be what was causing the corruption.
Question 2: Could these backed up corrupt files be missed by the operating system of the system used to store them, if they were simply transferred to the hard drive in a folder. My thinking is that as they were not part of any sort of file system, the main computer that they were stored on didn't pick them up. Although I don't know much about this sort of thing and could be way off.
Question 3: Could a few corrupt files non-system files actually do what I last mentioned or was it CHKDSK deleting files that caused the problem? My guess would be the latter.
Question 4: If it was CHKDSK that was causing the problems, then surely that means there's something wrong, either hardware or driver wise. Any ideas considering the tests and results I’ve gotten.
Question 5: Is it possible a faulty CD-Rom cable could cause these problems? I’ve never had problems with it before but I guess it’s worth considering now.
I've heard that the nForce IDE SW driver causing problems, but seeing as the other motherboard was VIA, I can't see that explaining how both computers have the same problems.
I think it’s a bit pointless putting the full specification of both systems down as so much has changed between the two but the Hard Drive is a Western Digital WD800JD which is an 80 GB, SATA, 8 MB Cache, 7200 RPM drive of which I have 5 including this one, the other 4 are fine and this one is of course unknown. That being said however, the other 4 are run in pairs using Mirror Raid while this is the only one I have running on its own. The previous motherboard was an Asus A8V Deluxe, VIA chipset, AGP and 939 Socket. The current is an Asus A8N-E, NF4, PCI-E and again 939 Socket of which I have two more, both work perfectly. If anyone specification details then please let me know. As mentioned I have two other A8N-E systems, both work fine and one has very similar specifications.
Any other suggestions, experiences or theories would be greatly appreciated; I really do need to get this problem sorted as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Mark
Here's an intro as I think it's pretty relevant, I'm sorry it's a bit on the long side, but I wanted to make sure everything was mentioned so please bare with me as I really do need some help with this. Especially from those who have experience with Hard Drive corruption and Windows CHKDSK problems. If you'd rather skip to the questions that I need help with then go to the end of this post, but for it all to make sense I’d recommend you at least scan the below info. Thanks in advance for those who can help.
Basically one of my systems (used by my sister) has had some semi serious problems for a good while now, every now and again it would get BSOD's on start-up and sometimes the Windows XP checker would pop up with the message "Drive C: needs to be checked for consistency". It would usually find a few problems, delete some corrupted files, recover a few and boot into Windows normally. Those problems and a few application/game errors were about it, no other major stability problems though.
So once first happened I of course suspected the Hard Drive cable first, tried another, didn't fix it, and scanned the hard drive several times with Western Digitals DOS based Diagnostic software, which it passed several times with no errors on both the quick and long scans. I did everything I could think of, memtest to check the Ram, Formatted and Reinstalled Windows but nothing seemed to sort it. Although I can't be certain I'm pretty sure that I even swapped out the hard drive in the end and that still didn't fix it, but my memory isn't what it used to be. Either way I assumed that the motherboard was faulty and planned a much needed upgrade replacing nearly everything with more trusted and powerful parts.
The problems were still happening but a few days ago I managed to get all the parts I needed and I therefore backed up her files on my main computer by transferring them over the network to a folder in the main C: directory. I then assembled the computer and nearly every part was changed Including Case, Power Supply, Processor, Motherboard, Graphics card etc. The only parts that were not changed were the Hard Drive, CD-Rom/Floppy Cables, Floppy Drive and the Ram. Even the hard drive cable was changed for something brand new, an Akasa cable that I use in all my other machines without any problems. Everything went fine, Windows installed great and I got all the drivers, Windows Updates installed. Installed some applications, games and the usual things she uses and everything looked great. I did a few stress tests, ATI Tool, 3DMark 05/06 and a game or two just to make sure everything was working fine and it was. The only slight glitch I had is hardly worth mentioning but I will for the sake of it, I used Riva tuner to lower the fan speed on the 6800 Ultra as it’s pretty loud and I think I went too low. The temp was only around 85c at load but ATI Tool still picked up some artifacts, either way I increased the fan speed and the problems went away. I then transferred back some of the backup's including e-mails, game saves and so fourth along with some file's that were backed up as well. After that the computer was shut down.
Now today I started it up but wasn't in the room when it did, I installed some drivers for printer and then rebooted. I watched the reboot process and to my horror the "Drive C: needs to be checked for consistency" message came up and it found a few problems as usual and started up. I checked the application logs in the Control Panel and found out that it had done that this morning as well, when I first started the computer up but this was the first time it happened. I then decided that I might as well run CHKDSK manually, so went to CMD, typed "CHKDSK C: /F /R", it needed to reboot and it ran it on start-up like the automatic test. Doing it this way however tests a few extra things so took longer, but it did find problems again as usual. I did this again and it found problems and the final time I did it, there were no problems.
So I thought great, however when I came back, expecting it to be sitting on the Windows Desktop there was the old "We apologise for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully... etc". Giving you a 30 odd seconds to select from the 3 types of Safe Mode, Last Known Good Configuration or to Start Windows Normally. None of which work, no matter which one you select and if you press enter or let the time run out the screen goes black and the system reboots. Just my luck!
As you can well understand I'm not sure what to think, if it was just CHKDSK checking the drive for consistency after I transferred her backups then I would have course think that they were corrupted on the old system due to the motherboard, but as I can’t get into Windows I’m really lost as to what could have caused it. I've just completed two runs of Western Digitals Diagnostic software with No Errors. The Windows XP SP2 installation CD is fine, as I've used it before with no problems. I’ve also done a few passes of MemTest with no problems, although I guessed that it would be fine. So I'm not sure what to do, anyways here are my questions, some I think you'll already of guessed.
Question 1: Is it possible for a hard drive to be faulty and yet pass the manufacturers own diagnostic scanner? Anyone had any experience of this? Especially if the drive turned out to be what was causing the corruption.
Question 2: Could these backed up corrupt files be missed by the operating system of the system used to store them, if they were simply transferred to the hard drive in a folder. My thinking is that as they were not part of any sort of file system, the main computer that they were stored on didn't pick them up. Although I don't know much about this sort of thing and could be way off.
Question 3: Could a few corrupt files non-system files actually do what I last mentioned or was it CHKDSK deleting files that caused the problem? My guess would be the latter.
Question 4: If it was CHKDSK that was causing the problems, then surely that means there's something wrong, either hardware or driver wise. Any ideas considering the tests and results I’ve gotten.
Question 5: Is it possible a faulty CD-Rom cable could cause these problems? I’ve never had problems with it before but I guess it’s worth considering now.
I've heard that the nForce IDE SW driver causing problems, but seeing as the other motherboard was VIA, I can't see that explaining how both computers have the same problems.
I think it’s a bit pointless putting the full specification of both systems down as so much has changed between the two but the Hard Drive is a Western Digital WD800JD which is an 80 GB, SATA, 8 MB Cache, 7200 RPM drive of which I have 5 including this one, the other 4 are fine and this one is of course unknown. That being said however, the other 4 are run in pairs using Mirror Raid while this is the only one I have running on its own. The previous motherboard was an Asus A8V Deluxe, VIA chipset, AGP and 939 Socket. The current is an Asus A8N-E, NF4, PCI-E and again 939 Socket of which I have two more, both work perfectly. If anyone specification details then please let me know. As mentioned I have two other A8N-E systems, both work fine and one has very similar specifications.
Any other suggestions, experiences or theories would be greatly appreciated; I really do need to get this problem sorted as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Mark
