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Hard Drive issue 1

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AlexGK

Technical User
Apr 25, 2005
10
BG
Hi,
I have the following problem on my PC. I was reinstalling Windows XP on a 200 GB Seagate HD. I got into dos and renamed Windows, Program Files, and My dokuments and settings, so I can reinstall clean copy. It installed without problems and I startd to update with SP1. It finished and I rebootedd. Suddenly all my data on the drive was looking like files with name 1,2,3,...a,b,c,...!,?, and so on. No directories whatsoever. It still reported the real space taken though. I ran scandisk on XP on other computer and it found lost cluster, made like 100 directories and inside were most of my data like all source programs and so. The HD has no bad sectors I scanned it. Any idea what happened?!? I am clueless, never saw something like that before. Thanks!

Alex

PS:Where does XP keep the log of scandisk scans?
 
scandisk is not an XP utility - chkdsk is. Is this what you mean? afaik, XP doesn't keep a log of chkdsk scans.

also - you got into dos? (xp doesn't have dos). Did you boot from win98 or ME boot floppy? Is the filestore fat32?

I have seen issues like this when there's been bad RAM in the machine.
 
Or maybe even a power surge or power loss issue, but usually you get those little squares along with that. The power problem i am talking about cant always have been noticed, sometimes it can happen in a blink of an eye or less time than that, a small part of a small part of a second.



Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
yes, a nanosecond, thanks!


Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
Actually, both was correct :) I used chkdsk on my other hard drive's XP and then scandisc from win98 startup floppy for surface. I kinda liked the old scandisk more. Of cource I am using FAT32. Just tested the RAM with Dos RAM Memory Test and its not its fault. Now I have reinstalled all and np... I have lost like 20% data on the drive - all only whole dir's no single files... Maybe it was really power problem. Now my mainboard shows that the processor +3.3 voltage is out of range - too low. It did restart once and I turned it to ignore - is that a possible fault and what can I do besides getting UPS maybe? Thanks!
 
UPS gives you a good clean source of power and its very very important, but thats only good if your setup and hardware are good to go.
Its hard to understand what you are saying, to be honest, but it doesnt sound real good. But i would need you to re-state the situation.
It seems you have win xp installed and all is well. Except that your bios is telling you something. Can you re-state that please?
thanks


Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
garebo,
Did you know that there is a faster measure than a "nanosecond"? It's called an "onosecond". That's the time between taking an action - and realizing it was the wrong action: "OH no!". <grin>
 
I knew there was such a measurement and i have experienced such a measurement many many times, i just never knew the name of it. Its not surprising that someone of your vast intellect and experience would be familiar with and even know the name of this experience. Obviously you have had the same experience quite often, lol. (written tongue-in-cheek of course).


Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
First, The subject that you posted this with is not the best way to get good responses. It is simply restating the forum's title. You should put in something about your specific problem - as specific and concise as possible. I've learned from my own naive early posts. It is actually quite difficult to come up with a good subject line!

Anyway I've been having similar problems. Mainly chkdsk running and scrambling my files into these files - in a folder called "found.001". I have two hard drives and it has happened on both - not at the same time, but over a month now.

I had a crash about 3 weeks ago, basically had to reformat. Now it looks like it happened again, but a little differently. I had been running some file sharing software, and when I went to open a file, it said C: was corrupted please run chkdsk.

Upon rebooting is said could not read hard drive or some such thing.

Well, I used both the W2K (boot from CD and go to recovery console) and Symantec recovery disks to attempt recovery. I had no boot.ini files (this keeps disappearing!) and no NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM files. When I replaced them, I then was able to get into the disk. I ran chkdsk (maybe oops?) and got into it to look around - most things are there but not all - lots of Documents scrambled to those found.001 folder files.

When rebooting now I get no or corrupt ntoskrnl.exe file. I've replaced it but it still gives this error. So now I've stopped trying.

I know I can probably get everything back off the drive with Getdataback (a pretty good program!). I've toyed with the idea of parallel installation of W2K too to reinstall files that might be missing, then changing the boot.ini to redirect the boot to the original installation (as per Windows Help but this may make recovery of lost files (due to the chkdsk scramble) impossible.

Anyone know what's going on here?

Virus? I've done some scanning but so far not found one, but I haven't scanned the corrupt hard drive since it went bad.

Some kind of attack - I have to turn off the firewall to run the file sharing program.

Some hardware problem - It would have to affect both hard drives at different times.

Some software thing - Windows? I've had no problems for a year and then lots. Even after reformatting and reinstalling (but I reinstalled the same software!

My solution now is to get an external drive case with USB 2 support. I will load the hard drive into my machine, load Windows, install getdataback and recover all my data files.

Then I will reinstall my corrupt hard drive and try to get the parallel install Windows to work so I don't have to reinstall all my programs! Then I will be making regular image backups over USB2 hard drive!
 
Sorry if i did not make myself clear.
So at this point everything's OK and runnin.
Only thing was i have seen in BIOS the +3.3V voltage on the cpu is out of range - too low. So I turned it to ignore since it keeps shutting down the computer.
As lokidog said the topic line could be better :) And actually i was usin p2p program as well - could it be that the hard drive overheated or something?
And one more thing - really there were lots of data in a directory "found" looking like found.001. Like tousends of them. I deleted them all, since i do not know how to regain the data from them...
 
Lokidog, you really should start your own thread. Its very very hard for us to help 2 people at once. Its hard enuf for me, personally, to help one person, lol.

that being said, in the future, in my opinion, NEVER run chkdsk or scandisk unless you really have no choice. Sometimes windows wants to run it on boot, but it can be set not to run, and windows also gives us a time period to shut it off so it doesnt run. Again, thats my opinion only, others may disagree. I find that these programs, along with many many of norton systemworks cause way more problems than they fix!! The only time that i see chkdsk or scandisk helping is if, in fact, a person has bad sectors on their hard drive. And this one is my opinion only as well, but i can tell you i had the kinds of problems both you guys are talking about and more but they have stopped, and i mean stopped!! What did i do, stopped running scandisk,chkdsk, norton systemworks progs, registry cleanups(another no-no), and i started using good quality power supplies and a UPS.
The power supply is more important than we think and when we buy a case worth $40 the power supply is worth about $10, figure out the quality of the power supply!! Even the power supply that comes with most new computers is about that quality as well, sorry to say. And the UPS? Well, the power in your wall was never meant to service computers in most areas of the world and it causes problems in a nanosecond(thanks to mainegeek), just the type of problems you two guys are talking about!
Now there are other things that can cause these problems, all i am saying is that power supplies and lack of a UPS are responsible for a good percentage of these types of problems and i believe i have the proof as i dont have these problems anymore!

Now we just have to take care of the low voltage for Alexg.

Can you get your hands on a digital multimeter to test your power supply? If so, then i can direct you to a good online tutorial to test your ps, go to techrepublic and sign up for free and you can get that tutorial and many other good ones too!

Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
I appreciate your help. That's another thing that I have to do - start my own thread at times, but I often get the other end of it - "There's a thread just like yours here..."

I may still start my own thread.

I am tending to aggree with you on the chkdsk thing. Wierd thing is that I had no problems with this coming up till recently, and then for both disks. I did install the newest Norton SW around the same time. Hmmmm. How do I turn off the Windows setting so chkdsk does not start at all on start up.

I also had my power supply go sort of bad on 2 occasions on different computers. I buy my computers from a local place custom, and they don't skimp. But it was replaced last year in this computer - a $50 nicer one - so it should be OK, but I may have to get it checked. The computer place said the same thing as you about PS and also said even good ones wear out - especially since we leave them on 24 hours now.

Also, I did complete surface scans on the drives and there are no bad sectors. So I am not sure what is exactly happening. Seems like particular boot sections, or drive maps are being messed up. I have been able to get actual data back through data recovery programs like Getdataback with great success. And sometimes chkdsk has run and the files look OK, size, data, and extensions, but when I try to open them they are not the correct type! But Getdataback finds alternative file system entries and puts a list of several possible versions of these files and I have always found a 'good version'. So the data is actually there, the data map is just being messed up.

I'll look at the other site too. I'll start my own thread here, after I think about what exactly I want to call it. Thanks!

 
Before I start my own thread, however, I do have a couple things to add.

The found.001 directory that I had, has about 100 folders, and about 150 files in it. To recover them just search them to find good files. Some of my files in here were perfectly good and some looked good, but were not, and some were unrecognizeable from their name and extensions, etc. In my current situation I can see them, but not open them or even transfer them to a removeable disk - at least with the Recovery console!

But my data recovery program was able to find entire directories in tack. But don't load other things or such, before you run a data recovery program - as this can overwrite data. Erasing or even reformating is OK - as this does not actually replace data. I use Getdataback - It's reasonable, and fairly easy to use - look at the getting started help section, and save both step 4 and mutliple versions of step 5 parts to make it work fast and be able to come back later to the file recovery lists quickly (It can take hours to create the step 4 file system list, and several minutes to create step 5 file lists) and recover more that you forgot about. It does require that you don't change the 'bad' drive, and that you dock it in as a secondary drive for awhile till you are sure you have all your data back. Or you can simple recover everything possible, but this may mean multipls copies of all your data and take up several times the space as your original data - If you have the room for it go for it (I did last year as I didn't have that much actual data - now I do).

Also, here is another thread that has lot's of possibilities, with a good start at a FAQ near the bottom.

 
Lokidog, perhaps i spoke too soon. First off, you seem to have a lot to offer in the way of info and such. The reason i said what i said was that often people come in and point out their issue and expect us to troubleshoot 2 items at the same time, very frustrating. Yours, however, is tied in and you are offering info as well, so, my apology. NO doubt you will accept it with the humility it is being offered.
thanks


Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
So it is a power surge problem after all... Looks like UPS is the next buy for me since my computer also works 24 hours a day. The point was the nanosecond :)was too long for my hard drive!
 
AlexGK, i appreciate you respecting what i have to say, and i do stand by what i say. I just want to make sure you understand the UPS is your first line of defence against poorly delivered power and the problems that will cause.
A good quality power supply is the second defence and both are very important, more like necessary in my mind. I can guarantee you, though, that i practice what i preach!

That being said, you just need to know that your original problem could have been caused by these two items but it could have been something else that we still have to find.
Its still a very good idea to have both a UPS, just about any kind will do, it doesnt have to be a very expensive one, and a good power supply that can be had at newegg.com, for instance, for a bit over $40.

Getting back to the UPS, the main difference is that a UPS rated at say 450 will give you x amount of time to turn the computer off in event of failure, and a UPS that has a a rating of 200 will give you much less time. Usually the 200 will do the job just fine as, in my opinion, the biggest problem is those very very short power loss situations which occur in the nanosecond (thanks Micker) region, and the UPS takes care of them all by itself! This covers, to me, the worst areas, as its the brown-outs(low power) and the surges (high power) that ruin our computers! The 200 to 450 only counts when power is down completely and isnt coming back on in a nanosecond. Again, the only difference is how long you have to turn the computer off. If you are home then usually a minute or two is long enough. If you arent home then it wont matter much, will it?
The only other item to know is that you will get a different number of plugins in the back of each UPS, the more you spend, the more plugs you get that are covered by the UPS. Bear in mind some plugs are there but not totally protected by the UPS. But i put my computer and printer on one and my monitor on the other. By doing this my time is limited but i still get a few minutes and thats all i need.
If i know there is going to be bad weather and im going out, i turn my computer off anyway. Without a UPS i would also unplug it from the wall, but with a UPS i dont have to as i believe the UPS will protect my computer.
You can go to an online UPS mfgr to get more info. Just bear in mind that they want you to buy a larger unit than you really need, sometimes.







Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
garebo:

"put my computer and printer on one and my monitor on the other"

I don't know for sure, but I've read that anything with a motor (printer, scanner, etc.) should not be plugged into the "battery backup" section (use the "surge" plugs. I know you love UPS's (so do I). Have you ever seen anything on this?
 
No, micker, to be honest, im not the most up to date as i should be on UPS, considering the fact that i rant about them lol. And you are right in asking me as i should really have the info if i am going to rant! However, in all honesty, all i do is make sure they are hooked up. Considering i havent had any hardware go bad on me over the many years since i started using both good power supplies and UPS's, with the exception of a firewire box and its drive, and before that i had a whole large boxfull of computer parts that mysteriously went bad, from mobos to monitors to hard drives, i figure thats all i need to learn, lol. So you may very well be right, guess we either have to look it up or maybe someone else can answer that.
But you know, while i am typing this it now seems to be coming back that i am fuzzy on, but seem to recall some sort of written word on that very subject, but i cant recall the outcome. I do have my printer hooked up and i used to protect my expensive full width HP 1220 cxi, which i still have and working too, so i just cant say its a bad idea, but i guess i should put an asterisk on that, so thanks for pointing this out to me, micker style (with grace)!


Good advice + great people = tek-tips
 
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