Personal PC on the Fritz? Unknown Errors.

[TekkieFreak]

Please help!

The other day, during a scheduled virus scan, my system showed a very odd (to me) error message.

The file or directory \System Volume Information\_restore{7EE62D59-3EA5-41E3-91E9-1406CAAD35AA}\RP242\change.log is corrupt and unreadable. Please run chkdsk.

Is this a registry key, or a file?

This is when accessing my secondary (D: 15 gig Maxtor) hard drive.

When I run chkdsk, I get no problems. However, if I tack on a /f, then it stops half way through with "An unspecified error has occurred." This is regardless of weather or not I run it in XP or schedule it to run before bootup.

If I delete some files from the hard drive, and reboot, they reappear. (These are files that are legit. I downloaded them on purpose (not virii). Utilities, and mpg trailers, mostly.

Another wierd one. I run Sygate Personal Firewall. I downloaded the latest version, but when I tried to run the executable install (from the same drive) I got "Only part of a ReadProcessMemory or WriteProcessMemory request was completed."

I have downloaded and run a detailed scan with the Maxtor diagnostic floppy.
It turned up nothing. Everything came back looking good.

Is there something pooched with the drive, or is something amis in my registry.
(that would be bad. I know very little about the registry.)

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Specs

Pentium 3 933/133 Slot 1
MB Intel CC820
512 meg 133 SDram
GeForce 440 MX
C: = 40 gig WDse (7 months old)
D: = 15 gig Maxtor (4 years old)
OS Windows XP Home

[confus-ed]

Mmmmm.... ... ...I need

(there I'm done answering, can I stop now !?! )

Methinks that something somewhere, somehow is amiss with your file system, that's most definately what your first error says anyway!

In direct answer that's a file not a reg key.

Why do you need to add '/f' ?!?!? to 'chkdsk' ... to run a 'complete' disk check on an NTFS install, you need to either run that from a seperate boot source (which can then be 'interesting' to connect to) or schedule it to run from inside windows itself at boot (Windoze otherwise has files 'in use' which don't get checked, a 'full' disk check can only take place without most of the 'usual' stuff running, pre 'real boot' of windoze ...). So, simply I'm ssaying just schedule it from inside windows (here on both your disks - tick all the boxes, including the free space scan)...

I suspect your 'other' messsage is generated 'somehow' by this other 'whatever it is' ... fix the 'original' one first anyway, before looking at the 'other' one

Despite what Uncle Bill has to say about the 'sanctity' of NTFS installs, its my considerable experience, that its just as easy to get one of those 'hosed' as it is any FAT controlled disk.

[geoscomp]

You didn't tell us what antivirus you are using, but if at all possible try an online scan at either panda or trend micro just to make sure you don't have any rpc viruses floating around..I have seen that exact error message..(the read process message) with lovesan recently...
And even though I haven't had any coffee yet either, I agree with confus-ed...you run chkdsk without the (/f) fix errors parameter and it doesn't find a problem, but with the fix errors parameter it does?...

I think what I would try is to turn off system restore, run an online virus scan..if it finds anything fix it..and then retry chkdsk at boot.

[TekkieFreak]

Correct. Regular chkdsk runs fine, however with the /f is hangs half way through.

Ed, XP gives me that error not only when I run the scan from within Windows, but also when I schedule it to run at the next restart.

I will try to disable system restore, and see if that makes a difference. I also get this error during a virus scan. (Norton)

[mal_sharpes]

Sorry to have some bad news for you but I think that your hard drive might be goosed. My best guess is that the electronics are going, which prevents the write behind facility of Windows from working properly. This will stop the changes to the NTFS journal being made, so files will reappear. The hdd electronics failing happened to me about a year back and gave weird error messages about possible corruption and read/write delays. It to passed the manufacturers basic tests, but these generally test for disk failure rather than electronics failure.

All I can suggest is back up the hdd while you can

Mal

[TekkieFreak]

Sorry to have some bad news for you but I think that your hard drive might be goosed. My best guess is that the electronics are going, which prevents the write behind facility of Windows from working properly. This will stop the changes to the NTFS journal being made, so files will reappear. The hdd electronics failing happened to me about a year back and gave weird error messages about possible corruption and read/write delays. It to passed the manufacturers basic tests, but these generally test for disk failure rather than electronics failure.

All I can suggest is back up the hdd while you can

Mal

That makes sense. I'm going to bring my 40gig external Buslink Drive home tonight, and backup my music collection! The rest of it is games that I can reinstall.

The question, is should I low level format it and try again, incase it's something else?

Thanks for the help gang.

[ironwill99]

That makes sense. I'm going to bring my 40gig external Buslink Drive home tonight, and backup my music collection! The rest of it is games that I can reinstall.

The question, is should I low level format it and try again, incase it's something else?

Thanks for the help gang.

I would try a low level if you have some time to spare. You are formating the drive anyway and it may uncover some issues. Also you may want to try a different IDE cable. I know it sounds silly but I have seen that work a couple of times.

[geoscomp]

actually, I find bad ide cables pretty frequently..they tend to get a little brittle when subjected to a lot of heat for a long time, and even unplugging and plugging them back in can cause a small break that can make intermittent contact..just remember that whatever computer you transfer your files to should have a good, up to date antivirus just in case

[confus-ed]

I don't think this is a hardware issue, i.e. the ide cables faulty (why does it 'not like' just one file? why not all of them or any one of them ?), but that ntfs is somehow goosed - a low lew format will sort that for sure - use the manufacturers utility appropriate to the drive.

The 'errant' drive is 4 years old, seems to me not unreasonable that it might have some media defects by now, low level formats can map damaged areas of disk out & activate reserve space on the disk (up to 5%) to compensate - when you get the lowel level format utility get the disk testing tools too & make sure of your drives health

[joelen]

It sounds to me like it is finding errors in the system restore section of windows. I may be wrong, but i remember that path being where windows xp and me store the system restor point info. Simply turning off system restore should erase all old restore points, and thereby fixing the issue. once its fixed, just renable system restore.

Good luck....

[NooNoo]

Between disabling and enabling system restore, run a defrag.

[TekkieFreak]

Ok. Now I'm freaked out.

I uninstalled everything I could without getting errors, and rebooted.

I booted to the Maxtor utility disk, and did a low level format of the disk.

I told it to do a low level format of the Maxtor drive.

I watched the low level format run for a few minutes, then left the house for a while.

I came back and it was done.

I rebooted and all of my data is still on the drive.

I have listened to mp3s that were there, and I've run software that was there.

What the hell is happening?

Isn't a low level format supposed to wipe the drive?

How can I be looking at, AND USING, data on this drive?

Little freaked out here.

HELP!

[3D Prophet III]

Ok. Now I'm freaked out.
I uninstalled everything I could without getting errors, and rebooted.
I booted to the Maxtor utility disk, and did a low level format of the disk.
I told it to do a low level format of the Maxtor drive.
I watched the low level format run for a few minutes, then left the house for a while.
I came back and it was done.
I rebooted and all of my data is still on the drive.
I have listened to mp3s that were there, and I've run software that was there.
What the hell is happening?
Isn't a low level format supposed to wipe the drive?
How can I be looking at, AND USING, data on this drive?
Little freaked out here.
HELP!

Try this. From within Windows Explorer, right click on the D: drive and choose format, see if you have the option to format the drive back to FAT32. If you do, do it. After the format is complete close the format window and Windows Explorer then reopen Windows Explorer and browse the D: drive to see if it's blank. Exit Windows Explorer and then on your desktop right click on My Computer, click on Manage, then within the Computer management screen choose storage and then disk management. Look to see if drive D: file system is reported as FAT32 instead of NTFS. If that doesn't work shut the computer off, then disconnect the ribbon and power cable from the WD HDD. Make sure the jumper on the Maxtor is set to master and plug the end of the primary ribbon cable to it. Then boot your system and make sure the BIOS detects the Maxtor HDD correctly, if it doesn't you'll have to go into the system setup within the BIOS and make the proper setting (AUTO?) for that HDD. Once your system sees the Maxtor HDD correctly, save, reboot and then power down (shut it off).


Then from a cold boot, boot with the maxtor utility disk and run zero fill. After you've run zero fill or done a low level format (wrote zeros to the drive), try booting with a Win98 boot disk and run fdisk. Create 1 partition on the drive, make it active, then reboot and run fdisk again and choose option 4 to view disk info. esc, esc then format partition, then run scandisk.

Sometimes HDD utilities don't work correctly when 2 HDDs are on the same IDE channel. Try what I said, it may work. If it doesn't then you probably have a problem with that drive.


http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm