"Disk Write Error" followed by "Surface Scan" checking &quot 3

[simon707]

Hi i hope this is the correct forum for this problem , if not please let me know where to post this problem.


While installing the software for my new scanner (UMAX Astra 2000U) i got this blue screen that said "Disk Write Error : Unable to write to disk in drive C:, Data or files may be lost, Press any key to continue" i pressed a key and the instalatin continued. I tried to exit the instalation, fearing it was mistake to continue, and the PC crashed. Upon reseting it went into 'SCAN-Disk' as it normally does when you you don't re-boot properly but then it went into this thing called "Surface Scan" where it was looking for "BAD Sectors" which i had never seen before. Anyway the scan was taking forever so i pressed 'x' to skip the scan. The P.C booted up fine so i figured i'd try installing the scanner software again.

This time i got the Disk Write Error again but i just "pressed a key to continue" and let the installation finish, getting the error screen twice more. I should note the instalation contained

3 programs "Vista Scan", the driver and scan interface, "Presto! Photo ALbum", and "Presto! Page Manager Deluxe". I got the Error messages all during the installation of the "Presto! Page Manager Deluxe". The other programs installed fine, if memory serves me correctly.



Once the intalation was done i rebooted and got this message on a black screen:

" One or more of your disk drives may have developed bad sectors , press any key to run scan disk." then it went again into Scan-Disk with a Surface-Scan. This time i let it run, it took almost 2 hours but found no 'Bad Sectors' during the scan. The Computer Booted up fine and the scanner works fine using "Vista Scan". I've opened " Pge Manager" that had the instalation probs , ihaven't used it much but it seems fine.

So what caused this Disk Write Error during instalation? could it have been the CD or softwares fault? Why would my P.C think i had 'Bad Sectors' and then not find any?

How serious is all this and is there anything i should check?

thanks for your time.







Software Information
--------------------
Operating System : Windows 98 SE
DirectX : DirectX 8.1


Hardware Information
--------------------
CPU : AMD Athlon Processor 800 MHz
Bus Speed : 100 MHz
Motherboard : ASUSTeK <A7V>
System : System System Name
BIOS : Award ASUS A7V ACPI BIOS Revision 1003
Memory : 128 MB
Sound : SB Live! Wave Out [A000]
Video : ASUS AGP-V7100 SDRAM v12.60

 

[ski]

Go to your hard drive manuf's site, and run the diagnostics to see if your HD is going bad.

 

[dbMark]

Of all the parts in a computer, excluding mouse and keyboard, the hard drive is usually the first to fail. So that possibility should be at the top of your list to investigate. Ski's suggestion is good.

Sometimes hard drives die in an instant without warning, sometimes slowly. If yours is dying slowly, be thankful. You just might be able to retrieve any information on the drive that has not been backed up, so you'd better make those copies real quick!

I've noticed sometimes that SCANDISK would say everything was fine, but if I ran DEFRAG then its call to SCANDISK at the beginning did find and fix errors.

Repeat: I'm sure your system is long past any warranties. So (1) make copies of any documents, pictures, links, emails, etc. not backed up and (2) be prepared to get another hard drive quick or upgrade the entire system.

 

[dbMark]

Oh, yes, those standard boot messages were due to your rebooting the computer after it locked up - "crashed". Any time Windows does not write something somewhere on disk that it shut down properly, it will show that silly "You shut down improperly" message. Maybe that's all it is, but upon seeing those "bad sectors" messages, don't count on it!

 

[amen1973]

If you have not backed up data, I would do backups of all important Information and data that you do not want to lose(that is if it is not completely too late). "Disk Write Error : Unable to write to disk in drive C:, Data or files may be lost, Press any key to continue" Every time I have seen this error, within a week or 2 the Disk is dead. More than likely you will hear the Clicking sound in the near future so it is best to be prepaired if you have important Information on the hard drive.

 

[simon707]

Ok, i'm still working on Ski's suggestion,doing searches on the net about the topic, here's a little snag :

I want to use Westen Digital's Online scan of my Drive, but the Online Scan's Webpage says the Diagnostic will activate "smart monitoring" on my Bios. I remeber i read on a web-page someone said that "Smart Monitoring" might cause this problem. I don't know if that was good advice so i'm wondering, is it dangerous to allow the Smart Monitoring on my Bios to be turned on by this online scan? Would i be "pushing my luck" with it?

My other question at this point is: does it mater what the manufacturer's online scan says? If i've got "DIsk Write Error" and then an automatic check for "bad-Sectors" does that mean my Hard Drive is dying regardless of wether or not the online scan finds a problem. Or could the scan confirm it was a false alarm? Is there such a thing as false alarms when this hapens?

Thanks. SIMON

PS:
As for backing up files, i only have one hard drive and gave up on getting my new CD burner to work in January. I have this whole dilema about finding the right driver, and wether or not i have to update my chipset driver, video driver and directX before putting it in, but that's for another thread i guess. I'll just dump files into a bunch of new hotmail accounts as they just increased capacity to 250 MB's, for anyone else reading this who's looking for answer's for a similar prob.

 

[ski]

You can always go into BIOS and disable it.

Running the HD's diagnostic utility is the most reliable indication that a HD is failing.

 

[simon707]

hi i used an ONLINE scan of my Hard-DRive from Western Digital and it said the hard drive was fine. So i thought it was a false alarm, and it's been a month sice my original "disk Write" error. Any way i was booting up today and i got this "DISK BOOT FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISK" and thought my hard drive finally bit the dust, but then i rebooted and every thing was fine. AM i on the edge of loosing the drive or is this another problem all together.

Simon

 

[TekTippy4U]

These issues MUST be tied together if it's the same SYS as your CDRW thread.

Does Scandisk run after every BAD shutdown?

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs

 

[simon707]

Oh Hi TT4U,

yeah i'm still working on my CD-RW thread, but yes it's the same system. I haven't had any automitic scans for "bad sectors" since after the first"DISK WRITE ERROR" a month ago .It still does the normal scan disk it always does when you reset without shutting down formally.

But this "DISK BOOT FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISK" thing hapend after checking for your suggestions in the IOS and such.Is going into DOS alot risky, like will it make my HARD DISK crash faster? Not make a difference?

'cause i'm trying to figure out the burner thing before my hard drive dies to back up all my files!! So i'm tempted to stay in Windows without turning off the computer for as long as i can, any advice on how to preserve a dying hard drive for as long as i can while tackling the other thread?

 

[TekTippy4U]

Q. "Is going into DOS alot risky, like will it make my HARD DISK crash faster? Not make a difference?"

A. No, no difference at all

Q "any advice on how to preserve a dying hard drive for as long as i can while tackling the other thread?"

A. no, not really - keep your caches cleaned out, run scandisk from time to time if you remain 'running' awhile.
You're going to have to reboot to install software, change jumpers, configure BIOS, t-shoot and such.
That error may well have been only from a specific way you configured the jumpers or Boot Order in the BIOS.

...lemme ask you - did you only just Reboot when you got that error? or did you do something else TOO?
Did Scandisk run upon the Reboot that finally loaded?

hint ; If you boot into DOS by choosing "Restart in Ms-dos mode" from the Shutdown menu - then Rename the file Dosstart.bat found in WINDOWS to .old
Using the 98 Startup menu is better to use, and choose "Command Prompt Only"...you know the Menu that appears when you press and hold CTRL (F8 for 95) towards the end of POST. Oh yeh, that's how you got to Bootlog.txt (duh!)

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
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[TekTippy4U]

Hey;
Just noticed your system specs - wish you had put them in the other thread as well, as I hadn;t seen this one till recently, and would've saved some guesswork on which OS and CPU etc.....
Anyway
See this;
tell what ya think

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192841/EN-US/

don't necessarily pay attention to the 'applies to' - sometimes older files overwrite newer ones and if the system is configured just a bit wrongly, for whatever reasons,(restoring, 'over the top' installs, etc)
It would make perfect sense in your situation, plus I recall seeing an article pertaining to probs with Scanners

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
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[simon707]

umm it says in this link that this applies to "AMD K6/2 (350MHz or faster), or an AMD Athlon (1.1GHz or faster"

mine is an AMD Athalon 800mgz, i know you told me to ignore the 'apllies to' but it's all about Win95, my OS is 98SE.

I'm totally confused by the instructiion. If i understand this link correctly, am i supposed to just download the Amd6kupd.exe file at the bottom and run it in safe mode? is it safe to do that with a file designed for win95 in win 98?

Just asking for re-assurance.

 

[TekTippy4U]

I would try it ONLY after running out of all other possibilities - yes it should be safe, though 98SE should have/may have fixed this issue, we all have our systems setup diff and sometimes erratically.....I don't know when and if you've 'formatted", done an "overlay" install (on top of)...what if any othe APPs like GoBack, or Norton stuff may be interfering, etc.....so it's your decision. Research the issue on AMD's site - also see if the Mobo manu. has any updates listed/available

.it's just I can't seem to focus in (other than an AMD only issue) - what the heck the prob is.

Sometimes Nero munges an install, but can usually be redone to fix
Run a RegCleaner

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=458

(nice simple clean and Un Do-able - I use it)
Rename the \Windows\Installer folder to OldInstaller - and try to Reinstall Nero

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
Backup All Important Data/Docs