Hard Disk making Windows 7 Crash?

[Wowdude]

For some time now I have been confused by my motherboard main screen (shows motherboard type and a picture) which had started to take sometimes up to 5 minutes to bypass. Sometimes just because it was quicker i'd go through the motherboard BIOS and hit "Discard and exit" simply because it was quicker than waiting. I noticed that my secondary hard drive had something wrong with it. Something about the IDE controller would fail to work (according to the motherboard loading screen after exiting the BIOS).

In the past few hours I was attempting to copy something from my external portable hard drive to my secondary when Windows 7 crashed. After I rebooted I decided to error check the drive (ticking both boxes). I then proceeded to take a nap for an hour and when I came too, the desktop was back to normal with no Error check box. I thought to myself "Oh it must be okay then". I then noticed that the secondary hard drive was not showing up in My Computer.

I rebooted yet again and windows 7 began to crash. Sometimes at the windows 7 loading screen, sometimes upon logging in and other times after a few minutes of logging in. Each time I checked My Computer and although the drive was there, there was no information or little icon showing how much space is left.

After much annoyance I decided to pull the SATA cable out for my second hard drive and boot. Windows 7 loaded sweet as a nut and I have been writing this from the same PC.

Any ideas what's wrong with my hard drive? It is very useful for back-up, though, not so much now.

 

[richc46]

Try with clean boot
If it works as it should follow instructions
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

If it does not work try in safe mode and report back.

 

[Wowdude]

Safe Mode

I already attempted booting in safe mode (oops sorry forgot to add this to the original post).

Once again the same thing happened...Managed to log in but then Windows 7 crashed less than a minute after loading to the desktop.

Also should I try a clean boot, then once the PC shuts down ready to reboot plug my SATA cable for my 2ndry HDD back in?

 

[richc46]

Go to search, and type event viewer
Look for critical errors about the time of the problem

 

[Wowdude]

I have numerous cases of:
The device, \Device\Harddisk1\DR1, has a bad block. - Spanning almost 90 minutes. I think maybe from when I was attempting to check and fix any errors on the drive.

I also found quite a few: Crash dump initialization failed! - dotted about the place

As well as the occassional:
The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume Media-BensPC.

Followed by:
The default transaction resource manager on volume Media-BensPC encountered a non-retryable error and could not start. The data contains the error code.

And some:
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk2\DR2.

 

[richc46]

Seems like there are a number of problems
Run a sfc command
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html
If errors are found run 3 or 4 times
If not fixed and there are many we can do a repair install.
If not many perhaps we can just fix them

If no success with the above. Try a repair install.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html?ltr=R

 

[Wowdude]

Running the scan now. I was actually going to partition my hard-drive and make a clean windows 7 install this week (my week off). Maybe it's trying to tell me something.

Any ideas concerning my 2ndry drive? I still haven't plugged it in. Think it's ok or is it a case of a new brick to prop my door open? with

 

[richc46]

You can go to the website of the manufacturer and test it.

 

[Wowdude]

The scan completed saying: "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations". Hmm...?

 

[richc46]

OK thats good the OS is not corrupted in anyway.

 

[Wowdude]

I think then it may be a case of a dead hard drive. As I said in my 1st post, my pc only crashed while the 2nd hard drive was plugged in. As soon as I removed it my pc was perfectly fine and acted as if nothing happened.

But what could possibly be on or be wrong with my 2nd hard drive to crash windows 7. Surely a dying/dead hard drive would not cause such travisty?

Maybe I should re-post this in the hardware section?

 

[richc46]

I dont think that it is necessary to repost. If you test your hard drive and it is toast; why it effects your computer in a certain way is not important. Test the drive its an easy test. If bad, get a new one. If good, come back and we will look further.

 

[Wowdude]

Sorry this is going to sound really bad of someone who has a little bit of computer experience (I play with software more) but how do you test a hard drive? The onyly way I can think I have the tools to test it is to plug it into the other desktop in the house (Vista Pro) and see if it does the same.

Apart from that I have no idea how to test it or the tools/equipment I need especially being as I cannot boot my computer with it plugged in. The manufacturer website isn't much help as it mainly explains checking the connections. The Hard drive is a Seagate Barracude 160Gb and that's about all I know about it.

Thanks for your help by the way

Has made this whole situation a lot more bearable!

 

[Jonathan_King]

Try testing the drive with SeaTools: | Seagate

You'll want the DOS version. Download the ISO, and then right-click on it > Open With > Windows Disc Image Burner.

 

[richc46]

Test Hard Drive www.carrona.org/hddiag.html or this test Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

 

[Wowdude]

Ok thanks!

Downloading the .ISO now. Will burn it, plug my HDD back in and try it out and post back the results.

Cheers again for the help!

 

[Wowdude]

Accoustic Test was possitive, the drive spins when "Told" to.

DST Completed with no errors.

Short DST passed.

When I attempted the long test, it asked me to type in "Dir *.log" into the C: command prompt that followed but nothing showed up.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Perhaps the cable wasn't all the way in, or something. Try booting up with the 2nd drive attached, and see how things go.

You may also try testing the drive with the Hitachi DFT program: http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/downloads/dft32_v416_b00.iso

 

[Wowdude]

Oopsy, the seagate is actually my main Hard drive. My secondary is actually a Western (WDC) WD1600JS-22NCB1.

I tried the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS made to test their hard drives that's on their site, however the lovely software that I downloaded from them when used 1st tells me that the disc doesn't have the license agreement on it then tells me that it cannot find a file in my floppy drive...some good that was...so instead i'll use the hitachi one suggested above =)

I also noted on boot up that my motherboard says this about the HDD:
Ultra DMA mode-6 S.M.A.R.T: Capable but command failed.

If that's any help.

 

[Wowdude]

The 2nd hard drive still makes my windows 7 crash if it's left attached on boot up.

Using the Hitachi Hard disk diagnostics tool the hard drive can't even be seen. When I try and type in the SN number it is too big for the box. I think this hard drive is pretty much toast then. Any more suggestions before it becomes a techno paperweight?