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Old 03-23-2006, 08:31 PM   #46
WabUfvot5
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I'd bet my bippy it is power related. Since the sound card failed around the same time I suspect you got a surge when moving things. Maybe it just juiced the mobo a bit too much or the power supply took a knock. Power supply failures are a total bitch to solve. I had one on an old machine... the only time it froze was when I loaded a page with flash. I have no idea why flash did it, but it did. New computer, same general setup = no problems. Power issues manifest in really really strange ways.
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Old 03-23-2006, 08:57 PM   #47
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All bets are off. I'm running now with all that new gear, but what do I find in the Event Viewer? You guessed it,

Quote:
The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.
The same error that it had before.

No HANGS yet, and in the past these errors have logged more often.

But with a new controller, new drive, new everything, it is infuriating to see those errors in the log.
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Old 03-23-2006, 09:04 PM   #48
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Wow, UT. That sux pond water.

Is it possible the damage was done before the switchover? You might try fixing the disk and have it do a full surface scan.
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Old 03-24-2006, 08:40 AM   #49
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Quote:
The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.
Oooookaaaayyy....

Maybe this message doesn't refer to the D: drive at all?

I think it's referring to the C: drive, which, in theory, is "Hard Disk 0".



This morning I have done a complete chkdsk of the C: drive. It found some problems, though its reporting leaves a lot to be desired. In the end it listed 4KB in bad sectors and did make changes to the filesystem.

Next I'll do a complete chkdsk of the E: drive (which is the other partition on that same disk).
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Old 03-24-2006, 08:49 AM   #50
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Actually, I think harddisk 0 refers to the physical drive, not the virtual (dos/windows) drive.
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Old 03-24-2006, 09:47 AM   #51
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In order to diagnose the problems in my "A" system, I replaced its old memory with newer memory stolen out of my "B" system.

B memory into A -> A works well

A memory into B -> B doesn't boot.

So. Add $80 of new matched 1GB Kingston memory to A, and take the 1GB out of A and put it back in B.

B memory into B -> B doesn't boot.

Fuuuuuuuck

Now system B is dual-boot; the IDE drive boots into Windows, the SATA drive boots into Linux (Fedora). Set it to boot into Linux and it does that fine. The BIOS recognizes both the IDE and the SATA. So, maybe the Windows boot record got messed up somehow during all the various rebooting and such.
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Old 03-24-2006, 09:50 AM   #52
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Oh yeah, so to finish this whole scenario, I put one of the sticks of A memory into the B system, to boot Linux with 1.5GB instead of 1GB, and it won't boot into Linux! So the whole process has also killed a stick of memory. Will this madness never end?
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Old 03-24-2006, 11:48 AM   #53
tw
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
... So the whole process has also killed a stick of memory. Will this madness never end?
It is called shotgunning. Trying to fix a problem rather than first learn what is wrong. Provided were some ideas of how to find a problem long before fixing anything. Break the problem down into parts - test individual system parts - and don't change anything.

Memory test - or what burn-in really is. Don't swap memory. Run a comprehensive memory diagnostic - either one provided by a responsible computer manufacturer or a third party diagnostic such as Memtst86 or Docmem. Execute diagnostic one or two passes. Even bad memory sometimes passes that test. And then we use burn-in - a concept completely misunderstood by those who used English interpretation to assume burn-in means running overnight.

Heat memory with a hairdryer on highest setting. A tropical paradise to good memory and hell to bad memory. Bad memory heated above 100 degree F often will expose itself as the pervert it really is. Otherwise move computer outside to 30 degree weather and leave it run the same memory diagnostic for maybe an hour. Accomplishes same thing that busterb discussed with coolant spray.

And yes, once I heated the oven to just over 100 degrees, put the clone computer in that oven, and found a defective cache Ram.

If memory passes both heat and cold test, then memory is fine. Move on to other suspects. If a memory stick has been damaged, well that is but another reason to not shotgun.

I have watched others swap memory because the new memory was defective. They did not use anti-static protection which is especially critical if room humidity is below 40%. Therefore memory that worked just fine on a memory diagnostic at 70 degrees was really defective - maybe static damaged. Just another problem with shotgunning. A problem created by another flawed assumption that parts (once thought to be good) will always be good.

Don't swap things. First collect facts. As a result of shotgun diagnostic techniques, you are now spending vast sums of money.

And yes, I am also concerned with that Hardrive0 being drive D. Something is wrong - just another fact that should be collected before changing anything. Does your drive have multiple partitions or were you running a master / slave combination as I originally asked? Answer is found in Disk Management program - among other places.

Meanwhile, get the comprehensive diagnostic from the hard drive manufacturer. Why? Among other things, because a diagnostic eliminates many unknown variables - ie Windows which is a massive variable. Every test is about stripping a problem down into parts - and then testing those parts - all without physically changing hardware. Don't even look at Windows until hardware diagnostics declare hardware good. And yes, that also means temperature cycling - ie the hair dryer - also called burn-in.
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Old 03-24-2006, 11:58 AM   #54
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jebediah
I'd bet my bippy it is power related.
Acutally it shows little indication of being power related. This made more obvious when first learning what the many functions are inside a power supply AND how computers (such as the one on a disk drive) are both designed and damaged. Actually it looks more like classic static electric damage. But that is only one of a long list of possibilities that requires better details from UT. Original problem did not sound like a disk drive problem. But again, insufficient details were not provides.

For example, what could be causing all problems? An improperly crimped wire in the disk drive cable. But again, only wild speculation from a long list of possible reasons.

The reason why I am answering this is that those who don't know why failure happen then just to the myths promoted by power strip protector vendors. The lights dimmed - therefore it must be a surge. How does a voltage drop become a massive voltage increase. But again, this is how myths are promoted - technical details never learned before declaring a conclusion - or why George Jr could preach that Iraq was a threat to the US - the mythical WMDs. It is why military academies graduate engineers - people who learn why underlying facts and details must first be learned.

The claims of 'power related' damage is just too often a myth for too many reasons. Often found where people shotgun rather than first learn facts. Those claims of WMDs - classic example of shotgun reasoning.
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Old 03-24-2006, 12:15 PM   #55
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Modern memory can't be heated with a hair dryer, because the DIMMs have aluminum "heat spreaders".
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Old 03-24-2006, 12:25 PM   #56
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
Modern memory can't be heated with a hair dryer, because the DIMMs have aluminum "heat spreaders".
Modern memory - including the heat spreader - is and can be heated with hair dryer. And at those temperatures, it is called paradise to the semiconductor. Heat the sucker. If in doubt, get look at the first page of that memory's data sheet (enter one of the semiconductor's part number into Google) to literally read memory temperatures that are called good, desireable, and acceptable. A hairdryer on high does not get anywhere near to unacceptable memory temperatures. The heat spreader only means it takes longer to get the memory to a proper test temperature.
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Old 03-24-2006, 02:09 PM   #57
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OK, now I'm stuck.

I want to copy bad drive C to good drive D. I want D to be bootable so that after copying, I can just remove C, make D a master, the new C.

In this case C and D are pretty much identical drives. In the past, I've done this with Partition Magic. But now, PM refuses to do it because it finds bad sectors on C.

I guess I could copy C to an external, put D in place as the new C, install XP to C, and then copy everything from the external to C. But isn't there a better way?
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Old 03-24-2006, 02:17 PM   #58
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Might not be a bad idea to do that, anyways. At least if you move everything to an external disk you'll have the ability to do a good format and even use some serious disk sector checking before you move it all back.
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Old 03-24-2006, 02:53 PM   #59
Undertoad
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Urgh. There are some files in /windows that you can't copy while windows is booted, so I can't just drag and drop /windows to D: and I can't copy them to the external.

And you can't recursively copy directories in windows recovery console mode.

If I reinstall XP, those files will then be open when the new copy of XP boots, and won't stand for being overwritten by the old copies.

Can I copy those files in safe mode?
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Old 03-24-2006, 03:05 PM   #60
Kitsune
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Undertoad
Can I copy those files in safe mode?
What do you want to copy of out /windows and overwrite on the re-install? Just browsing through mine leads me to understand there isn't much, if anything, in there that you'd want to overwrite manually and not let Windows handle, instead, especially if it is a file that remains open while the OS is running. Manually changing critical system files without having windows "know" about it is asking for potentially big problems later...
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