Having serious issues...

[Drahl]

The below is a paste job from the OS forum as I previously believed it was OS or HD symptoms. Something odd I've spotted though is that my BIOS displays about 3 or 4 times during the boot process before it finally boots. Full details below though from the paste job - let me know if anyone has any questions or more info needed, i'm pulling my hair out now as the PC should be amazing and it's giving me nothing but grief at the moment beyond my experience!

I've been having a really odd issue that I'm not sure is caused by my hd or not.

I recently installed a new HD (WD Blue 1tb) to replace a Samsung Spinpoint F3 (also 1tb but is only sata 2). Everyhing was fine for a couple of weeks and then my pc randomly turned on after shutting down successfully (next morning when i booted it up) and refused to load windows. It was stating a corrupt file and saying that I had to recover windows. Did that and all was fine. Then this has happened a few times in the past couple of weeks. Today I thought it might be the ports I was plugged into on the Mobo but doesn't appear to be. When swapping plugs around I had some serious boot issues but believe this was caused by windows restore crashing during the boot recovery and messing up completely. Managed to get it working again now though.

I'm not sure if it's a windows install issue, the fact i have my os on the older samsung and am using the wd to backup currecntly. Could the drives be looking at the wrong hd on boot despite showing in the bios as being correct and in the right order? I'm just lost and out of my depth now. My pc is only a few months old and built by myself so no where to really turn so any help would be awesome.

Spec is:

Asus Sabertooth P67
I7 2600k 3.4 ghz (not over clocked currently and haven't fiddled with the bios yet)
8 gb Gskill 1600 DDR3 ram
750w OCZ PSU
560 GTX TI
1tb samsung spinpoint f3 (think this is the issue for some reason)
1 tb wd caviar blue

Anyone got any ideas or things to test?

 

[Plec]

What problems are you having?

I've had issues with F3s and some SB motherboards - they're usually resolved by upgrading the HDD's firmware from the samsung site and flashing the MB BIOS to the latest release.

The HDD firmware update is usually the most crucial.

Hey Plec,

I've posted here with full details:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18322705

Edit: hit enter without being in the text box so posted prematurely so to speak.

Mainly, I'm having some serious issues with my PC full stop right now. It keeps making me restore windows once in a while (generally after a back up image is attempted or completed). Last night i fiddled with the wiring on the sata ports and swapped the dima 1 slots to dim 2 slots for the ram to see if it made a difference and the PC corrupted beyond belief. Spent the evening restoring again and finally got it working but keep getting "windows explorer has stopped working" messages every once in a while. I'm really just not sure if it's caused by the HD having read/write issues or not anymore. The details are all in the other post but let me know if you need any specific details or questions answered.

I'm quite nervous about flashing my bios or HD. I've never done it before - whilst being reasonable coputer literate I am not a expert by a long shot and could seriously screw it up. So, flash bios to latest version on MOBO then update the HD software during boot from a cd i take it? I tried to get the diag tool for the samsung disc to work on boot and it just refuses. Really strange.

Any help you can offer is seriously appreciated, I'm going mental at my PC at the moment.

The above is just for continuity to help us both keep track.

 

[Plec]

I'm quite nervous about flashing my bios or HD. I've never done it before - whilst being reasonable coputer literate I am not a expert by a long shot and could seriously screw it up. So, flash bios to latest version on MOBO then update the HD software during boot from a cd i take it? I tried to get the diag tool for the samsung disc to work on boot and it just refuses. Really strange.

From the above discription i would definitely do the HDD firmware update from the Samsung site - i used a bootable USB stick for the process (I'll try and find the link for the firmware for you tonight - if you're having problems.)

Flashing the BIOS on the Asus is a breeze using the asus ez flash 2 utility - just follow the istructions in the manual and you shouldn't have any problem - it's not as scary as it used to be. And remember to clear the CMOS after the flash and then load optimised defaults before inputting your own settings.

If the firmware upgrade and BIOS flash don't solve your problem i would then run memtest for a few hours to rule out memory issues.

 

[Drahl]

From the above discription i would definitely do the HDD firmware update from the Samsung site - i used a bootable USB stick for the process (I'll try and find the link for the firmware for you tonight - if you're having problems.)

Flashing the BIOS on the Asus is a breeze using the asus ez flash 2 utility - just follow the istructions in the manual and you shouldn't have any problem - it's not as scary as it used to be. And remember to clear the CMOS after the flash and then load optimised defaults before inputting your own settings.

If the firmware upgrade and BIOS flash don't solve your problem i would then run memtest for a few hours to rule out memory issues.

I'll give it a whirl this evening or at the weekend when I have a bit more time. It's booted again and working now - still getting windows explorer error messages and the bios screen displayed 3 times before booting so something isn't right.

If you do come across the exact firmware that would be great if you have it to hand, I'm sure I'll find it with a bit of googling/looking on Samsungs site if not though.

Thanks for the replies as well Plec!

 

[Idleman]

Got the same board. When i first put it altogether, i just used my previous windows installation on my seagate barracuda. No problems. I had IDE enabled. But then found out i needed ACHI enabled to use hotswop. So installled win7 on samsung. Can use hotswop, but the barracuda does not show in bios or device manager, when i insert drive in hotswop.
The bios does flash 3 or 4 times before windows starts, even with the latest bios flash. And just like you i get windows explorer is not responding or has stop working messages, when using samsung. So i now have 2 win7 64 os installed on the barracuda and all my games(500gbs), movies(200gbs), TV(100gbs), music and software, on the samsung. So the only way i can back-up, is by using my seagate expansion drive(piece of crap). Smashed it up and use the electronics, connected to an old drive.
So, will be following this thread.

Forgot to mention hav`nt up-dated my samsung hdd, will do so when i get home Friday.

 

[Plec]

If you do come across the exact firmware that would be great if you have it to hand, I'm sure I'll find it with a bit of googling/looking on Samsungs site if not though.

This is the F3 Spinpoint Firmware - double check the HDDs listed against yours just to be sure.

It also gives you a brief explanation as to what ot fixes:

This patch code is released in order to solve the compatibilty problem between some mainboard (AMD SB850 chipset and Intel P67/H67 chipset) and our HDD (F3 and F3EG model only).
This patch program works only to
F3 (HD323HJ / HD502HJ / HD503HI / HD103SJ / HD105SI)
F3EG (HD153WI / HD203WI)

[F/W Patch Procedure]
1. Please unzip attached file to Bootable media (USB,CD, Floppy...etc).
2. Please connect Target HDD to Primary / Mast.
3. Booting the system to DOS mode by bootable media.(which with this F/W flash program).
4. Please run " Patch ".
5. When FW Flash successfully message display , please Power Off system, to make F/W flash complete.

ESTOOL is the dedicated Samsung utility for checking the integrity of the disk.

If you haven't got time to do the firmware update/BIOS flash before the weekend i would at least let memtest run overnight to try and eliminate the memory as the possible cause. I would also run ESTool over another night to see if it gives up any errors.

 

[Drahl]

This is the F3 Spinpoint Firmware - double check the HDDs listed against yours just to be sure.

It also gives you a brief explanation as to what ot fixes:



ESTOOL is the dedicated Samsung utility for checking the integrity of the disk.

If you haven't got time to do the firmware update/BIOS flash before the weekend i would at least let memtest run overnight to try and eliminate the memory as the possible cause. I would also run ESTool over another night to see if it gives up any errors.

Hi Plec,

Thanks for all this. Ran the mem test etc. all last night and nothing out of the ordinary was reporting on the RAM. I need to do the ESTOOL diag for the hard drive still but wanted a good few hours testing on the RAM.

I've encountered some new issues and best course seems to be to just reinstall windows and start from scratch. Everytime i go to open control panel or certain folders my windows explorer stops and has to restart - it's instant restarts and doesn't affect any programmes, just means I can't open the main control panel.

I've attempted a fix with the inbuilt windows tool and have found several corrup files (hdmon or something similar from memory and a few others). From doing a bit of digging, sounds like the restore file for windows has corrupted several files so best action is to do a wipe and restore. I'm going to back up my games and what not but then just reinstall completely and wipe both drives. Going to take the opportunity to whack in a SSD i reckon and then use my SATA 3 drive as main HD and send the Samsung one off for RMA if it is reporting no issues in the EDSTOOLs kit.

 

[Plec]

send the Samsung one off for RMA if it is reporting no issues in the EDSTOOLs kit.

If the ESTool doesn't indicate any corruption i would upgrade the firmware and the BIOS and test for stability before considering rmaing (unless the above was a typo).

I've had to send a few F3s back so the drive could be the culprit - but my excessive amount of returns is mainly due to the fact that they send out reconditioned drives - and i don't think their quality control for replacements is that great.

The drives themselves are great quality/value - it's the replacement drives that can be an issue. But the rma service is very good - less than 5 days turn around usually. Plus, after the first replacement they paid for all my p&p for subsequent replaecments.