Cyclic Redundancy Check

[Mr Bob]

I keep getting a CRC error on tons of files that used to function perfectly fine.

Any idea what is wrong?

I installed another SATA hard drive, loaded Win XP Pro SP2 on it, and then booted from that drive.

Then when I try to transfer my old files, certain images/zips/ect give me a CRC error.

Everything was fine before this hard drive was installed.

When I try to copy/paste a specific file on my hard drive, to another folder on the same hard drive, I still receive this error now.

 

[Nothinman]

Most likely the drive is starting to fail. When data is read from a drive a CRC check is done to make sure it's correct, if the CRC fails the data got corrupted some where along the way. Assuming that your SATA drive does SMART and it's enabled the BIOS or Windows eventlog should have a warning about the drive beginning to fail, if not I would still grab a diagnostic utility and check the SMART status of the drive.

 

[Mr Bob]

Any ideas of a good diag utility?

 

[Nothinman]

Most hard disk manufacturers have one available, but a good Linux boot disk like Knoppix could do the same. They just read the SMART data and run a bad block test if you want.

 

[Mr Bob]

I have never done this before, can you be a bit more specific?

 

[Nothinman]

Your hard drive manufacturer should have a diagnostic image to download, usually a floppy image or ISO if it's too big. Write it and boot from it.

 

[CTho9305]

I know on regular [E]IDE, damaeged cables / poor connections can cause CRC errors - you could verify that your cable is properly. Western Digital has a pretty good drive checking utility here.

 

[S0Y73NTGR33N]

I had this happen from some new virus that was out when I was working on a customers computer at work. Try doing a free scan at trendmicro.com There's some weird virus that makes you get cyclic redunancy errors when your drive is fine.

-green

 

[S0Y73NTGR33N]

Also do a drive fitness test... it works with all brands..

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

-green

 

[dunkster]

Go to the Seagate support site and find the correct diagnostic for the exact HD model you're using. It will probably be offered as a file that you download and extract to a boot floppy (or boot CD).

Be sure you get and select/run the diagnostic utility - not a disk-wipe or disk-image utility. Read the documentation.

Boot into DOS from that floppy/CD and run the diagnostic utility. The utility will probably issue a warning that some data may be lost or some programs may be affected - but that is not likely unless whole sectors are damaged.

I recently ran the WD DLGDIAG diagnostic on my WD HD, and it did find and repair a disk defect in my OS partition. Repair was successful with no damage to data or program function. I was unaware of that defect until an image of that partition failed byte-for-byte image verification test.

 

[Mr Bob]

Should I use this: http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/ (SeaTools Desktop)

 

[Mr Bob]

Ok, well I tried that anyways.

I read all the steps, tried the program, but it would just freeze at 0%.

I couldn't do anything on the keyboard at all.

 

[Mr Bob]

Anyone know what I should do next?

 

[Nothinman]

How long did you wait while it was at 0%?

 

[Mr Bob]

About 5 minutes, the progress bar stops at the beginning, and never starts again.

 

[blinky8225]

Try running chkdsk and see if there any problems or bad sectors.

 

[Mr Bob]

chkdsk fixed a lot of the problems, mainly it deleted the problem files, but that's fine I guess..

Anyways, I reformatted the drive, and it seems to be fine now. What can I do in oredr to prevent this from happening again? Is my hard drive dying?

 

[wchou]

your mobo maybe bad, your ram maybe defective. and a host of other problems that you just have to narrow it down. overclocking also causes this, say 166fsb, but the agp divider is still at 1/2 and so is pci at 1/4 divider as if itwas at 133fsb. when things run out of sync, that's what happen too.

 

[Mr Bob]

Well, I do not overclock anything. How do I test to make sure it is in good condition again?