HD problem?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Johnson
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J

John Johnson

I have had this periodic problem.

System, Win XP Pro. MSI MB, 512 Ram (tested), 3 ghz P4. ATI AIW
9600, Canon USB scanner and printer. WD SATA 200 gig drive,
Ran the WD diagnostic on the drive,

Once in awhile, maybe twice a week, when booting up the computer will
lock up, sometimes just as the first Windows splash screen appears,
sometimes at the desktop. A reboot will usually solve the problem.
Yesterday when reinstalling the ATI drives, I got an error screen
(first time) about a problem with a pagefile (went by too fast to get
the exact message). Again a hard reboot solved the problem.

When running System Suite it will tell be there are structural
problems on the drive run chkdsk /f which I do. Problem goes away.

Don't know if its a hardware problem or software. (trying to avoid
reinstalling XP.
 
John said:
I have had this periodic problem.

System, Win XP Pro. MSI MB, 512 Ram (tested), 3 ghz P4. ATI AIW
9600, Canon USB scanner and printer. WD SATA 200 gig drive,
Ran the WD diagnostic on the drive,

Once in awhile, maybe twice a week, when booting up the computer will
lock up, sometimes just as the first Windows splash screen appears,
sometimes at the desktop. A reboot will usually solve the problem.
Yesterday when reinstalling the ATI drives, I got an error screen
(first time) about a problem with a pagefile (went by too fast to get
the exact message). Again a hard reboot solved the problem.

When running System Suite it will tell be there are structural
problems on the drive run chkdsk /f which I do. Problem goes away.

Don't know if its a hardware problem or software. (trying to avoid
reinstalling XP.
Click to expand...

Start troubleshooting by doing a thorough test with the Western Digital
hard drive utility. You said you tested with the WD utility; if you
didn't do a thorough test you should. If you did, then you don't need
to repeat this step. If the drive tests *physically* good, you know the
problem isn't with the hard drive.

I would swap out your power supply for a known-working one. Maybe yours
is going or is inadequate for the system. If your ATI video card
requires a separate power supply connector, make sure it is in place.

Test the RAM. I like Memtest86+ from www.memtest.org. Obviously, you
have to get the program from a working machine. You will either
download the precompiled Windows binary to make a bootable floppy or
the .iso to make a bootable cd. If you want to use the latter, you'll
need to have third-party burning software on the machine where you
download the file - XP's built-in burning capability won't do the job.
In either case, boot with the media you made. The test will run
immediately. Let the test run for an hour or two - unless errors are
seen immediately. If you get any errors, replace the RAM.

Naturally, just do one t-shooting step at a time and test after each
change.

Malke
 
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