Corrupting Win2k, XP

About a month ago, i reinstalled Win2k, which is no big deal. However, ever since, my operating system goes corrupt after about a week. By corrupt, there are dll's that stop working, aren't found, Chkdsk goes berserk (a few pages of errors), sometimes it won't find my log-in, and creates another user (wtf?), or even just restarts while booting up and doesn't get into the OS. This i've repaired with the win2k CD a few times. It usually takes a week for problems to show up, but when they do, it's bad.

What i've tried: reinstalled, about 4 or 5 times for win2k, and i also tried WinXP. All legal, University license, plus MS sent me a free copy of XP through some student learning program :D. I had my OS/programs hdd replaced, i've disconnected other devices, such as burner, other hdd, dvd-rom, thinking they may be messing it up. From this, i'm wondering if somehow the mobo could be going bad in a weird way, corrupting files?

Anyway, here's my specs,
ECS k7VZA mobo, latest bios
900 Athlon
384 megs of pc133 (1x256 crucial, 1x128 generic)
250watt psu (problem?)
main OS hdd, 10 gig Fujitsu, ata/33
secondary hdd, 120 gig WD Caviar, 2meg cache
Lite-on 16x DVD-rom
Norcent 52x24x52 cd-r/rw, which is now in another computer anyway
geforce 2mx-200 vid card
all but the dvd, cdrw, and 120 gig hdd, i built back in the summer of '01

Also, i'm a poor college student, or i'd just go buy parts and build a new computer. But if i have to, i can. I won't have the time this Fall to work on my computer for an hour or two every week (18 credits, including 11 in EE) Tuition bill came the other day... 12k for this coming semester:(

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384 megs of pc133 (1x256 crucial, 1x128 generic)

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OK that immediately screamed at me - www.simmtester.com download docmem - it creates a boot diskette. Run it for both stick individually and then together.

thanks... i'm going to run that this afternoon, once i get it set up

I ran the 128 MB 'generic' stick, it passed. I looked closer, and apparantly it's Kingston, which i've at least heard of. It passed the Burn-in test a couple times, and the quick test once. I assume that's enough? eh, i'll read the manual after the fact :P

and the crucial stick and both together?

The quick test is usually enough though.

whoa, just woke up from an extended nap. Yeah, i'm running them together now i left the 256 stick run the burning test 14 times while i was sleeping..

yeah, passed with both sticks. The mobo's cheap and has always given me some problems.

also, i wasn't able to virusscan my second hdd for a while (too many little files, which i'm now deleting) could some random virus be doing something like this?

I have intermittant errors on an Abit VP6 when I try to mix memory. The sticks work fine in other boxes but not in that one... Just a thought..

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Originally posted by silencio
I have intermittant errors on an Abit VP6 when I try to mix memory. The sticks work fine in other boxes but not in that one... Just a thought..

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Yeah, i can try with just the 256 for a while. I don't play any games that take much ram anymore, mostly office/firebird/email, music, divx movies anymore

Next thing to do would be to test the os drive

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main OS hdd, 10 gig Fujitsu, ata/33

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Powermax from maxtor.com will test this drive for you... I have to ask, why have a kick a$$ drive as a secondary drive - is it running on the primary ide or the secondary?

The 250 watt psu will be ok IF it's a decent make and does output steadily with no peaks or troughs.

After you've tested the drive, powermax might be ok (isn't that for maxtor drives ?), I'd use FJDT(Fujitsu Diagnostic testing) available here ... then make sure all the appropriate chipset patches for your motherboard are in place find them here (though that says just use latest hyperion-via 4-in-1) ...

I'll completely agree with Noo though & say it seems a 'waste' to have your system files on the slowest disk ... perhaps partition the 'fast' drive to just keep system files in & keep data in the rest & use the 'slow' drive for your swap file & backup/spare ?

Your psu might be in question ... but you say these 'issues' persist even with stuff unplugged (which obviously 'reduces' any likelyhood of it being that)??? if none of this helps - then that'll be your next 'suspect' ;)

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have a kick a$$ drive as a secondary drive - is it running on the primary ide or the secondary?

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Well, i bought the 120 gig after the fact, and i'm going to have to do some cleanup on it. The motherboard only supports to ata/66 also.

A lot of things I have on the 120 are not backed up, and it's kind of badly fragmented (even after i ran defrag, argh), but i might partition that sometime like stated. It's on the secondary ide, btw.

I'm at work for about 8 more hours, i'll try the disk checking utilities when i get back.

Thanks confus-ed - I thought they insisted you bought data lifeguard.



Oh well school hols and 4 hours sleep will do that to you....

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Originally posted by NooNoo
Thanks confus-ed - I thought they insisted you bought data lifeguard.

Oh well school hols and 4 hours sleep will do that to you....

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Only 4 hours sleep ?? Is Hubby finally taking some notice ! (Where is that 'cheeky' icon ;) ) ....

Lifeguard is (now?) a Western digital product ?? Anyways that's available free & online (handy!) here at WD

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The Data Lifeguard Online Diagnostics service is a free web-based diagnostic utility capable of testing any manufacturer's EIDE hard drive. The purpose of the Data Lifeguard Online Diagnostics service is to provide the user with an easy method to physically test the health of the hard drives installed in his system without the need to create a bootable diskette or to reboot the system

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Originally posted by confus-ed
Only 4 hours sleep ?? Is Hubby finally taking some notice ! (Where is that 'cheeky' icon ;) ) ....

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No he sleeps with the bedroom windows shut and snores loudly.... :( :rolleyes:

well, i installed 2k when i got back from work, which promptly had winlogin make me restart before i could start the OS after one reboot, which was after everything froze in the middle of applying SP4. Well, setup this next time wouldn't even complete, it errored out at some point, told me to contact my system administrator.

So i turned to myself an said, "Damn this sucks. I think we should just use this old 450p3 for a while, till i know my financial situation, at which time i might look for a new psu/mobo/cpu/ram for a low price, but sacrificing speed for reliability." "Nifty, i thought. An 1800+ Athlon XP would suit me fine, with, say, 512MB DDR (not sure what speed), and a PSU, and perhaps check Anandtech for mobo roundups." "Sounds great gerf, let's take a nap." "Let's, i said."

And thus, i'm taking a nap, as i don't feel like getting overly frustrated about a silly computer.

Sounds like a plan to me!!

thanks for the ideas, it helped me narrow it down. I actually recommend to people to go to these forums, and lurk a bit (i don't know a lotta stuff, not very helpful very often, but i try when i can)

thanks guys (and gal;) )

I installed win98 (first edition), and ran the computer on and off for a while, while i used my old 450p3 for basic tasks (irc, aim, icq, winamp, browsing). Well, win98 ran just fine, so i did a win98 to 2000 update. I ran this for a couple weeks with no problem. I threw all my random software in it (dvd player, nero, half-life, windows updates, officeXP, ect), to see if that would make it fault again. Nope, ran fine.

So, now i've been running a few weeks with no problems. Everything important i do is saved on my other drive, just in case, but i've had no problems.

This got me to wondering: what's the difference between a fresh win2k install, and a 'update' to win2k. Besides using FAT32 instead of the NTFS option. Are there old drivers being used? I'm going to take it easy on this computer for now, until i really know what went wrong

Yes, upgrading means bringing forward problems that may not have been obvious in the old OS. Never upgrade unless you absolutely have to.

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Originally posted by gerf
....This got me to wondering: what's the difference between a fresh win2k install, and a 'update' to win2k. Besides using FAT32 instead of the NTFS option. Are there old drivers being used? I'm going to take it easy on this computer for now, until i really know what went wrong

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Well I can certainly say that for XP (so I suspect w2k will do exactly the same) with an 'upgrade' windoze attempts to 'cobble up' (bodge!) any drivers it doesn't have available from 9x style ones to w2k/xp ones, this may or may not be 'good'....

I've done this 'deliberately' to get supposedly unsupported in w2k/xp devices going & I can say for sure it works, sometimes :D ... but othertimes it just causes 'confus-ed-ness' like here, I guess that's what happens when you try & force 'old' stuff to work with new stuff, it certainly works with me :eek2:

I had the same problems, and it turned out to be a bad 2000 CD. It would appear that files were getting corrupted somehow during the install. I found this out by replacing most of the components in the machine, only to have the same problem. Finally, I tried a different 2000 CD, problems gone.

It's something to think about.

The problem was a second bad hard drive. Pretty annoying coincidence actually.

The second drive i'd gotten was not remanufactured, but had sat in storage for 4 years. But either way, it was crap, and out of warranty. I ended up using another smaller drive, which is still running fine.

On another note, i had a 13 gig hard drive that seemed entirely dead. On some advice, i threw it in the freezer. I later took it out, moved residences, and finally got it to work again: i built my mom and dad their first computer for this past christmas (450p3, 192 megs of ram, 13 gig hdd, winXP). This is the first they've used a computer, so i feel like a 'good' son now. But, i think that the freezer idea has some merit, though debatable of course.