Common problems, one cause?

[Slanzinger]

Basically, I've been having troubles with this PC from the word go (bought last year, can't send it back for tech. support because the company has since shut down) (WARNING: The following post contains a bit of technical jargon, I'm mostly looking out for Mxy to see this, but any other ideas would be much appreciated)

Some examples:

1) (This is the most common) Firefox will shut down quite often, citing errors about various DLLs (Ones to do with Java and Flash are the most common) - but this happens seemingly randomly.
2) I will sometimes get BSOD errors, usually of the form 0x8e or 0x50 - the actual errors vary ("PFN List corrupt", "Page fault in nonpaged area", and similar) - this seems to happen sometimes if playing fullscreen games, but there seems to be no actual prerequisite (It will do it as often in Halo as it does in Matrix: Path of Neo etc, and has even done it in the free version of GTA which was released for download on the Rockstar website - not a CD in sight for that one)
3) A little less common, when looking at "Event Viewer" on my PC, there are lots of errors marked "Disk", these generally say "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.", and sometimes one marked "NTFS" will appear - the next time the computer is booted after an NTFS error, Checkdisk runs and renames a few files on the system (Extremely annoying when this happens)
4) The most serious one, really made me panic when I saw it first, but quite uncommon (About once every two months, started in January) - Windows will not start. An error comes up saying: "The following file is missing or corrupt: "C:\WINDOWS\System\Config" (or similar, can't remember exactly) - this means I have to find the Windows CD I got with the computer and start Recovery Console (Just booting into the console and then quitting it seems to fix it)

Like I said, there seems to be no obvious cause for any of it. I have reinstalled FireFox many times, this has done nothing to help that issue. My computer is free of spyware and viruses, as I check it regularly. I'm reluctant, though, to run a hard drive diagnostic tool as they warn of possible data loss - basically, if it can happen, it probably will to me, and I don't particularly want to lose all the stuff from this PC (Nowhere near enough money to get a pro in to sort it out if it goes ankles-up)
I guess the especially confusing thing about the blue screen errors is that most people who get them cannot start windows, and this hasn't happened to me at all.
I dunno... Suggestions, anyone?

[BFM_Chaindog]

Could be a  program or download corrupted your system Registry -or- that your System Files are corrupting due to something installed/uninstalled/updated  -or- your hard disk drive is starting to go and Checkdisk isn't finding it.  How often have you defragmented your HDD since you got it?  Have you done a lot of installs/uninstalls?  Do you use a BitTorrent or LimeWire-like program for downloads?  What is your Anti-Virus program?  Firewall(s)?  Anti-Spyware?  When did you last get a Microsoft Update?   

[AR~Archon]

Re: the hard drive - you may be able to run a S.M.A.R.T. monitoring utility and ask the hard drive electronics if it's seeing any issues  I'm a Mac guy, though, so I don't know which one to recommend.  That would give you an indication of whether it's the HDD or system software.

Good luck!

[timah_101]

i had a simmalar problem to you. you have a few options;

1st, try a repair install of windows

Failing that you may need to back up all your data and format. i repaired xp and it worked for me!

[Slanzinger]

@Chaindog:
I've defragged it a few times, no problems there. Current fragmentation is at about 10%.
I have Webroot Spy Sweeper (Temporary trial, updates run out a couple of months from now, but haven't had this until about march of this year) and F-Secure Antivirus (2005 OEM, runs out in October, have had a few troubles with "CRC checks" on updates, but reset the database regularly so it's not too much of a problem). I also use Windows Defender and Microsoft's own firewall.
I do not use BitTorrent or LimeWire, or similar.
About Microsoft Updates: I update whenever I see one, but do it on a "need-to-know" basis; i.e. I never let it install (or even download) stuff automatically, it has to ask me first.

@Timah - How do I go about running a repair install? I assume that just fixes all the DLL files (which might be what I need) - but all I know how to do is get into the recovery console, enter my admin password, exit and restart the PC.
(I'm only really prepared to try it if my data is going to be safe though, I'm not keen on losing stuff)

Are there any memory diagnostic tools that people can recommend?

[Forseti]

@Timah - How do I go about running a repair install? I assume that just fixes all the DLL files (which might be what I need) - but all I know how to do is get into the recovery console, enter my admin password, exit and restart the PC.
(I'm only really prepared to try it if my data is going to be safe though, I'm not keen on losing stuff)

With all these problems, this is what I would try first too. You insert the windows CD and set up your bios to recognize your CD drive before the HDD and let it run. Eventually it will get to a blue screen asking if you want a fresh install that will erase everything, or to repair or to exit. Make sure you back everything up you like.

My guess is that it is 1 of 3 things however.

Hard drive - unlikely though given the shear volume and variety of problems, not to mention how long this has been going on. If you have a old spare HDD to swap out you can re-intall windows on this is easy enough to check (if not time consuming).

RAM memory - very likely cause for the reason above and probably the easiest to check if you have any spare memory you can try switching out.

Mother Board - Unfortunately if I have to guess I would say this is the most likely cause. I am not aware of any diagnostic tools specifically for the MB. Most tools check different components and if the are all in "error" that is usually how you tell. I do not have any of those programs really, I just have a lot of spare parts that I am able to trade out until I figure it out.

[MrMxyzptlk]

Um, DON'T DO ANY OF THE ABOVE!

Your HDD is likely got "on-the-edge" hard failures that will shortly only get (possibly irrecoverably!) WORSE.

Stop everything that you're doing and do the following ASAP:

0) Shut down and boot into Safe Mode, and do a full backup of your system (however you do that "normally."

1) Now - while still in Safe Mode - do Scandisk ("Error-Checking") scans OF EVERY PARTITION and BE SURE to CHECK BOTH "Automatically fix file system errors" AND "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors" for all scans!

Now go to sleep, cuz that's gonna take a while!

2) (Recommended, but not always possible for "mere mortals" to do, so you should be able to do this!  ): Regardless of what MS Windows just did/said about your drive, use the MANUFACTURER'S UTILITIES to scan/test for bad sectors. (This is The Only Way to REALLY find "failing" sectors" and to determine if you should get a replacement HDD ASAP....)

Maxtor/Seagate or Western Digital (you need to matching utils for your brand HDD) both come with BOOTABLE CDs or you can download their latest CD images from their sites and burn a CD with them on it. (They both have excellent instructions on how to do this, too.)

Now here's the hard part: The BEST way to check your HDD for problems is to do the "destructive" test, but seeing as you've got stuff on it I do NOT recommend that.  Use whatever to "highest level" or Read/Write test offered by the utility that promises to "keep data!"

I skipped doing this for years until I got a bad HDD out of a retail box in 1998, and have ever since run EVERY NEW HDD through the manufacturer's MOST RIGOROUS utility "burn-in" test, and indeed, have returned several as being "bad" - as determined by their own utilities! - since. (FYI: They are both GREAT at replacing on-warranty disks that fail their own tests, BTW!)


[Note: This may NOT be your problem, but it sounds like it COULD BE, and given the downside of the POSSIBILITY that this is the problem I urge you to check this out ASAP before trying any other changes/tests that might cause further damage to your system....]

[Slanzinger]

Kay then, I'll try that. I'll just do the Scandisk for now (Backup of stuff before scandisk doesn't seem all that necessary)
Horribly, I think it might be the HDD, it's appearing as "The system drive requires repair" on System Mechanic. (also quite odd is the fact that the disk - "SAMSUNG HD300LJ" - appears under Safely Remove Hardware, I'm not that sure if that's normal)
In fact, could it even be something as simple as a loose wire? (Unlikely I know, but getting this PC in the first place wasn't a walk in the park, thinking the people building it were rather inept: First time it came, display didn't work & wireless card was loose)

Coupla questions - in terms of backing up, would a burn to DVD be the best option? (I don't normally do large-scale backup ops)
Then again, where do I go after that? If the hard drive is kaputt, there's not much I can do about it - like I said, supplier changed hands. And I'm not too proficient with adding parts to a computer by myself (Case in point: couldn't get a simple NIC to work in the old computer)
Ah well, like you said, I'll try Scandisk for now and see what comes up there (I assume it'll save a log to Event Viewer for me to see)

[timah_101]

yeah, scandisk is also a good idea! i dint think of it at the time. a repair will not touch data, it didn't for me anyway! to do it i think you just have to press F8 at boot screen, then select repair or something, you will need a WinXP disk. i haven't done it in a while, try Google?

also if you want some more help regarding any computer issues go to this website: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ they are in Australia (as am i), but can help with ANY problem. lots of friendly and helpful people.

[MrMxyzptlk]

Okay, LOTS to say, so I'll be brief on most:

- SCANDISK CAN DAMAGE YOUR DATA iff you have an HDD with low-level errors! [ANYTHING that might make a change to ANYTHING on such a disk can MAKE IT WORSE, even IRRECOVERABLE (for non-pro tech's)!]

- Disks under "Safely Remove Hardware" in Windows XP (Vista, too?!?) are simplyl the newer SATA ("serial" ATA) drives, rather that the old IDE (now called PATA, or parallel) drives.  NEVER "REMOVE" SUCH DRIVES when/if they contain your SYSTEM (usu "C:") partition ("drive.") [I don't even know if you CAN do that, I've never tried!, and I HAVE NO IDEA why M$ even ALLOWS that to appear!)

This is helpful in that it means that if & when you go out to buy your replacement drive you'll know to buy a SATA drive now!  (NBD, as they're running at almost the same $$ now....)

- Replacing an HDD is almost as easy as replacing a light bulb.

- There are more ways to back up data on an HDD than there are ppl in BFM! It mostly depends on what sort of WRITEABLE MEDIA DEVICE you have access to. Me, I do my backups across my LAN to a server, but I recently bought a really neat little UBS adapter kit ($30) that I use to temp'y hook up an external HDD to which I do (portable) backups.

However backups to DVD are most common, and easiest if you already know how to burn to DVDs on a burner installed on your machine.

Now comes the hard part: the backup SOFTWARE. I use corporate-level (i.e. $$) SW, so Iwon;t recommend what I use. In fact, I won't recommend ANY, unless you feel up to the plunge of "disk imaging." (Which makes an ENTIRE COPY of your "raw" disk/partitions.) In that case I suggest Norton Ghost (v9.0 IF you can find it any more!) Otherwise, just give the backup SW that comes with Windows a try. (I know nothing about it, tho!...)

The main problem will be the amount of MEDIA that you need to do a FULL BACKUP of EVERYTHING on that HDD, tho!  Be sure that you have enough media, and BE SURE THAT YOU DO THE BACKUP WITH VERIFY ENABLED for good measure!

Finally: If you're willing to GAMBLE, or have the prospect of buying a new drive ANYWAY, then simply go out and buy the new drive, IMAGE the old drive onto it *Partition Magic, Norton Ghost, etc.) and you'll not only have a backup, but you'll then have your REPLACEMENT drive all set to go! (It needs one simply bit of tweaking, but that's easy - if you have a working floppy drive....)

I highly recommend the latter if you think it's worth sprinign for a new/extra HDD.  WOrst case is that you end up using it for backups if the original drive is okay!

[Slanzinger]

I think that the "Remove C:" option shuts down the computer: there was a similar one for the CD drive on a school laptop I used, it just said SATLO* "This is in use, please shut down your computer before removing this device".

I ran Scandisk (Well, chkdsk /r from command prompt to be precise) - running Error Checking from Safe Mode (under My Computer, C:, Properties) was a complete failure. It got me to restart my machine, and when it did, all it did was say "Checking C:, The volume is clean" and rebooted itself. Chkdsk /r changed one filename.

Here's the report (don't worry about it being called Partition_1, that's the only one)

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Partition_1.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.                         
Unable to locate the file name attribute of index entry v_physcanonb.vvd
of index $I30 with parent 0x1cfe6 in file 0x1cff1.
Deleting index entry v_physcanonb.vvd in index $I30 of file 118758.
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
CHKDSK is recovering lost files.
Recovering orphaned file v_physcalonb.vvd (118769) into directory file 118758.
Cleaning up 8 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 8 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 8 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

I don't quite see any problems here... I'm still not entirely convinced it's an HDD error (surely it would have tipped by now if there's been something wrong with the disk? The level of everything seems to have stayed pretty much the same throughout...) - I'm probably just being ignorant of the problem, but I think I'll try to sort it out properly sometime in late August (I won't be here to use the PC much between now and then)

(Another odd thing appearing in EV:)
Windows saved user JEREMY\user registry while an application or service was still using the registry during log off. The memory used by the user's registry has not been freed. The registry will be unloaded when it is no longer in use.

 This is often caused by services running as a user account, try configuring the services to run in either the LocalService or NetworkService account.


*Something Along The Lines Of

[MrMxyzptlk]

ya, those could well be the signs of a "failing" HDD, slanzinger....

I would still attempt a low-level scan with the manufacturer's utility (which in THEORY can be done completely non-destructively, but if it find errors.... I think all bets are off insofar as drive integrity for Windows goes!)

Link to Samsung 300LJ stuff
Link to FAQ with #1 having info on HDD utils

Ignore the registry message.  It's NBD.