Data Corruption

[hennessy1]

I have a customer that despite multiple reinstalls keeps getting corrupted windows files. Memory testing is on the to do list but they also have an add on controller and I was wondering if there was a test or program that could read and write data like memtest to check for corruption?

Any help is much appreciated thank you.

 

[Blain]

* How old are the components?
* Are the components of good quality?
* Are they operating their PC behind a good quality UPS?
* Were the reinstalls all done from the same physical media?

 

[hennessy1]

Maybe 2yrs max. This is a dell precision workstation that I have been trying to help the customer with. No ups in place. The media was all dells either the dell windows 7 cd or the dell system recovery partition. I did not use anything else because if it is hardware related dell will not be as willing to help if I wiped away their partition or not used their media.

I did find this site yesterday just not sure how to get that utility.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg607461(v=vs.85).aspx

 

[Ketchup]

How often is the problem occurring, as in, how much time passes before the problem starts occurring, in which case a re-install seems to fix it?

What is the memory setup on that board?

Is the corruption only occurring on Windows files?

 

[hennessy1]

No standard amount of time passes sometimes a couple months to several months passes. It always has to do with windows updates in one way or another. I would have to check the memory configuration later today.

 

[Ketchup]

My first thought is a bad area on the hard drive. I don't see RAM as causing an issue that happens so irregularly, since Windows 7 uses just about all of it, in one way or another.

If it were me, I would boot off a disc with seatools and see if it finds anything.