If CHKDSK finds errors, but HD Tune Pro 5.50 does not, what does that mean?

I constantly get errors from a HDD (Seagate 1Tb, see the other two threads)..

System is Windows 8.1, modern quad core PC, Bios from last year (updated), two drives, SATA III, HDD mechanical, one being a Western Digital 500 GB drive that's five years old (the PC is only about three years, but I got this drive from another machine) and one being a "brand new" (this year) 1 TB Seagate drive, but I think it's got defects.

I have various theories. My questions a

1) if I do "Error Check" on the Seagate Drive "C", using right-click on Properties of drive in File Explorer, then Tools, etc, and (nearly) each and every time it finds errors, including missing file pointers etc, and fixes them, only to find them again (sometimes though a few days will go by 'error free' which allows me to do a disk image backup using Clonezilla), that means likely there's a problem with this drive?

2) If I do "error check" on the Western Digital "D" drive, as in #1, but I never get any problems, that means likely there's no problem with this drive?

3) If I am using the HD Tune Pro 5.50 (paid version, on trial) and under the "error tab" I get no red blocks (no errors) for drive C:, but in fact there are errors as per 1) above, that means HD Tune Pro is no good, right? I am running HD Tune now, and though it's not done, it is suspicious that it is all green, no reds, even though I know there's a problem as in #1) above.

4) Is it possible to corrupt your HD (in terms of dangling lost file pointers) if your RAM is bad? Sounds crazy I know...but I throw it out there. RAM being bad as not seated properly (once the Ram is seated, it's fine, but on occasion it comes out of the mobo and needs to be reseated, and in the meantime you get BSODs. BTW right now my RAM is seated fine, I checked).

5) is it possible that if two SATA drives talk to each other (C:, D and there's a bad mobo connection, that you might get contamination of the data in one or both drives?

6) I am probably going to replace the Seagate 1TB drive with a SSD. I probably will go with Samsung, which as "EDO?" brand (NAND ? logic) and popular in southeast Asia. Anything to look out for?

7) I understand all HDDs have bad blocks marked as such, so, is an OS going to automatically avoid writing to these bad blocks? I assume so...

8) HD Tune has many screens. What is the difference between the "Health" screen, which has all kinds of data including "Raw Read Error Rate" (what is that?) and the "Error Check" tab, which shows either green or red blocks depending on whether your HD blocks are ok or corrupted?

9) I don't think this is a virus problem because just now did a clean reformat and reinstall of Windows 8.1 (legal copy), and I restored (using Clonezilla, which amazingly worked fine) an earlier HD Image file that had nothing but legal programs from a legal Win 8.1 OS on it, and I still get the error of #1) above. If it was a virus from a pirated program, it would not be present in this image file. So it must be a hardware problem most likely? Unless it's a mobo connection problem as per #5).

10) So many questions, sorry! Any answers appreciated... I will update this thread if HD Tune finds any errors, but frankly this program sucks because it's more than half way through the 1TB HD and it's all green, meaning no errors, yet I know there's CHKDSK errors. Unless--and this would be interesting--if HD Tune "Error Check" is checking for hardware problems on each sector, while the CHKDSK that Windows 8.1 has checks for software errors like dangling, missing or truncated file pointers. is that the case?

11) I am going to buy an SSD but here in southeast Asia there's lots of fraud and refurbished hardware sold as "new". Any utility I can use to check the SSD to make sure it has no errors? Probably the manufacturer, like Samsung, has a freeware utility packaged with the disk? Maybe I'll get the tech guy to check the SSD for errors before I buy it (they don't take refunds either; you American readers are so spoiled and don't know how lucky you are).

12) when installing an SSD Sata III drive, the BIOS need not be played with, it's set to ACHD? whatever that parameter is for Sata, so that's it? Or do Bios es have an extra switch for SSD? THis BIOS is by AMD's former subsidiary American Megatrends? and is flashed from 2013, so it' s fairly brand new.

13) Baker's Dozen: a good utility for SSDs is: (1) just use what the manufacturer gives you in the box, (2) HD Tune (which says it is also for SSDs but somehow I don't believe it), (3) something else, (4) don't bother with utilities--the wear leveling or whatever is built into the controller for the SSD and it will take care of itself.

14) Sneak one in: for mechanical HDs, a good utility is? HD Tune seems nice, except for the possible bug I mention above (or maybe it's a feature) A bit pricy at $35 a copy but it might be worth it?

Thanks

RL

On Sunday, December 14, 2014 7:23:07 AM UTC-8, RayLopez99 wrote:


Wow! Just now something really weird happened. HD Tune stopped at a certain block, testing, and would not move. I heard the Seagate HD distinctly make the infamous "clicking sounds" or "clicking sounds of death" that failing HDs make when they cannot write to a sector! However, after about five or six such sounds, the HD finally wrote, and HD Tune moved on, marking the block as "green" for good. It may be that this Seagate drive is on the 'verge' of failing but it still passes all the tests. BTW, S.M.A.R.T. is turned on in the BIOS and needless to say SMART is not showing any obvious problems with either drive.

RL

RayLopez99 wrote:
I constantly get errors from a HDD (Seagate 1Tb, see the other two threads).

System is Windows 8.1, modern quad core PC, Bios from last year (updated), two drives, SATA III, HDD mechanical, one being a Western Digital 500 GB drive that's five years old (the PC is only about three years, but I got this drive from another machine) and one being a "brand new" (this year) 1 TB Seagate drive, but I think it's got defects.

I have various theories. My questions a

1) if I do "Error Check" on the Seagate Drive "C", using right-click on Properties of drive in File Explorer, then Tools, etc, and (nearly) each and every time it finds errors, including missing file pointers etc, and fixes them, only to find them again (sometimes though a few days will go by 'error free' which allows me to do a disk image backup using Clonezilla), that means likely there's a problem with this drive?

2) If I do "error check" on the Western Digital "D" drive, as in #1, but I never get any problems, that means likely there's no problem with this drive?

3) If I am using the HD Tune Pro 5.50 (paid version, on trial) and under the "error tab" I get no red blocks (no errors) for drive C:, but in fact there are errors as per 1) above, that means HD Tune Pro is no good, right? I am running HD Tune now, and though it's not done, it is suspicious that it is all green, no reds, even though I know there's a problem as in #1) above.

4) Is it possible to corrupt your HD (in terms of dangling lost file pointers) if your RAM is bad? Sounds crazy I know...but I throw it out there. RAM being bad as not seated properly (once the Ram is seated, it's fine, but on occasion it comes out of the mobo and needs to be reseated, and in the meantime you get BSODs. BTW right now my RAM is seated fine, I checked).

5) is it possible that if two SATA drives talk to each other (C:, D and there's a bad mobo connection, that you might get contamination of the data in one or both drives?

6) I am probably going to replace the Seagate 1TB drive with a SSD. I probably will go with Samsung, which as "EDO?" brand (NAND ? logic) and popular in southeast Asia. Anything to look out for?

7) I understand all HDDs have bad blocks marked as such, so, is an OS going to automatically avoid writing to these bad blocks? I assume so...

8) HD Tune has many screens. What is the difference between the "Health" screen, which has all kinds of data including "Raw Read Error Rate" (what is that?) and the "Error Check" tab, which shows either green or red blocks depending on whether your HD blocks are ok or corrupted?

9) I don't think this is a virus problem because just now did a clean reformat and reinstall of Windows 8.1 (legal copy), and I restored (using Clonezilla, which amazingly worked fine) an earlier HD Image file that had nothing but legal programs from a legal Win 8.1 OS on it, and I still get the error of #1) above. If it was a virus from a pirated program, it would not be present in this image file. So it must be a hardware problem most likely? Unless it's a mobo connection problem as per #5).

10) So many questions, sorry! Any answers appreciated... I will update this thread if HD Tune finds any errors, but frankly this program sucks because it's more than half way through the 1TB HD and it's all green, meaning no errors, yet I know there's CHKDSK errors. Unless--and this would be interesting--if HD Tune "Error Check" is checking for hardware problems on each sector, while the CHKDSK that Windows 8.1 has checks for software errors like dangling, missing or truncated file pointers. is that the case?

11) I am going to buy an SSD but here in southeast Asia there's lots of fraud and refurbished hardware sold as "new". Any utility I can use to check the SSD to make sure it has no errors? Probably the manufacturer, like Samsung, has a freeware utility packaged with the disk? Maybe I'll get the tech guy to check the SSD for errors before I buy it (they don't take refunds either; you American readers are so spoiled and don't know how lucky you are).

12) when installing an SSD Sata III drive, the BIOS need not be played with, it's set to ACHD? whatever that parameter is for Sata, so that's it? Or do Bios es have an extra switch for SSD? THis BIOS is by AMD's former subsidiary American Megatrends? and is flashed from 2013, so it' s fairly brand new.

13) Baker's Dozen: a good utility for SSDs is: (1) just use what the manufacturer gives you in the box, (2) HD Tune (which says it is also for SSDs but somehow I don't believe it), (3) something else, (4) don't bother with utilities--the wear leveling or whatever is built into the controller for the SSD and it will take care of itself.

14) Sneak one in: for mechanical HDs, a good utility is? HD Tune seems nice, except for the possible bug I mention above (or maybe it's a feature) A bit pricy at $35 a copy but it might be worth it?

Thanks

RL

If you can't take care of a hard drive,
how will you be able to care for an SSD ?

Do you have backups ? Is that Seagate 1TB drive
backed up ? Did the last backup run to completion,
or did it error out, leaving the archive incomplete ?

*******

Testing of storage systems occurs at more than one level.
At the lowest level, is the reading and writing of blocks.
At the next level up, you're writing clusters (groups of
blocks), updating the FAT or $MFT, and so on.

Some of those things, need to be tested.

1) Seagate or Western Digital stand alone hard drive diagnostic.
This checks low level operation. For example, it may test the
cache RAM on the hard drive, to ensure it's still OK. The
diagnostics also communicate with SMART on the hard drive,
and request the running of "the short test" or "the long test".
The hard drive processor actually has SMART test code it can run.

2) HDTune can run a bad block scan. Blocks with red color in them,
would be sectors where 15 seconds worth of attempts to read the
sector, have failed. The drive sends a CRC error, if it cannot
read and correct the data in the block.

3) CHKDSK overlaps a bit. CHKDSK can also do a bad block scan,
as part of its analysis. Clusters with a bad block in them,
can be added to $BADCLUS, and the cluster (group of sectors)
is then no longer used. That metadata is part of the file system,
and gets reset if you reformat. Modern drives hardly ever report
a CRC error, because once they get to the point of failing that
way, the drive is so unhealthy it may not boot or show up. While I
see lots of reallocations on the modern drives here, I've never seen
an actual CRC error (red block) here in years. The drive likely
dies before I even have a chance to test it.

Using (1) above, is for warranty claim purposes. They make you
run the diagnostic, before making a warranty claim.

Using (3) is generally done, for "transient" errors. Say you have
a desktop computer, no UPS, and you love to flip the power
switch off in the middle of a session. Then CHKDSK repairing
file system structures, is going to be your friend.

Using (2), is generally for reading the SMART table,
and spotting signs of ill health. The computer I'm
posting this one, *always* has clean disks with no
reallocations showing. Retired disks, ones that have
a few hundred allocations, are still used here, but just
as scratch disks.

Now, some people like to run them "until they start to click".
If you're one of those people, I sure hope you know what a backup
is. And that the backup is on good media.

An SSD changes none of this. You have a week of web reading
to do, to become familiar with the care and feeding of an SSD.
I recommend an enhanced backup program (higher rate of backups).
If you keep *only* the OS on the SSD, and no user documents,
then perhaps having the SSD just disappear some day, isn't a big deal.
But if you keep everything on there, C source, movies, income
tax reports, expensive program installations, the OS, then you'd better
be doing frequent backups. At least with modern hard drives, we
get some advanced warning they're about to fail. With SSDs, some
models are more failure prone than others.

It could be, that power cycling some SSD models, is more
harmful than writing to them. You never know.

You can certainly use an SSD and be totally ignorant of the
details. But then again, you might come back a month from
now and say "My SSD died and I didn't have a backup", and
be expecting someone here to perform a miracle. That
miracle ain't gonna happen. Be prepared.

Paul

On Sunday, December 14, 2014 8:29:06 AM UTC-8, Paul wrote:


If you can't take care of a hard drive,
how will you be able to care for an SSD ?


Well I wouldn't go that far my friend...I've not lost any data in over 20 years of 'puting...backups indeed.

Do you have backups ? Is that Seagate 1TB drive
backed up ? Did the last backup run to completion,
or did it error out, leaving the archive incomplete ?

It worked fine. As I say, Clonzilla works fine if CHKDSK and/or Windows Error Checking gives you a 'clean' HD--said clean HD in my case lasting only a few days or so. And just today I did a restore using Clonezilla, and it is fine, in fact I'm posting from such a restore now.


*******

Testing of storage systems occurs at more than one level.
At the lowest level, is the reading and writing of blocks.
At the next level up, you're writing clusters (groups of
blocks), updating the FAT or $MFT, and so on.

Ahh...I see.


Some of those things, need to be tested.

1) Seagate or Western Digital stand alone hard drive diagnostic.
This checks low level operation. For example, it may test the
cache RAM on the hard drive, to ensure it's still OK. The
diagnostics also communicate with SMART on the hard drive,
and request the running of "the short test" or "the long test".
The hard drive processor actually has SMART test code it can run.

OK...I will look on both Seagate and WD websites for these diagnostic programs...thanks...but later you imply these tests are for warranty purposes only, which implies to me they are not that sensitive...so maybe I will pass.


2) HDTune can run a bad block scan. Blocks with red color in them,
would be sectors where 15 seconds worth of attempts to read the
sector, have failed. The drive sends a CRC error, if it cannot
read and correct the data in the block.

3) CHKDSK overlaps a bit. CHKDSK can also do a bad block scan,
as part of its analysis. Clusters with a bad block in them,
can be added to $BADCLUS, and the cluster (group of sectors)
is then no longer used. That metadata is part of the file system,
and gets reset if you reformat. Modern drives hardly ever report
a CRC error, because once they get to the point of failing that
way, the drive is so unhealthy it may not boot or show up. While I
see lots of reallocations on the modern drives here, I've never seen
an actual CRC error (red block) here in years. The drive likely
dies before I even have a chance to test it.

OK, it explains why HD Tune is not showing any red blocks despite the C: (Seagate) drive being suspect.


Using (1) above, is for warranty claim purposes. They make you
run the diagnostic, before making a warranty claim.

Using (3) is generally done, for "transient" errors. Say you have
a desktop computer, no UPS, and you love to flip the power
switch off in the middle of a session. Then CHKDSK repairing
file system structures, is going to be your friend.

But that's not me. I never do a hard power cycle, I have UPS. So why so many chkdsk errors? That's the mystery.


Using (2), is generally for reading the SMART table,
and spotting signs of ill health. The computer I'm
posting this one, *always* has clean disks with no
reallocations showing. Retired disks, ones that have
a few hundred allocations, are still used here, but just
as scratch disks.

I see. So HD TUne is somewhat not that sensitive to catch potential errors....it's more for catching obvious errors.


Now, some people like to run them "until they start to click".
If you're one of those people, I sure hope you know what a backup
is. And that the backup is on good media.

Strange but I hear clicking sounds on both drives now...the older D drive and the new C drive. But it's not all the time...I wonder if both drives are bad? Stranger things have happened in the tropics, where mean temperatures are usually in the 90s, though this particular room usually is air-conditioned.


An SSD changes none of this. You have a week of web reading
to do, to become familiar with the care and feeding of an SSD.
I recommend an enhanced backup program (higher rate of backups).

Any suggestions for enhanced backups?--Acronis?--welcome.

If you keep *only* the OS on the SSD, and no user documents,
then perhaps having the SSD just disappear some day, isn't a big deal.
But if you keep everything on there, C source, movies, income
tax reports, expensive program installations, the OS, then you'd better
be doing frequent backups. At least with modern hard drives, we
get some advanced warning they're about to fail. With SSDs, some
models are more failure prone than others.

Yes. Frequent backups are you friend. I was pleasantly surprised by turning on "File History" automatic backup in Windows 8.1, it seems to work to make shadow copies of User docs.

When you say put OS on the SSD, does that also mean (and I think it does) putting the default installation of programs there too? That is, C:\Program Files c:\ProgramData? I assume so since otherwise it's a real pain when installing to change the default directory requested by the program.


It could be, that power cycling some SSD models, is more
harmful than writing to them. You never know.

You can certainly use an SSD and be totally ignorant of the
details. But then again, you might come back a month from
now and say "My SSD died and I didn't have a backup", and
be expecting someone here to perform a miracle. That
miracle ain't gonna happen. Be prepared.

I agree, but I disagree that I need to learn about SSDs. That's the OSes problem, not mine. I will simply install it, and pray it works. That's the way it should be, and I hope it is. Of course I will make frequent backups since, as you say, no warning is given if SSDs fail (then again, that's sometimes the case with mechanical HDDs too).

Any speculation along the lines of whether a mobo can corrupt data on a HD is appreciated. I think that's probably not that possible given that data transfer these days has some sort of error correction code built into the protocol I would imagine.

Thanks Paul!

RL

On Sunday, December 14, 2014 9:06:57 AM UTC-8, Dustin wrote:


[Nonsense deleted]

--

Is it true you're depressed and suicidal? Meds my fiend, meds. Don't do it...

RL

On Sun, 14 Dec 2014 07:32:38 -0800 (PST), RayLopez99
wrote:

On Sunday, December 14, 2014 7:23:07 AM UTC-8, RayLopez99 wrote:


Wow!
Just now something really weird happened. HD Tune stopped at a
certain block, testing, and would not move. I heard the Seagate HD
distinctly make the infamous "clicking sounds" or "clicking sounds of
death" that failing HDs make when they cannot write to a sector!
However, after about five or six such sounds, the HD finally wrote,
and HD Tune moved on, marking the block as "green" for good. It may
be that this Seagate drive is on the 'verge' of failing but it still
passes all the tests. BTW, S.M.A.R.T. is turned on in the BIOS and
needless to say SMART is not showing any obvious problems with either
drive.

RL

Was having various problems - intermittent and vague copy operation
lockups. I'd been using a PCI controller brand with the problems, and
didn't really have much choice but to stick with the same brandname
when I purchased another PCI controller, although a more advanced
model. Not to say that initial problem condition/controller couldn't
manifest system wide problems, though it didn't and largely stuck to
copy lockups. Haven't heard a peep from this new controller, so far,
working like a charm with any drive up to 2T I've given it.

I'm thinking I'd like to see your drive manifest the same problems on
another computer controller.

On Monday, December 15, 2014 3:19:09 AM UTC+8, Flasherly wrote:
On Sun, 14 Dec 2014 07:32:38 -0800 (PST), RayLopez99
wrote:

On Sunday, December 14, 2014 7:23:07 AM UTC-8, RayLopez99 wrote:


Wow!
Just now something really weird happened. HD Tune stopped at a
certain block, testing, and would not move. I heard the Seagate HD
distinctly make the infamous "clicking sounds" or "clicking sounds of
death" that failing HDs make when they cannot write to a sector!
However, after about five or six such sounds, the HD finally wrote,
and HD Tune moved on, marking the block as "green" for good. It may
be that this Seagate drive is on the 'verge' of failing but it still
passes all the tests. BTW, S.M.A.R.T. is turned on in the BIOS and
needless to say SMART is not showing any obvious problems with either
drive.

RL

Was having various problems - intermittent and vague copy operation
lockups. I'd been using a PCI controller brand with the problems, and
didn't really have much choice but to stick with the same brandname
when I purchased another PCI controller, although a more advanced
model. Not to say that initial problem condition/controller couldn't
manifest system wide problems, though it didn't and largely stuck to
copy lockups. Haven't heard a peep from this new controller, so far,
working like a charm with any drive up to 2T I've given it.

I'm thinking I'd like to see your drive manifest the same problems on
another computer controller.

THIS IS KEY!!! I was Googling this today. But my research showed that in modern HDDs the controller is built into the HDD? But, if there's an on-board controller (or something) on the motherboard, it would explain why seemingly both drives have a 'clicking' problem, though, only the drive "C:" shows Chkdsk problems almost every day (despite my shutting down the PC gracefully, having a UPS, etc).

Unless, as is possible, both drives are experiencing failure the same time?

Also, during peak (100% in Task Manager) times in "C" Seagate drive, I hear a very high pitched faint "ping" that's metallic, like a miniature golf club striking a miniature golf ball far in the recesses of my HD. Like a little Scotsman lepercon playing golf on my platters? Is this a sound of impeding failure or natural? Please opine you HD experts.

RL

RayLopez99 wrote:
On Monday, December 15, 2014 3:19:09 AM UTC+8, Flasherly wrote:
On Sun, 14 Dec 2014 07:32:38 -0800 (PST), RayLopez99
wrote:

On Sunday, December 14, 2014 7:23:07 AM UTC-8, RayLopez99 wrote:


Wow!
Just now something really weird happened. HD Tune stopped at a
certain block, testing, and would not move. I heard the Seagate HD
distinctly make the infamous "clicking sounds" or "clicking sounds of
death" that failing HDs make when they cannot write to a sector!
However, after about five or six such sounds, the HD finally wrote,
and HD Tune moved on, marking the block as "green" for good. It may
be that this Seagate drive is on the 'verge' of failing but it still
passes all the tests. BTW, S.M.A.R.T. is turned on in the BIOS and
needless to say SMART is not showing any obvious problems with either
drive.
RL
Was having various problems - intermittent and vague copy operation
lockups. I'd been using a PCI controller brand with the problems, and
didn't really have much choice but to stick with the same brandname
when I purchased another PCI controller, although a more advanced
model. Not to say that initial problem condition/controller couldn't
manifest system wide problems, though it didn't and largely stuck to
copy lockups. Haven't heard a peep from this new controller, so far,
working like a charm with any drive up to 2T I've given it.

I'm thinking I'd like to see your drive manifest the same problems on
another computer controller.

THIS IS KEY!!! I was Googling this today. But my research showed that in modern HDDs the controller is built into the HDD? But, if there's an on-board controller (or something) on the motherboard, it would explain why seemingly both drives have a 'clicking' problem, though, only the drive "C:" shows Chkdsk problems almost every day (despite my shutting down the PC gracefully, having a UPS, etc).

Unless, as is possible, both drives are experiencing failure the same time?

Also, during peak (100% in Task Manager) times in "C" Seagate drive, I hear a very high pitched faint "ping" that's metallic, like a miniature golf club striking a miniature golf ball far in the recesses of my HD. Like a little Scotsman lepercon playing golf on my platters? Is this a sound of impeding failure or natural? Please opine you HD experts.

RL

The only thing the drives share, is a common power supply.

A hard drive will spin down, if the voltage drops below about
11V or so. (The motor runs off 12V.) The drive has to put the
heads away, if the power is going off for a long period of time,
which is why it is set up to sense that 11V level. The drive
is expected to continue spinning, between 11.4V and 12.6V (+/- 5%).

But you don't describe your noise, as a spindown event.
So it probably isn't that.

*******

CPU ---- Southbridge (Controlata registers)
|
| (SATA packet)
|
Processor on hard drive
|
(read or write platter)

The chipset on the motherboard is "dumb", and just
sends SATA packets. There is no connection particularly,
between traffic from one port and another.

The hard drive is "smart" and has its own processor.
It interprets all the commands in the ATAPI spec,
and if you had a copy of that, the spec is huge.
So the hard drive has lots of different terse commands
to interpret. Some of the code running in there, does
SMART related stuff, as well as your regular reads
and writes.

The processor on the hard drives doesn't talk to
processors on other hard drives. There is no hardware
path capable of doing that. The processor on the
hard drive, is an I/O processor, and responds to
I/O requests from the main CPU.

The hard drives share a common power supply, but
you would only suspect the power supply itself,
if both drives clicked in unison (no lag between
the two clicks). Generally, if a person describes
the symptoms as "clicks", that's a danger sign,
and time to transfer the data to another drive.
There is not a lot of time to waste...

Paul

On Monday, December 15, 2014 12:29:37 PM UTC+8, Paul wrote:


The hard drives share a common power supply, but
you would only suspect the power supply itself,
if both drives clicked in unison (no lag between
the two clicks). Generally, if a person describes
the symptoms as "clicks", that's a danger sign,
and time to transfer the data to another drive.
There is not a lot of time to waste...

I am going to defy you and logic too by continuing down my path of perdition! I will not change drives! LOL. One thing I did a bit differently and it may be working (though it is too early to tell): I made sure I did a complete clean install by deleting partitions from inside Windows 8 setup DVD then formating instead of just clicking on formatting which I think maybe does not really do a complete reformat. Also the options for this clean install of Win8 are under "Custom" and hidden away a bit, so it is easy to make the mistake when installing Windows 8 over Win 7 or earlier versions of Win 8 to have Windows 8 keep the old versions under \Windows.OLD folder,where possibly viruses and/or bad file links may reside (as I did apparently on Nov. 25). This time I did a complete clean reformating of the suspect C: Seagate drive. BTW Dban "Nuke it" format program failed to reformat the Windows 8 drive, I think there's some sort of special thing Windows does to deny this program the ability to reformat drives even when the program runs on a CD under Linux (as mine did). Either that or it's an old version that does not work on Windows 8 (I got it off a Utility DVD/CD).

Fingers crossed...no chkdsk problems...but it's only day two...I will update this post if anything bad happens...

RL

On Sunday, December 14, 2014 11:23:07 PM UTC+8, RayLopez99 wrote:


Amazing, but apparently bad RAM can cause file problems on your HD! Never heard that before. This system does have RAM that sometimes is not seated properly (RAM chips seem to work themselves up from the socket somehow) and seating them 'fixes' the problem...and btw when the RAM is 'bad' the system does pass the MemTest86 RAM test often, but will sometimes fail (after passing the MemTest86 test, even run all night) the "Prime95" stress test, which amazes me. I will run both of these tests now to see if the RAM is seated properly.

RL

https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/questio...1021151AAA9p2i


Why Does Check Disk Keep Running On Start-Up On Windows Xp ? Read details for more info?
First it starts-up, goes into chkdsk and says "windows needs to check the disk for consistency etc.." i let it run and when it finishes it restarts, then the start-up options screen comes up. when i select "start windows normally" it begins this whole cycle again, UNTIL i choose "Last Known Configuration That Worked" from the start-up Options screen, that's the only way i can get to the My desktop. Please help, i Have Sp3. Ran an anti-virus scan (result clean) & De-fragmented the Drive. thanks

ANSWER:

There are inconsistencies with the files that the system is detecting. The files are showing up as corrupt or fragments of files are showing up. That's my guess as to why it's launching chkdsk. Could be anything from a bad HD to dead or dying RAM DIMMs.

Download this free utility, Memtest86+ and run it. Choose the version that works for you (either CD ISO, floppy disk, USB key, etc).

If the utility detects bad memory, more than likely you will need to replace the defective part. Otherwise, the rest of your data can be compromised.

EDIT: Also, check the hard drive for errors as well. Open up My Computer, right-click on your C drive and go to Properties. In Tools, choose Check Now for Error-Checking.


http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25...ile-corruption


I have recently replaced some bad RAM that had a failed bit at an address around 977.4MB. I also had several correctable errors crop up when I ran chkdsk (on a Win XP machine).

How likely is it that I have serious file corruption, particularly in system files?

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/datacorruption.html

Causes of data corruption and loss

Common causes of data corruption and loss include:

Power outages or other power-related problems.
Improper shutdowns, such as caused by power outages or performing a hard restart: pressing and holding the power button or, on Macs so equipped, the restart button.
Hardware problems or failures, including hard drive failures, bad sectors, bad RAM, and the like.
Failure to eject external hard drives and related storage devices before disconnecting them or powering them off.
Bad programming, particularly if it results in either hard restarts or data that is saved incorrectly.

Any of these causes can result in a corrupted hard drive directory. A corrupted hard drive directory can cause files to apparently "go missing" and lead to further data loss or corruption, such files being overwritten with new data as a corrupted directory may no longer accurately reflect what disk space is free or available vs. the disk space that contains data. The term data is used here to mean both files you have created as well as application and operating system code.

Technologies such as File System Journaling have helped to reduce the potential for directory corruption due to power outages or hard restarts, but journaling is not foolproof. Likewise, while hard drives have become exceedingly reliable, they are still known to fail catastrophically with little or no warning.