Random File System Corruption on XP

[owensdj]

Over the past few weeks I've starting getting random blue screen crashes. After the system restarts there is some kind of NTFS problem. One time this caused a registry corruption, and I had to reinstall.

The System Event Log always has a 0x00000024 error on the kernel stops. This is an ntfs.sys problem. I've scanned the 250GB Western Digital SATA using WD's diagnostic software, but it didn't find any problems. I've also used Memtest86+ to scan the memory.

The hardware is less than a year old. The problems seemed to start after I hooked up a Canon LiDE 200 USB scanner, but I don't see how this could be related. It never crashes or has any problems during a scan, and I have the newest drivers from Canon's site. Any ideas on how to diagnose this problem would be greatly appreciated.

2.66GHz E6750 Core 2 Duo
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512MB
Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 460W

 

[starfireone]

Have you tried just replacing the bad ntfs.sys file with a new one either from your OS CD or copy one from another OS installation.
You might have to do a repair:
To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R option. Get to a command prompt where you can rename the old one to ntfs.old and copy a new one over to your active OS.

 

[mpilchfamily]

There is a chance that the curruption is due to either a failing HDD or RAM. I suggest performing a repair install then run Memtest to make sure the RAM checks out.

 

[owensdj]

starfireone, thanks for the reply. My question wasn't really about how to recover from the corruption. It was how to find out what's causing it.

mpilchfamily, I ran Prime95 and got a Hardware Error message after about 3 hours. I ran it again and got it after about 46 minutes. I restarted and booted the Memtest86+ CD and it was reporting memory errors right away. I shut down the machine and powered on, but then Memtest86+ didn't get errors right away. I'm still running it right now. Does that mean the memory is the problem? Some people are reporting this particular Crucial Tech memory starts to go bad after a few months.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Sure sounds liek the memory is bad. It explains the curruption. While the data is in the RAm some bits of it get lost so it becomes currupted then is writen back to the HDD. Time for a RAM replacement.