Hard Drives corrupt

thewizard

I am having a nightmare!!

I have 3 hard drives.

• 500GB Sata II Drive That I used to have XP Installed on
• 160GB Sata I Drive that a friend gave to me from their old computer that I just used to store backups on
• 1TB Sata II Drive that I used to store my music and documents on

I recently bought Grand Theft Auto IV, Need For Speed Undercover and Need for Speed Pro Street after upgrading my graphics card to a 9800GTX+.

I was unable to play either of the two NFS games as it would not recognise any of the controls. It would also not install GTA IV so I am unable to check if it was just the NFS games.

After installing Norton 360 v2 a few months ago I had a problem with an error message displaying while my computer was shutting down. I also then got error messages from google talk and ibuddy either when the computer started up or after running for a short while. Once Google talk had restarted it ran fine, I never bothered restarting Ibuddy because I didn't really use it.

I tried to reinstall Windows XP today, it initially didn't work saying that the partition I was attempting to install the OS on wasn't working. I then tried to install a copy of Windows Vista x64 but I got the same problem. I then changed what Sata socket my HDD drive was plugged into and XP installed fine.

After installing SP3, my mobo drivers, graphics card drivers, norton 360 v2, speed fan, spybot S&D and partition magic I ran Partition magic to check all my drives were labelled correctly.

It said my 500Gb drive (which XP was installed on) and my 1TB driver were 'BAD'. I am assuming this means corrupt.

I tried to reformat the 1TB driver. Partition Magic restarted my PC and attempted to format the drive. But this didn't work.

My girlfriends dad told me to use Administrative tools to format the drives. This wouldn't work under normal windows conditions, it just said database could not be accessed. So I rebooted into Safe Mode.

I repeated the process in Safe Mode and it said the drives were all 'Healthy', so I tried to reformat a partition on the 500GB drive which I knew was empty any way. After pressing 'Format' the computer immediately showed the dreaded blue screen of death.

The computer will not turn on now either in Safe Mode or just into Windows, it just shows the BSOD.

Other things I have done since to repair the PC are:

• Disconnect all drivers other than the 500GB drive
• remove my wireless card which I had not yet installed the drivers for
• Set 'Fail Safe' settings in the BIOS

None have them have repaired it.

Any ideas on how I am going to get this running. I would prefer if I could keep documents in tact but I realise that this may not be possible.

Reggie_Rebel

Will it do a clean install with only the 500gb HDD installed?

thewizard

erm...will try that now...will let you know when its done.

Thanks for your help

thewizard

just to update, won't install on 500GB it just came up with BSOD again when windows setup started.

I am now trying to install on the 160GB drive as its the only one that was shown as healthy by partition magic

Conor_3

I have a funny feeling that your power supply isn't up to the job. You'll probably find that if you unplug the power leads to the other drives that the drive left plugged in will work fine and that if you swap which one is plugged in, whichever it is will show up as OK.

Usually the sign that a power supply is borderline after an upgrade is when you start getting drive errors or the computer has intermittent ability to see one or more of them.

Point to remember is it isn't the total wattage that counts, i.e 600W, but how much amperage is supplied on each rail (3.3V, 5V and 12V.)

Tallymanjohn

Firstly, if you want to salvage your documents then either attach the drive as a slave in another computer & copy your data or use a BootCD (BARTPE is my choice) to boot the system using the CD and then copy your data to an external drive. Once done, to find out if the drive(s) are definitely u/s you need to go to the website for each drive(s) manufacturer and download the diagnostic tool thay they have. This will tell you whether the drives are salvageable. I'm guessing the 1Tb drive is fairly new so that should be under warranty - you can check this at the manufacturer's site as well. Conor's suggestion of a dubious power supply is a good one, but if you've tried it with minimal components then, unless it's an unbranded, no-name supply then you should at least be able to get the system booted up (if it isn't a decent PSU then look at replacing it anyway as it may blow & take other components with it).

Craigoldfield

Conor wrote: »

I have a funny feeling that your power supply isn't up to the job. You'll probably find that if you unplug the power leads to the other drives that the drive left plugged in will work fine and that if you swap which one is plugged in, whichever it is will show up as OK.

Usually the sign that a power supply is borderline after an upgrade is when you start getting drive errors or the computer has intermittent ability to see one or more of them.

Point to remember is it isn't the total wattage that counts, i.e 600W, but how much amperage is supplied on each rail (3.3V, 5V and 12V.)

I agree Conor, the initial change was to a more powerful graphics card which will draw more current, the other potential is that the GFX card isn't seated properly so check that before splashing out on a new power supply.

thewizard

well I have not replaced the graphics card with my old 7300 GS and the problem is still occurring. I downloaded a copy of Hirens Boot CD and none of the diagnostic tools on there run.

I have a Seasonic S12II PSU which is more than capable of powering all the peripherals of my PC.

Me and a friend have come to the conclusion that the problem lies with the motherboard. But I am reluctant to test this because it would mean taking everything out of my PC to replace it with a new one. It would also require me having to buy a new motherboard.

The motherboard itself is literally a few weeks out of its 12 month warranty with ebuyer and I do not know what warranty Gigabyte offer.

The 1TB hard drive is about 3 months old, I bought it from a ebay shop who sells a lot of drives. The problem I had was the idiots that run the shop took 2 weeks to send it to me after messing me around. So I doubt I will get much help if I try to contact them.

My 500GB drive is as old as my motherboard as I bought most of the components at the same time.

My 160GB hard drive is probably about 3-5 years old now. It was in my ex-girlfriends mum's computer, she paid about £1000 when she bought it and it must of been top of the range when she did because it was SATA I. I am really surprised at how this drive still seems to be shown as healthy. It was the drive that ran at the highest temperature, it put up with about 2-4 years in a house full of smokers until I adopted it and gave it a happier home and its been bumped and bashed around a few times.

My RAM doesn't appear to be the problem because otherwise the PC wouldn't get past the POST tests, nor would the CPU.

So does anyone else think that it's the Motherboard?

Tallymanjohn

Don't be too certain that it is not the RAM just because it gets past POST. If you want to check for certain you need to run MemTest for a couple of cycles. Start by stripping everything down to its basics - one stick of RAM, onboard graphics if it's an option, disconnect all USB headers and just one HDD and one optical drive. See if you can get it to run at that.

Reggie_Rebel

The motherboard is a possibility. Did your problems start when you tried to install one of the HDD's

thewizard

couldn't get any ram testing programs to work

so I am going to try running ubuntu linux from the cd and see what happens then

and no the problems started quite a while after installing the news HDD