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Is my harddrive shot?

J

jzinckgra

Member
A couple days ago my puter starts acting up. It locked up, so I do a restart and it won't load to the windows xp splash screen, just loops. Finally I get to the options screen and try "last known good config", which seemed to work for a day then it started again tonite. On top of that I start getting an error "c:\windows\prefetch is corrupt and unreadable" and "sysfader:iexplore.exe application error". I read up on both of those and they are not popping up anymore, but when explorer froze up on a webpage, I tried crtl/alt/del and the puter crashed and started looping again.
I noticed the cmos battery had some crud around the edge and replaced it thinking that might be the prob, but it is not.
Finally tonite, the looping starts again, so I try and load the winxp disc to try and do a repair and I can't even get the disk loaded. I changed the boot seq under bios, but when the cd rom spins up, the puter crashes before bringing up the xp disc contents. weird.
I am running the puter now as I type this, but it seems very random when it crashes. I scanned for viruses (none found) and ran a chkdisk. There were some errors, which it said it fixed, but still not sure.
I built this puter myself about 3 years ago and run it pretty much 24/7, so maybe something is on the way out. I have not updated the bios in 2 yrs and generally don't feel the need to if all is well, but I thought about it. I did have the CPU oc'd for most of the 3 years, but when I reset the cmos, I just let it go back to default settings.

Quick update:
I woke this morning and had several error messages on the screen. One was"windows socket initialize failed". I go to restart and get this message: "windows cannot start because \windows\system32\config\system missing or corrupt". It prompts me to reinstall windows or fix corrupt file. I can't even boot from the cd drive, so at this point, not sure what to do or what the problem may be
 
If you can't boot to the XP CD, then the first thing to check is the memory. Run Memtest86+ overnight. There should be zero errors.

You'll also want to run the hard drive maker's free disk diagnostics program and see what it says.
 
i've actually replaced the mem three times on this computer, most recently about 2 months ago. what's funny is when I pulled one or the other mem chip, it usually fixed the prob, indicating one of the chips was bad.I go then order another pair. But those problems back then were different then the current set of problems. Plus how can I do a mem test if I can't get to windows? Isn't it odd I can't even boot the xp disc?
 
Memtest86+ is normally run from a CDROM. Hopefully you'll be able to at least boot to that. I've never seen a PC that wouldn't do so. Unless your CD reader is dead, too.

There's a million things that COULD be wrong. Check out the easiest ones first with a memory test and a hard drive test. And if you can't boot to those CDs, then you'll have to troubleshoot that first.
 
another update. I tried 4 different HD's and all have the same prob in that none of them will boot or allow me to even boot the xp cd. I even tried another cd rom drive and no luck. basically when the cdrom spins up, after designating it as the 1st boot device, it goes to a black screen then powers up all over again. I think I've ruled out HD, but now am not sure it is PS or mobo. I looked at the rail settings on the ps last week and they were 3.23, 5.02 and 12.36. i think these are w/in spec. this blows, as either way i am looking at a new build maybe.
 
If it won't boot to a CD you can always rule out the HD, because nothing's being loaded from it.

Try and run Memtest like rebatemonger said. If that doens't work, try putting the CD drive on a different port on the motherboard, and try using a different cable.
 
Few updates from last nite:
1. ok, i think i made progress. I had my HD plugged in as my primary IDE and am also using an IDE card in one of my PCI slots (mobo doesn't have extra slot on board). Well I got curious and plugged my cd rom in using the serial cable connected to the primary IDE slot on mobo. HD was disconnected completely. Loe and behold I am able to load winxp boot disc, but I can't repair HD cause it is not plugged in. I am going to try and plug into the IDE card that the cr rom was originally plugged into. Basically i think the mobo was not recognizing the cd rom using the IDE adaptor card, or whatever it's called.
2. well as expected, HD wasn't recognized using IDE channel on PCI card. Stupid mobo only has one IDE and that is for the HD. I know the HD needs to be repaired, but because I can't get cd rom recognized using PCI IDE card, there is no way to fix it. Granted the HD is/was likely on the "outs", but I would have liked to see if I could repair it anyways. I just realized I only have the orig. XP disc, not with SP2, so even if I could load the disc, I couldn't repair the drive, correct? What a PITA.
3. last update for tonite. the PCI card is a Rosewill Ultra ATA/133 PCI card. I think the driver was somehow lost and the card just isn't seen. i will copy the driver onto a floppy and see if I can get it loaded. what can I do about not having a winxp SP2 disc? Do you really have to have it for the repair console option? I read online that you do not want to do the repair console, but rather install windows again and that will replace the lost or damaged files. any thoughts?

 
Your problem is that the PCI card isn't recognized by the BIOS and therefore anything attached to it isn't visible until Windows loads the drivers.

Follow these steps to remedy your problem.

1) Physically remove CD-rom and HDD from the computer.

2) Outside of the box setup the two drives on the same IDE cable, with the HDD at the end of the cable (set HDD to master + CD to slave or set both to cable select).

3) Plug the IDE cable into your motherboard socket.

4) Put your XP disk into the drive and power up.

You should now be able to get into the recovery console or (worst case) do a repair install with the second 'repair' option. And it doesn't matter that your copy is pre-SP2, you will just have to install all updates again when Windows loads properly - to save time, download SP3 and just install it before anything else, that should take care of 99% of the updates.

EDIT: From the sound of your issues, your HDD may be failing. Then again, I've seen drives give errors like those and once the system is repaired continue to work for years with no further problems. With as cheap as stuff has gotten though it might be time to drop $80 and pick up a new SATA drive (WD 640GB around this price point).
 
thanks, I got everything to work again. Even loaded SP3. Don't know how stable it'll be and for how long. Should I run a chkdsk scan?
 
Well I thoght I had everything fixed and working, but I started getting lockups and all kinds of BSOD errors messages. Most recently error codes: 0x00000024 and 0x000000D1. The 1st I know is a potential HD problem ans the 2nd is a bad driver, I think USB. I am thinking the HD is really to blame, but I ran HD Tune and it reported no errors. Not sure jpw reliable that program is. I also ran chkdsk /F. I woke up this morning and found the computer stuck at the windows XP splash screen with the task bar just moving from left to right, but never loading win. I restart and all is well.
I am about ready to just rebuild the puter, but keep my current video card and memory and likely go vista. Any other thoughts before I pull the trigger? I wish I could figure it out. I'd like to try and reinstall xp repair console, cause that seemed to fix the prob last time, but it seems like a matter of time before it will crash again.
 
memtest runs from a boot cd or floppy or thumbdrive
you can't test memory in windows...windows is using memory!
and you should have checked that ram in another pc..a friends or such. its not likely you get so many bad sets of ram.
 
ok, I ran memtest and within 10 seconds or so, I got to Test #1 (highest error address) and it recored 1027 errors, while Test #2 (bits in error mask) seemed to be stuck in a loop, where it would start at zero and quickly run up to 32767 errors, then start over. It wouldn't seem to go any furhter in the test, so I exited, but couldn't get out using the esc key. Seemed like it was locked up on that one test. Just did reset button restart. I assume at this point, I should remove one chip and retest, then vice versa to see which chip is bad.
If one or both are bad, then this is getting ridiculous, as I have replaced the (2) 1GB chips three times over the last 2 years in this machine. We have had power outages this past spring/summer (maybe 3 times), so I wonder if somehting got messed up from that.
 
Reran memtest, testing one chip at a time and both chips had no errors. It's just weird. The puter threw a few more BSOD screens today. Just doesn't seem stable and I am at stock settings right now. It seem to work for awhile, then it either restarts itself or BSOD. I'm really thinking of rebulding a new rig.
 
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