Continually getting corrupt files

[Sam]

Hi, I'm having serious trouble with my PC, I was continually receiving
errors about corrupt files (always different), sometimes windows files, and
sometimes other programs. Eventually the machine started Blue Screening
after a few minutes each time I booted up, and the error report claimed a
device driver was corrupt, but never which one. I was able to boot from the
XP disk, but repairs always failed as it was not able to copy files (again
never the same one twice) to the hard disk, and stated that the XP disk was
corrupt, however I tried 3 copies! Eventually I did a complerte reinstall,
which was successful, and all seemed fine, but then I started getting errors
when trying to reinstall software. Soon after the blue screens started
again, memory was dumped, and now Windows won't boot at all as it gives the
following error:

Windows could not start because the following file was missing or corrupt
Windows Root>\System32\ntoskrnl.exe

I do remember that it gave an error message once about not being able to
read from some portion of the memory, but that's all I can remember.

Sorry if this is a bit confused, but that mirrors my brain at the moment!
Does this sound like a corrupt hard disk? Or could it be something else like
a problem with the RAM etc? Any suggestions would be gratefully received
before I pay out to replace the wrong piece of equipment!!

Thanks,

Sam

 

[Richard Urban]

Throw out the RAM you have and get new RAM. www.crucial.com


--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Sam]

Thanks for the Reply, any chance you could just expand slightly on why you
think it is the RAM that is corrupt rather than the Hard Disk? I realise
that there was one error once about reading from the memory, but I don't
understand why bad RAM would cause all these corrupt files to keep
occurring? Many thanks,

Sam

 

[Richard Urban]

Because what you are explaining is a classic example of what you experience
when you have bad RAM. I have seen, and corrected for this, dozens of times
for my customers. New RAM solved the problem.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Sam]

OK, thank you once again, I will order some new memory from Crucial then,
cheers,

Sam

 

[frodo]

OK, thank you once again, I will order some new memory from Crucial then,
cheers,

Well, I'd test it first! Get memtest86+, the "precompiled for floppy"
version, and test your ram. Read the info at that site before testing.
If several hours of testing results in EVEN ONE error, you do have a
problem. It could be just a bad ram stick; it could be something else,
like the power supply or the power regulators on the motherboard. or the
bios settings could simply be screwed up. Figure it out before thowing $$
at the problem.

And if it is the RAM, and you fix it, you should assume that at least some
of the contents of the hard drive have also been corrupted; I would backup
all personal data files, wipe and reinstall everything. But don't rush
into it!

 

[Richard Urban]

Just a note here.

I have a hardware RAM tester (very expensive). After testing RAM with
memtest86, which shows no errors at all, I put the same RAM into the
hardware tester that really gives it a workout under load. In many cases the
RAM shows as defective. The tester has not let me down, and has been a big
help in my small business.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!