Hey so I just built my first PC ever, and this is my first time using Windows since the 90s. Obviously when I got it up and running, installed W7, and fired up my first game I was incredibly proud of myself. Well, now there's a problem with what looks like the hard drive. My guess as to what happened is it was caused something to do this Linksys PCI-Adapter I installed. The thing was running super slow and dropping signals. The drivers were only for Vista, no W7 ones yet, so a little Googling found lots of people complaining about this and a possible solution from using a different driver for a similar card. Well I think that's what caused the problem, because after doing that (and still not getting great results) the computer went into system repair the next time I booted. System repair seemed stuck on an endless loop and Safe mode sent it into repair as well. I also tried repair on the installation disk, and system restore (it would freeze at this screen before letting me choose). So I decided to wipe the drive and re-install Windows (after all, the only data on there was drivers, some games and a game save). That still didn't seem to fix the problem and I ran chkdsk and that showed me that the problem was a "bad disk". I let chkdsk /d run all night -- it seemed to be making repairs from its lot -- in the morning it said Windows could not run because of a "corrupted registry." I had to run to work so I haven't had a chance to mess with it (I'm at work now) so my next guess would be to try to reinstall Windows one more time. Is it possible that a single driver screwed up my entire hard drive? (It was a brand new Samsung Spinpoint 1TB). Is this problem solveable or do I need a new HD?
Solution
My second question would be: the store near me has a Western Digital blue 1tb drive for sale and I'm wondering if I should just grab this and return the Samnsung to Newegg. I'll lose a couple bucks but I won't have to wait weeks for a new one to get shipped to me!
ohiou_grad_06
Distinguished
- Dec 19, 2006
- 3,420
- 1
- 20,960
Doubt it on that driver. Could be the drive was bad to begin with. Download the ultimate boot cd, it downloads as an .iso, burn that to cd. Boot from the cd, and try a program called Darik's boot and nuke. You can have it zero erase your drive to bring it back to as though you'd just bought it. A single pass should do, that may be just something to attempt before throwing in the towel.
Also, the drivers for Vista, they should theoretically work. Same code base in the OS, so a lot of that stuff may be interchangeable.
A lot of the guys on here seem to like WD, they are known, so maybe a good time to give it a whirl. What you could do, test it out, verify it works, because don't you get like 30 days from newegg? But if it still does not work right, then you know something else is going on.
Also, the drivers for Vista, they should theoretically work. Same code base in the OS, so a lot of that stuff may be interchangeable.
A lot of the guys on here seem to like WD, they are known, so maybe a good time to give it a whirl. What you could do, test it out, verify it works, because don't you get like 30 days from newegg? But if it still does not work right, then you know something else is going on.
ohiou_grad_06
Distinguished
- Dec 19, 2006
- 3,420
- 1
- 20,960
If the WD works, you can even hook the other up as a secondary drive, then store data on it in case of a crash.
TRENDING THREADS
-
-
RTX 4070 vs RX 7900 GRE faceoff: Which mainstream graphics card is better?- Started by Admin
- Replies: 9
-
-
-
-
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram