I don't know what is happening. Everytime I reboot I get an error message telling me that XP needs to scan one of my drives. Whenever it does it finds errors in files and deletes them. If I skip the scanning I will eventually find a file on that drive that I cannot view or even delete because it is corrupt. It seems that every time I come across corrupt files it is a picture of my six month old son which really pisses me off. Luckily I have backups of the pictures and I haven't lost one yet.

The drive is a 300 gig WD partitioned with one huge NTFS partition. I have run all the scan tools on it and the media is fine. For some reason it seems that the filesystem is damaging the files itself. Two nights ago I copied pictures from my camera over to my drive and started looking at them. One picture was distorted the first time I looked at it. Almost like someone took the top half and moved it over 20 or 30 pixels. Other times I have been viewing pictures using Windows Picture and Fax viewer and when I get to a picture it gives me the message that the image is not available. If I try to copy a good backup over it Windows won't let me. If I try to delete it, Windows won't let me and tells me the file is corrupt.

I've Googled this problem and I can't seem to find anything that relates to it. Anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks!
Rene

P.S. Reformatting with Linux and staying with Linux won't work for me due to work. I do have Ubuntu on this machine and am hoping to move to it eventually.

Run memtest86.

You actually just reminded me... there's a couple of caps swollen on the motherboard and I have to replace it. I have run many memory, cpu and system burn-in tests. When they actually complete they can't find anything wrong... however, most times they lock solid randomly in the test.

The corruption happens randomly as well... usually not coinciding with a lock.

If I were to reboot my system and do a full scan, XP would "fix" the problem files (by deleting them). If I were to reboot immediately after windows would insist on scanning again and it would find more problem files.

I have a new Motherboard, CPU, RAM and aVideo Card that I will hopefully be putting in this weekend but I fear the same problem will persist. I guess I'll update when I get the job done.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Rene

I've got all new hardware in my PC (except for the drives, power supply, and case), and a fresh install of XP. I re-connected the drive and the same thing is happening. Everytime I restart, more files are corrupt. I am guessing the file system is the problem. The hardware tests pass fine.

I am moving whatever I can salvage off the drive and deleting the crap I've built up over the past year and I plan on reformatting the disk. Does anyone know what might cause this and should I worry about it happening again?

Thanks for your time!

Rene

My guess is it's your PSU. The PSU is usually a part of which people don't even think that it can also be faulty. After all: it works, doesn't it? Wrong. If the voltage isn't 100% correct and stable, then you can get all sorts of weird errors. I recommend replacing your PSU.
(the PSU may very well have been the reason for that blown up cap as well)

Is the 300 GB hard drive SATA or PATA? If you using the older PATA drive it might be a driver / registry problem. I've had this problem and a friend also had the same problem with PATA hard drives over 137GB (48 bit LBA). The issue is that some drivers require a registry setting set to enable 48 bit LBA on the controller. It gets worst, the drive will look like it is working just fine when you format it without this registry setting but it won't start having problems until the drive starts using the space above 137GB. We also found that after a Windows Updates the registry setting could be gone.

It's an IDE drive. The system it was installed in never had SATA ports so my fiancee bought an IDE drive for me.

Any information on this registry setting?

Rene

The PSU was replaced after this started happening and the caps were swollen. I won't rule it out 100%, but I am guessing that it is not the culprit.

As soon as I can get my hands on another PSU I will swap and see if it makes any difference.

Rene

This should help: http://www.largeharddrivesupport.windowsreinstall.com/index.htm



(From the link above:)
Now that hard drives have increased beyond this size changes were needed. So came along 48 bit LBA. This has increased the maximum size of hard drives to 144,000,000 gigabytes.

Only 144,000 terabytes? Heck, Paul's empeg is probably pushing that limit already!

tanstaafl.

She's at it again.

My new system is perfectly stable with all the new components, but file corruption is happening again. The last two times I restarted I have been asked to "fix" the files with a chkdsk.

I've ran GRCs Spinrite and it gave the drive a clean bill of health.

The drive was formatted, zero'd, and the data was copied back to it.

My entire system was formatted and had XP reinstalled twice ( i fooled it up with a bad codec install the first time so I just reformatted and reinstalled to make sure it was all clean again).

I'm waiting for Western Digital to open their phones this morning and I will be giving them a call. This really sucks.

Rene

P.S. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

I read back over the thread, and at the very top of the thread, Roger said to run memtest86.

I'd recommend doing that at this point, even if it passed before.

It ran and passed before, and it runs and passes now, with a new motherboard and new ram.

Any thoughts on replacing the drive? From skimming the thread it seems like the only hardware you haven't replaced.

Matthew

Nothing shows up as being wrong with the drive. No matter what test I run, the drive itself appears fine. It seems to be some Windows XP induced problem. After this latest reinstall (about 2.5 months ago) and then formatting of the 320Gig drive I never had the problem at all until a few nights ago when I restarted because I hadn't restarted in weeks and I try to reboot every now and then.

I had Ubuntu dual-booting before and it never had a problem. It was always Windows.

This isn't my boot drive (if that makes a difference) and I have it formatted with NTFS.

I never got a hold of Western Digital today. Hopefully I'll get a chance tomorrow.

Rene

P.S. If WD offers me a swap for a SATA drive I will jump at that... hopefully that will cure my problems.

Have you tried replacing the PSU already since you last spoke about it?

I never replaced the PSU. Instead I put the drive into an external USB enclosure and the problem has disappeared. Western Digital was no help in finding a reason for this issue.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Rene

I tend to lean this way. I never had a problem while booting into Ubuntu. XP on the otherhand... ouch!

Thanks for reading. Hopefully this problem has gone away forever now!

Rene

Stupid piece of crap drive.

I put it in a USB enclosure a while ago now and everything's been peachy. Last night I reboot and the same chkdsk error pops up upon XP reboot. I skipped the scan and now I'm getting pop-up balloons in the system tray telling me various files are corrupt.

A new drive is on the way and I'll be copying the remaining files over to that one. Then I'll either RMA or shotgun the old drive... I don't know which method would be more satisfying... I'm cheap. But shooting the hell out of this drive with a 12 gauge sounds like more fun!

hmmm... any donations? If I get $100 US in my Paypal I'll take this drive out and videotape me shooting the crap out of it... starting with a .22 and then finishing with a 12 gauge. Actually I'll do the same with my old motherboard as well that I despise so much.

I'm trying to put a video of a past frustration shooting on a monitor online. I'll link to it here as soon as I get it online.

I think there are some really fun things you can do if you open up the drive and do stuff to it while it's spinning. (Wear protective gear and eye goggles... )

A previous experience with killing hardware.

http://one.revver.com/watch/258311/affiliate/33249


Rene

P.S. Any way to nicely embed videos?