[problem] Failing hard drive or bad memory?!

[reklis]

I have ST3500320AS hard drive (barracuda 300GB) and 6 GB ram (2x4 and 1x2 sticks). I've been having problems with getting a corrupted windows vista installation after my system hangs while using photoshop or any of the adobe editing programs. When the computer hangs nothing responds i could still move the mouse anywhere but nothing responds (clicking and closing programs). So i am forced to restart my computer via reset button. After i reset the computer after post during the windows vista loading screen a blue screen suddenly appears and forces the computer to restart, After the second restart it checks the harddrive for consistancy and fixes some registry errors after restarting again windows gets passed the windows loading screen but hangs in a blank black screen with my cursor visible. I've formatted and reinstalled my OS several times and the same thing keeps happening while im using photoshop or one of the editor progams.

Im lost of what may be the problem so can anyone help me with this problem?

 

[sticks51412]

I would pull all ram except for 1 stick and test 1 stick at a time to see what happens. Also look for a hdd test program

 

[royalcrown]

I'd lean more towards ram, but never rule out a corrupt file in common to your adobe install either.

 

[cmichael258]

Download and run Memtest86. You can probably go to Seagate's web site and download a HDD diagnostic progrm for your HDD.

 

[reklis]

i've ran memtest and one of the seagate hdd diagnostic tools and the results are good. No errors at all. So what may be causing this problem? is it because i had my cpu overclocked?

 

[zipz0p]

That could do it... unstable overclocks can produce those kinds of errors (at least I've seem similar stuff in XP for my unstable overclocks)... To test the stability of your overclock, get Prime95, and run the TortureTest balanced for about 8 hours. If it ever crashes, things aren't stable. Make sure you're running as many threads as you have CPU cores.

 

[reklis]

heh i've had my pc overclocked at its current speed for about 6 months now. Haven't had any problems and it has never given me any bluescreens. I've tried torture tests as well and they all passed without crashes Specially running multiple games at once while having other windows open. This just started happening recently after I started using the adobe software editing line. I'm thinking about getting a new hard drive what would be a good hard drive to get with a low % failure rate

 

[reklis]

Okay it just happend again. Happend while i was opening adobe illustrator cs3 trial version. Everything but my mouse stopped responding. I was able to move my mouse click on the task bar windows the hour glass symbol showed and nothing responded. Alt+Ctrl+Delete didn't respond as well.

After 30 minutes of waiting thinking that it would finally fix it self I rebooted my machine via reset button. It passed the post screen but it didn't make it to the windows loading screen. There was just a blank Screen. So i reseted again.

I popped in MemTest and ran it turned out okay no problems reported
I also ran seagate diagnostic tools, Also had no problems.

So i restarted again and it still didn't load up. So then i Tried to do a cold boot. Turning off the pc for 20 seconds then turning it back on and volla it started vista.

Previously when this started happening i would have to format to get everything working again but it seems to be fixing it self with the windows vista disk using the repair tool. Sometimes it hangs as well when i boot to disk at the point where it shows that windows animation that its loading not the part where its loading the disk. I usually have to reset the comp and try again or do a cold boot.

The thing im confused about is that my system is running weird. It usually hangs when im opening anything adobe (photoshop cs3, Illustrator cs3, Dream Weaver). Its random as well sometimes when i open up photoshop the computer will hang. Sometimes it won't. It seems to be random.

The other thing thats weird is that i could play any game for a long time (Age of Conan, Call of Duty 4, World in Conflict) at max settings and the game doesn't hang or anything like that.

So im leaning towards the harddrive slowly failing but im not entirely sure. Can anyone give me any input?



P.S. While writing out this post i just happend to remember I was getting windows profile errors as well. My windows user profile would suddenly become corrupt and windows would load up a temperary one. I usually ended up reformatting. That has happend twice.

 

[reklis]

i managed to find a log file of another incident that happend about 30 minutes ago. Chkdsk just finished scanning


Log Name: Application
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Wininit
Date: 7/14/2008 8:35:37 PM
Event ID: 1001
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: The_Sickness
Description:


Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You
may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended
that you continue.
Windows will now check the disk.
158016 file records processed.

55 large file records processed.

0 bad file records processed.

2 EA records processed.

44 reparse records processed.

The file reference 0x2000000000024 of index entry Contents1.dir of index $I30
with parent 0x2c is not the same as 0x32000000000024.
Deleting index entry Contents1.dir in index $I30 of file 44.
The file reference 0x2000000000024 of index entry CONTEN~2.DIR of index $I30
with parent 0x2c is not the same as 0x32000000000024.
Deleting index entry CONTEN~2.DIR in index $I30 of file 44.
Unable to locate the file name attribute of index entry MainQueueOnline1.que
of index $I30 with parent 0x2c in file 0x23.
Deleting index entry MainQueueOnline1.que in index $I30 of file 44.
Unable to locate the file name attribute of index entry MAINQU~2.QUE
of index $I30 with parent 0x2c in file 0x23.
Deleting index entry MAINQU~2.QUE in index $I30 of file 44.
199640 index entries processed.

0 unindexed files processed.

158016 security descriptors processed.

Cleaning up 50 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 50 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 50 unused security descriptors.
20813 data files processed.

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
35753328 USN bytes processed.

Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
158000 files processed.

File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
8432886 free clusters processed.

Free space verification is complete.
Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

102399999 KB total disk space.
68323672 KB in 134906 files.
82364 KB in 20814 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
262419 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
33731544 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
25599999 total allocation units on disk.
8432886 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
40 69 02 00 53 60 02 00 3e 5c 04 00 00 00 00 00 @i..S`..>\......
c0 4e 00 00 2c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .N..,...........
e0 64 d2 77 00 00 00 00 50 23 6f ff 00 00 00 00 .d.w....P#o.....

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.

Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Wininit" Guid="{206f6dea-d3c5-4d10-bc72-989f03c8b84b}" EventSourceName="Wininit" />
<EventID Qualifiers="16384">1001</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>4</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2008-07-15T03:35:37.000Z" />
<EventRecordID>701</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>The_Sickness</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You
may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended
that you continue.
Windows will now check the disk.
158016 file records processed.

55 large file records processed.

0 bad file records processed.

2 EA records processed.

44 reparse records processed.

The file reference 0x2000000000024 of index entry Contents1.dir of index $I30
with parent 0x2c is not the same as 0x32000000000024.
Deleting index entry Contents1.dir in index $I30 of file 44.
The file reference 0x2000000000024 of index entry CONTEN~2.DIR of index $I30
with parent 0x2c is not the same as 0x32000000000024.
Deleting index entry CONTEN~2.DIR in index $I30 of file 44.
Unable to locate the file name attribute of index entry MainQueueOnline1.que
of index $I30 with parent 0x2c in file 0x23.
Deleting index entry MainQueueOnline1.que in index $I30 of file 44.
Unable to locate the file name attribute of index entry MAINQU~2.QUE
of index $I30 with parent 0x2c in file 0x23.
Deleting index entry MAINQU~2.QUE in index $I30 of file 44.
199640 index entries processed.

0 unindexed files processed.

158016 security descriptors processed.

Cleaning up 50 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 50 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 50 unused security descriptors.
20813 data files processed.

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
35753328 USN bytes processed.

Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
158000 files processed.

File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
8432886 free clusters processed.

Free space verification is complete.
Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

102399999 KB total disk space.
68323672 KB in 134906 files.
82364 KB in 20814 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
262419 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
33731544 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
25599999 total allocation units on disk.
8432886 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
40 69 02 00 53 60 02 00 3e 5c 04 00 00 00 00 00 @i..S`..&gt;\......
c0 4e 00 00 2c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .N..,...........
e0 64 d2 77 00 00 00 00 50 23 6f ff 00 00 00 00 .d.w....P#o.....

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.
</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

 

[reklis]

I finally decided to test the ram by removing each one and leaving one in. I put in each of the single 1GB mushkin 5-5-5-12 of ram and both wouldn't pass post. The computer would just give me single Long beeps. The 2GB OCZ 4-4-4-17 both worked each one passed post. The thing thats weird is that with all ram in both banks (2 slots per bank) were working and being detected on the bios post info screen and they passed memtest86 which i ran yesterday. Now that i removed each one and tested them one by one on slot 1 bank 1 the munhkin failed to post.

Out of curiousity I want to know how the munshkins passed memtest86 when all the ram was in the banks and why did the bios detect them and how come the munshkins didn't pass post?


PS. I didn't try to move the munshkin dimms into diffrent slots when they didn't pass post since what would be the point when the first slots are working fine with the 2gb OCZ dimms