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mbpark · 03-04-2010, 04:24 PM

TW,

The specific error he was getting pointed to a very specific Intel driver, iaastor.sys. Drivers do cause filesystem corruption as well. This particular one is the Windows device driver for the SATA controller on the motherboard.

Microsoft pushed out a second Service Pack for Vista (and Server 2008) that corrected major bugs in the various subsystems, including TCP/IP and storage.

OEM vendors were not required to ship Vista Service Pack 2, as is usually the case with Microsoft. They require their vendors to ship machines with a new service pack within 30-60 days of its release.

In this case, the machine shipped with SP1. SP2 is an optional update, which IMHO is a really stupid decision on the part of MS!

Here's what's fixed in SP2: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=143706

There are at least 3 hotfixes for NTFS alone, 2 of which can cause corruption, not to mention the fact that if a machine blue-screens, it will take NTFS with it and cause filesystem corruption. NTFS may be a sophisticated file system, but if your device drivers are not 100%, and during a crash dump, when they will not flush out your data the right way, you will have a corrupt file system. Remember that this happens on ALL file systems, and that fsck is the same as chkdsk on Mac OS X, Linux, and BSD.

I had that happen on Christmas Eve with a server that our operations staff decided to shut down using the power button instead of normal methods. It took 5 hours to CHKDSK the volume and bring it back.

You forget that this isn't the NT 4.0 days. Device drivers are incredibly complicated, and I have seen higher-end hardware have corrupt file systems specifically because of bad device drivers. This has happened on Windows, Linux, OS X, and many other OSes.

I don't think it was a physical problem. I think that something got corrupt either due to the machine being shut down improperly, a bad device driver, or both.

I've seen file systems get corrupt on million-dollar IBM z9 mainframes, HP Proliants, Dell servers, and other machines that cost as much as a new car. Many times, it had to do with either a power cut or improper shutdown that caused the file system to have errors, and the device drivers didn't know how to deal with the errors caused.

The only difference is that Lumberjim didn't have 3 IBM techs taking care of his filesystem at 5 AM, and my employer did.

03-04-2010, 04:24 PM	#280
mbpark Lecturer Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Carmel, Indiana Posts: 761	TW, The specific error he was getting pointed to a very specific Intel driver, iaastor.sys. Drivers do cause filesystem corruption as well. This particular one is the Windows device driver for the SATA controller on the motherboard. Microsoft pushed out a second Service Pack for Vista (and Server 2008) that corrected major bugs in the various subsystems, including TCP/IP and storage. OEM vendors were not required to ship Vista Service Pack 2, as is usually the case with Microsoft. They require their vendors to ship machines with a new service pack within 30-60 days of its release. In this case, the machine shipped with SP1. SP2 is an optional update, which IMHO is a really stupid decision on the part of MS! Here's what's fixed in SP2: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=143706 There are at least 3 hotfixes for NTFS alone, 2 of which can cause corruption, not to mention the fact that if a machine blue-screens, it will take NTFS with it and cause filesystem corruption. NTFS may be a sophisticated file system, but if your device drivers are not 100%, and during a crash dump, when they will not flush out your data the right way, you will have a corrupt file system. Remember that this happens on ALL file systems, and that fsck is the same as chkdsk on Mac OS X, Linux, and BSD. I had that happen on Christmas Eve with a server that our operations staff decided to shut down using the power button instead of normal methods. It took 5 hours to CHKDSK the volume and bring it back. You forget that this isn't the NT 4.0 days. Device drivers are incredibly complicated, and I have seen higher-end hardware have corrupt file systems specifically because of bad device drivers. This has happened on Windows, Linux, OS X, and many other OSes. I don't think it was a physical problem. I think that something got corrupt either due to the machine being shut down improperly, a bad device driver, or both. I've seen file systems get corrupt on million-dollar IBM z9 mainframes, HP Proliants, Dell servers, and other machines that cost as much as a new car. Many times, it had to do with either a power cut or improper shutdown that caused the file system to have errors, and the device drivers didn't know how to deal with the errors caused. The only difference is that Lumberjim didn't have 3 IBM techs taking care of his filesystem at 5 AM, and my employer did.