I think my PC has just died... any help please

swebb

swebb wrote: »

Still running:

"Correcting error in index $0 for file 25." has appeared on the screen 3 times and it's just haning off the third line at the moment.

This is stage 2 of 5. Guess I just need to leave it running for longer still.

It's moving on again now - inserting indexes.

bluesnake

Ooops, I'm bad! My collection or rantings could be taken out of context.

chkdsk will try and fix and detect errors in file system consistency. These errors while often trouble some, are often lite on the pocket - hardware wise. It is not really a disk evaluator. It may take overnight to fix. It may say that it is fixed, but still not working.

The manufacturers progs 95% is the time is the disk evaluator, says if your disk is duff or not.

Before you do anything, you need to get you mp3, photos ect off, BCE is for another day and you possibly will not use it here.

Once your data is copied the disk can be check to see if it is a disk problem (i do suspect it is a hardware problem due to age) or that the system has become corrupt like the pc was bumped while writing, jarring the heads.

Again, once the chkdsk is done copy off the files that you want to keep, or even backit up, but you will be backing up the corrupt data too. if you back the disk up, you can do a destructive (read/write, rather than read only disk diags) from the manufactures diag disk

Run the manufacturers diags.

you have the windows installation cd with a valid s/n?

If the manufacturers diag say the disk is good, reinstall. If the disk shows errors within a few days, they the disk is probably wearing out and cant hold the magnetic information on the platters, so buy a new drive.

If the manufactures checker shows bad tracks and sectors, time to again buy a new drive.

swebb

CHKDSK has finally finished. It made some repairs.

I've rebooted and got the same boot manager screen. This time it's at a brick wall:

File:\Boot\BCD
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: An error ocurred while attemoting to read the boot configuration data.

I'm now thinking to attempt to reinstall the OS from scratch.

Bluesnake - I can't see where to get the diagnostic from, from Medion. Whilst I have been using the C:\ in DOS mode it has been fine for me i.e. speed is good, moving around the directories is fine, xcopy, copy are all good etc. The problem is perhaps more OS related?

Thoughts anyone?

cheers

globalds

can you see who manufactured your hard drive and also specific model number and look for the diagnositcs relating to your disk from there site? ..I think medion only bolts bits together.

Might be a great time to buy an ssd drive ...best upgrade I ever made ..boot up speeds are astonishing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j84eEjP-RL4

bluesnake

swebb wrote: »

I'm now thinking to attempt to reinstall the OS from scratch.

Bluesnake - I can't see where to get the diagnostic from, from Medion. Whilst I have been using the C:\ in DOS mode it has been fine for me i.e. speed is good, moving around the directories is fine, xcopy, copy are all good etc. The problem is perhaps more OS related?

A bit 50-50 disk vs os.

Open the pc, look at the label of the disk, write down the details, manufacturer. model and serial no. To be honest I would take a photo, as often there are loads of numbers.

From the disk label i would go to the disk manufacturers site and download the diags.

Also globalds made a very good comment, though to replace a 500Gig with SSD is still a bit costly. You may want to boot from
a smaller ssd (i like 128Gig, but 64Gig will probably do too) and let that hold your system files, and use a second tradition drive for data and programs.

swebb

Following a couple more auto repairs, I've now got further. I can get into Windows now but in a different state. It's as if it's a very old restore (e.g. the background isn't the same, the widgets are also different). In addition Office products won't work nor will Media Centre for example. The internet is fine (although the bowser I use (Opera) has disappeared). It's also very slow on boot up.

So still a problem for me that needs sorting.

I think a new hard disk and install the OS and boot from that is the way forward. I can keep the current disk and reformat if needs be. Does that sound about right would you say? I can also do the diag test as mentioned.

I have a recovery drive with the software on CD (so not a Vista CD as it were but one that was shipper pre installed) - on the \. This shouldn't be a problem should it - it will just install onto the new disk?

Cheers

poppellerant

The drive might be perfectly fine, but has somehow become corrupted. Use a tool to check the S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive, such as HD Tune or CrystalDiskInfo.

I don't see the make of your harddrive mentioned, but perform a full format of your drive. Then perform a full or thorough test with your harddrive manufacturer's diagnostic program - ie: SeaTools.

It may well be that Windows had a hiccup that corrupted your data. This could be down to the harddrive, hence why I asked you to test. Or perhaps even the memory (test with a program such as Memtest86+) or PSU (test iwth a multimeter) is faulty.

NiftyDigits

swebb wrote: »

Following a couple more auto repairs, I've now got further. I can get into Windows now but in a different state. It's as if it's a very old restore (e.g. the background isn't the same, the widgets are also different). In addition Office products won't work nor will Media Centre for example. The internet is fine (although the bowser I use (Opera) has disappeared). It's also very slow on boot up.

So still a problem for me that needs sorting.

I think a new hard disk and install the OS and boot from that is the way forward. I can keep the current disk and reformat if needs be. Does that sound about right would you say? I can also do the diag test as mentioned.

I have a recovery drive with the software on CD (so not a Vista CD as it were but one that was shipper pre installed) - on the \. This shouldn't be a problem should it - it will just install onto the new disk?

Cheers

How do you propose to install what is on the drive on the the new hard drive?
Once you remove the old hard drive, you will no longer have the contents of the old dive.
Secondly, why would you want to do that anyway? If it's six years old, then the Restore won't even have any Service Packs installed.

What is the Model number of this Medion?

swebb

NiftyDigits wrote: »

How do you propose to install what is on the drive on the the new hard drive?
Once you remove the old hard drive, you will no longer have the contents of the old dive.
Secondly, why would you want to do that anyway? If it's six years old, then the Restore won't even have any Service Packs installed.

What is the Model number of this Medion?

I intend to keep the current drive (as a back drive or whatever). So the new drive becomes the c: and do the restore from recovery onto that. The Vista I have does have service pack 2 (and I assume once restored the updates can be downloaded in the usual way).

The model is MD8828.

cheers

NiftyDigits

swebb wrote: »

I intend to keep the current drive (as a back drive or whatever). So the new drive becomes the c: and do the restore from recovery onto that. The Vista I have does have service pack 2 (and I assume once restored the updates can be downloaded in the usual way).

The model is MD8828.

cheers

The PC is from 2007, so unless you have created the Recovery Partition on the drive yourself, it won't have Service Pack 1(February 4, 2008). You seem to acknowledge that as you write about 'downloading it in the usual way'.

Back up, use the newly created Vista media to repair the the table if possible and then update to the latest BIOS.