I keep getting hard drive corruption + chkdsk on startup?!

[OverVolt]

Titles says most of it. I've having a tough time with this rig. Chkdsk runs over half the time i boot up, but not all the time. And files recently went corrupt on the hardrive + i had to reinstall windowsXP (what a pain!).

I'm not 100% sure whats causing all this but i wanna get it figured out!

I've narrowed it down to a few suspect parts let me know what ya'll think k!
---------------------------------
Asus P4S533- This chipset is horrible i'm never buying a cheap mobo again!
WD 80Gb "SE"- I ran the utility from WD and did a surface scan with 0 errors
IDE cable- Just used the one that came with the mobo, maybe it's defective?
RAM- It's Samsumg original Pc2700 @ stock volt Cas2

Here are other Specs if ya need em
---------------------------------
Antec 430w
P4 2.4b
Nec CD-Rom
Phillips CD-RW
Nec Floppy

Thats about it thanks for any help and sry for the long post!

 

[Gunbuster]

Fat32 or NTFS? Fat32 is a deathtrap with large partitions

 

[sharkeeper]

Is the drive connected to onboard IDE or a third party (promise) controller?

What is your PCI bus speed?

Cheers!

 

[AnAndAustin]

Windows may be shutting power off too quickly, perhaps check you have all Win Updates. As sharkeeper suggests any FSB o/c'ing can cause this esp if it's causing the PCI to run too far out of spec. RAM is also a faint possibility.

 

[OverVolt]

Leme say Ty everyone!

The File system is NTFS, and stock PCI- thats why i was so puzzled. I never thought of it shutting down too soon i thought they fixed that in Windows ME i'll look into it. BTW it's run off the mobo's controller not an add in card.

I did some slight O/C'ing when the problem started :Q then i went back to stock because of it. But i guess important files eventually went corrupt.

Thanks!

Edit- There's two 5700rpm 80mm fans by the HD, can that make the drive vibrate and cause corruption?

 

[t0mmyb0y]

I had similar problems and it was a bad ram chip corrupting my files. See if your problems go away with a different stick.

 

[OverVolt]

Ram is so cheap i midas well buy another 512Mb stick and test it out!

 

[Buk]

I had fits chasing a problem like this. Memtest said my RAM was bad and, sure enough, when I swapped out the RAM, the problem went away. Memory is cheap but Memtest86 is free! Try it before you swap the RAM out..................

 

[AnAndAustin]

Yup, however it looks as though a fresh / reinstall of the OS is in order but you will want to ensure your RAM is good first.

 

[Eug]

I did some slight O/C'ing when the problem started then i went back to stock because of it. But i guess important files eventually went corrupt.

What were you O/C'ing? Even if not the PCI bus, this could explain it. Check your RAM too if you're still getting the prob.

I hope you have all your data backed up.