Massive Data Corruption Question

[Juncomatt]

Hello All. I built the following PC about a year and a half ago and about six months ago I started having major problems with data corruption.

Athlon XP 2500+ Barton
Lanboy Case w / 400W PS
MSI K7N2G nForce 2 Motherboard
2 / 512MB Infineon RAM
Maxtor 160 GB HD
Radeon 9700 Pro

Seemingly out of nowhere, when I would boot the machine it started checking the hard drive for errors, it would supposedly fix all the errors and continue to boot. I noticed that the files which were corrupted were driver files. My computer started to run slower and continued to check the disk every third time id boot it for about a month.

I formatted the disk and reinstalled windows, drivers, service pack 2 and all that stuff. About two weeks later, it did the same thing. I formatted two more times without any improvement. Then I started noticing that my processor speed on boot was reading as 1.2 Ghz, which is way low. My disk isn't making weird noises, but files are still getting corrupted and my computer eventually wont boot after about a week. Does anyone recognize this problem? Could it be my mobo, or power supply?

 

[endyen]

To start, your chip has defaulted to a 100 mhz fsb. It should be at 166. That's why you are running so slowly.
To find out what your problem is, download MBM5, and set it up to write a log file. Check your temps, and voltages, and get back to us.
You should also go to maxtor's home page, and get thier hdd test utility.

 

[Rugger]

Have you cleaned all viruses/adware/spyware off your system?

__________________________________________________
<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

 

[Flinx]

Sounds like virus/worms/trojans/spyware/malware.

1) You can get a free scan for some stuff on symantec. There is a free online scan

2) Get Adaware and Spybot (at least)

If its the problem uou will probably have to reinstall these things make such a mess its not worth cleaning up.

The loving are the daring!

 

[endyen]

He did a format, and re-install. It's not spyware, or virus.

 

[mrmonsoon]

Endyen us right about the front side bus,check in your bios for proper configuration.

As for the data issue, I bet you are getting bad sectors on your harddrive. I had an old Maxtor that started to corrupt my data (dam keyboard is dieing) and it was do to bad sectors.

 

[P4Man]

download Maxtors diagnosis utility, and enable S.M.A.R.T. in the bios. I've got the feeling your harddisk is dying. But it could be anything else as well, including RAM and motherboard. Try running memtest86, if that fails, try another stick. But considering you are already underclocked (because of 100MHz FSB), the harddisk seems more likely.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[Flinx]

If you want a nice utility for checking the S.M.A.R.T. info on a disk drive and ur running XP you should check out <A HREF="http://www.snapfiles.com/get/hdtune.html" target="_new">HDTUNE!!!</A>


The loving are the daring!

 

[dinoshan]

If ur harddisk has memory cache, disable it. I have 8 meg cache in my disk and used to have this problem. It's like once it's started, there's no stopping. But after disabling it, my reboots don't run scan disk repeatedly.

 

[Rugger]

:/ You're gonna kill disk performanc eif you disable the cache. You need to run the HDTune or other HDD checker. I completely missed the fact that you had done a reformat/install earlier. :redface:

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[slvr_phoenix]

Your hard drive is probably hosed. Maybe dust got into it. Maybe the head is crashing. Who knows. If you're lucky it might just be a bad cable or insufficient power in your system. Most likely though it's the hard drive itself.

As suggested, diagnose your bad sectors, try to save any data that you can, and more than likely replace. Sorry.

<pre> <font color=purple>I express to you a hex value 84 with my ten binary 'digits'. </font color=purple></pre><p>@ 185K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

 

[dinoshan]

No , because I had almost the same problem. I thought my 8 mth old disk was a gonner cos it was making wierd noises. Not to mention ample memory dumps and scanddisks. I was getting ready the RMA, but at the website WD mentioned that I had to run their utility or if they find it working, I've to bear the shipping costs . So I ran them.
Guess what , the results said drive was fine. So I disabled my cache, and after one final scandisk, I'm glad to say scandisk has yet to happen again and that's about 6 mths running.
I suspect it might be something to do with XP service pack 2, since there's an article about it now. But at that time, I thought my cache was the problem.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by dinoshan on 04/15/05 10:15 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[slvr_phoenix]

????

I'm sorry, but if you have to disable your HD's cache to get your HD to work without corruption errors then it sounds to me like the hard drive has a serious problem.

If I had a drive like that under warranty I'd definately return it, and if it wasn't under warranty I'd definately replace it and keep it for another system or a backup drive or something if it could run it safely without the cache. But then that's me. Just as this is only my advice. To each their own. Make of it what you will.

<pre> <font color=purple>I express to you a hex value 84 with my ten binary 'digits'. </font color=purple></pre><p>@ 185K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

 

[sh1ft3d]

I'm not understanding how disabling the 8MB cache to get a hard drive to work is perceived as a solution. That's like buying a new car, and then having to disable the air conditioning, power windows, locks, steering, etc (even tho that wouldn't make sense) to get the car to function properly...

--------------------------------------------
In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

I've got to agree. :\

But then, on the other hand if it's not under warranty anymore, running without cache is better than nothing at all. :O

(Of course, IMHO in that case buying a replacement is better than running a faulty HD without the cache.)

<pre> <font color=purple>I express to you a hex value 84 with my ten binary 'digits'. </font color=purple></pre><p>@ 185K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

 

[dinoshan]

It is still under warranty. But the utility reports the drive as fine. They base their replacements on that report. Could this be the fault of service pack 2?
The reason I disabled the cache was because I thought whenever memory dumps occur whatever in the cache is lost, leading to scandisks correcting each time. I had couple of whole movies gone (corrected in scandisk sense) because of dumps. After spending hours and days to get it, i was so pissed to lose em that I disabled the cache. And it did work fine.
Is there any third party software that can verify what is faulty here>?

 

[Xrock]

I have the same experience about Window checkdisk. It wipe almost all the data off one of my hard drive after I spent days to download the content. Check disk does not confirm if you want to keep the content, but start deleting the content like uncontrol animal. If I would let checkdisk check my ASSS, I would fart and shiit at it.
The reason for check disk appearing is due to the two ATX controller card being together. At least this is what happen to my computer. This probably cause corruption or conflict and cause Windows to become unstable.
After using the EasyRecovery Pro I was able to recovery every files I want. I none of the files that I recovery is corrupted. This was my first time trying to recovery data and the program does a very good job.

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[Guest]

*** is going on. The MS support site has basically no info that is relevant.


Again, would anyone think overclocking could cause this?

 

[BadTrip]

Check the date before posting.

This is 5 years old.