HD doesn't save 1

[Quasibobo]

Hi,

I've got two (physical) HD's in my PC, a 120Gb HD (less than 1 year old) and a 40Gb HD (about 3 years old). Since three weeks I can't save anything anything to the 40Gb-HD! At least.... I can save files, untill I reboot (or shutdown en startup) the PC. Then, anything that I had saved on this HD is gone!

And even stranger is the fact that files that I removed are back again and files that I overwrote are back to their original.... It looks like a recovery takes places on this HD everytime I start my PC (the other HD has no problems at all).

Norton doesn't find any virusses and I'm getting desperate... I came along this problem for the first time after completing the annual review of our company. I had to start all over again..... :'-( All files that I wrote that day are gone gone gone.....

Anyone any idea what this could be?

Quasibobo

Don't eat yellow snow!

 

[lockend]

I know there are commercial products that do this. Used in schools and things so you couldn't make any changes to hard drives. Worked very well too, I formatted the drive and when I did a reboot everything came back to normal. Anyways, is it possible someone else installed something like this onto the drive?

-Dale
"There's no such thing as bad luck, just an absence of good luck.

 

[lockend]

Try checking task manager for running processes, and check startup.ini (msconfig) to see if there is anything starting that shouldn't be.

-Dale
"There's no such thing as bad luck, just an absence of good luck.

 

[BaudKarma]

It seems to me that the boot process would really lag if it was restoring the hard drive every time.

You might try shutting down the system and then disconnecting the possessed drive before you reboot. Maybe you'll get an error message that'll point you in the right direction.



I try not to let my ignorance prevent me from offering a strong opinion.

 

[lockend]

Actually with the program I've used before (DeepFreeze), it doesn't take any longer to boot. It doesn't actually make any changes to the drive, just makes you think it did. So when you restart it doesn't have to restore anything it's all still there. It's a very strong program, and I couldn't figure out myself how it worked exactly.

-Dale
"There's no such thing as bad luck, just an absence of good luck.

 

[Quasibobo]

Ok...

After posting this I have formatted and scandisk-ed the HD and still "it comes back to life". All the directories and files re-appear!

I've googled all the running processes and the values in startup.ini, disconnected the HD (no error-message) and still.... sigh: The directories and files keep appearing.

What to do next? (Apart from getting a new HD)

Any suggestions?

Don't eat yellow snow!

 

[BaudKarma]

eBay it as a possessed hard drive?

Gotta be some process running on your boot drive. Get a startup manager (System Mechanic has a free trial) and check out whats loading there.



I try not to let my ignorance prevent me from offering a strong opinion.

 

[wolluf]

Sounds like the drive has become read only somehow - but without informing the operating system!

Have you run drive manufacturer's diagnostic on it (usually available on their website)?

How did you format it (eg, from within the operating system, or externally?) Try another method or 2 (external if you did from within) - eg,

http://www.killdisk.com/features.htm.

btw - which o/s are you running?