Is my HD failing, and if is, what should I do?

[LKW198]

Hello
I keep the computer I am having the problem with turned On all the time during the week, turning it Off on Sunday night's, and restart's on Monday's. Last Thur., Dec. 3, when I went to wake it from Sleep mode, I found it was Off. I have it plugged into a battery backup system along with another computer. That computer was On and works fine. I have looked in Event Viewer, (E.V.), to see if there were any listings that may tell me why it went Off, but found nothing. Is this something that I should try to find the answer to, and if so, how would I do that? Or is it something that I could wait and see if it happen's again ?
When I restarted the PC, it opened to a black screen with white lettering, saying that Windows had not shutdown normally, and gave me several option's as to how I could proceed. I choose to Start Windows Normally. It took a very long time for it to open to the Desktop and than it was very slow to respond to any inputs from the mouse. It was very unstable. Some things worked and some would not.
I ran the Check Disk and System File Checker, (SFC), utilities. I have never ran them before so not sure how to interpret the result's. I do know that SFC said it found corrupt files and it fixed some of them but it could not fix them all. I ran SFC three times, always getting the same result's.
In E.V. there are hundred's of error's. One of the most predominant ones is iaStor, (The device,\Device\IDE\iaStor0, did not respond within the time out period). I went to Device Manager, opened the IDE Controller and it said it was working properly. I do not know if this is the device that error is referring to, but thought I would pass along this information in case it is. Also have a lot of Schannel error's.
Over the last couple of day's, the PC has really started to run much better. It seems to be just as fast as it was before, do not have very many freeze up's (IE would become unresponsive once in awhile), and some of the things it would not do before, it does them now. For instance it was not making System Restore Points, either on it's own or manually, but I made one today and it worked. I have not shut the PC down and restarted it to see how that goes, nor have I ran a full scan with MSE, to see if it would be able to scan the whole system and not freeze up someplace.
So what do you think. Are there any other things I can do to get more information for you that would help you see if I may have a HD starting to fail? If so, let me know and will try and get it for you if not to complicated.
I do have three Backup System Images that I made with the built in Windows Image maker from July, Sept, and Nov. Also have the System Repair disk and the System Recovery disks which consists of 5 DVD's.
If the HD that is in the PC now were to actually have bad sector's, and I tried to put the Nov. Backup Image on it, would they cause that to fail, or would they be overwritten and the re-image could possibly work? I would really like to get an answer to this question.
Or should I eliminate the doubt on the HD being good or bad, and just buy a new one and go from there? If I went this route, I would want to buy a better, (not a bigger one), HD, than what I currently have. It is a Western Digital, 1TB, 7200 RPM, SATA, 3.5 inch HD. It sells on Newegg for around $60.00. If you think this is the way I should go, what would you recommend in the $100 to $200 range?
Finally, I do realize that when it comes to computer's, there are no guarantee's that when you do some thing on a computer, it is always going to go the way you want it to go. Stuff happens.
I thank anyone who may respond to this post in advance.

LKW198

 

[LKW198]

My apologies to every one for the way my post is typed. I had typed it once, but when I clicked on Submit New Thread, ( I think that's what it said), it did not go thru. To say the least, while I was retyping it I was not in the best of mood's and consequently I did not indent my paragraph's. This makes it hard to read.
I do apologies for my error.

LKW198

 

[Drew702]

Dozens of thoughts ran through my mind while reading your post. Sounds like a software collision causing massive instability. I'll try to throw some ideas here:

1.) In my opinion, anything made by Microsoft with the word "Home" on it is garbage, "junk software". I suggest an upgrade to the "Pro", "Enterprise" or "Ultimate" versions. You will find greater stability, more compatibility with software installs, and more tools at your disposal.

2.) You mentioned there were hundreds of error messages in the event viewer. This is typical of: Bad memory addresses, potentially failing hardware, software bumping heads with each other, hardware and software conflicts with the BIOS and about a million other things. The EV records EVERYTHING and can be a pain to sort through. I'm sure you already know to go to the closest date to your problem and see what malfunction it's reporting. For instance: If a cooler pops off the CPU or the North bridge the EV would report a "Thermal event" within several seconds or minutes. Just go in and look for the event that is closest to the time you noticed your computer suddenly shutting down.

3.) One of the simpler ideas is to run your anti-virus/malware software across the whole system just to make sure.

4.) After running the anti-virus/malware, consider going back to see what the most recent software was that you installed... and is it conflicting with another? (Start uninstalling the most recent ones and reboot after each uninstall).

5.) Did you upgrade anything over the internet recently? Seems like every time I upgrade to a "Newer" version of something I run into problems of one kind or another. Example: I ran Firefox 29 with a smile since April 2014 right up until about a week ago. I finally gave in and "Upgraded" to FF 42, and I've had problems ever since. There's an old saying in the tech community: "An upgrade isn't always an upgrade."

6.) Windows updates are loaded with patches. Sometimes these patches cause problems like you are describing because of a conflict with a program you loaded that doesn't like the patch. (This has been a source of misery from Microsoft for years). I made bank over the years fixing problems caused by Microsoft updates.

7.) "CHKDSK" and "SFC /Scannow" are both great. Don't underestimate their ability to help. Don't forget to run: "CHKDSK /F".

8.) This is more extreme but... Open up your box and, first blow it out with canned air and then start to Re-seat the cards. Any PCI-e, PCI, etc... But don't forget the memory! I have fixed similar problems when computers were reporting an error at a certain memory address. Pulling the RAM out and re-seating them fixed the problem many times. Other times it was in fact software bumping heads trying to use the same resources. (Or both).

8.) You mentioned a "iaStor" error? Was that by any chance "Error 9"? This is a new power mode error for hard drives. Which is older, your motherboard or your hard drive?

Many of the things I mentioned above are basics to most techs, but in your case it sounds like you have a hard drive that has firmware not compatible with a recent patch from Microsoft. Or something embedded in Win7 that just took some time to finally express it self in an unpleasant way... by loosing its stability.

My suggestion would be, install a new hard drive with a fresh OS. You would have a new drive compatible with all the new requirements and hopefully a Professional or Ultimate edition of Win7. The other things I mentioned are a good idea as a process of elimination.

 

[LKW198]

Drew 702

Thank-you for your response and idea's on what I should do to try and resolve my problem. I think I am going to buy a new hard drive, get a re-installation disk, and go from there. I have never done anything like this before, so have lot's of question's, and will probably be back for help.

Sorry it has taken so long for me to get back to this thread.

LKW198

 

[Golden]

There may be no need to spend money on hardware - lets check. Additional information is required.

1. Download the DM Log Collector application to your desktop by clicking the link below

DM Log Collector.exe

2. Run it by double-clicking the icon on your desktop, and follow the prompts.
3. Locate the .ZIP file that is created on your desktop, and upload it here in your next reply.

 

[LKW198]

Golden

Because the computer was very unresponsive, I did a System Image going back to July of this year. I did this on Dec.10 and the computer is working fine. On Dec. 14, I found the computer had shut it's self off again, but this time when I started it up, it run's fine. Don't know how this will effect the data that is collected in the DM Log Collector report. I think this is the Log you ask for and I hope this works.


LKw198

 

[Golden]

The problems all appear to be network related, and NOT hard disk problems. You don't require a new HDD as far as I can tell.

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 9F, {3, fffffa8007653a10, fffff800038073d8, fffffa8009e0f330}

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for L1C62x64.sys
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for L1C62x64.sys
Probably caused by :[COLOR="red"][B] L1C62x64.sys[/B][/COLOR]

Followup: MachineOwner
---------
start             end                 module name
fffff880`0714a000 fffff880`07165000   L1C62x64 T (no symbols)           
    Loaded symbol image file: L1C62x64.sys
    Image path: L1C62x64.sys
    Image name: L1C62x64.sys
    Timestamp:        Fri [B][COLOR="Red"]Dec 23 [/COLOR][/B]19:43:21 [COLOR="red"][B]2011[/B][/COLOR] (4EF44631)
    CheckSum:         00026843
    ImageSize:        0001B000
    Translations:     0000.04b0 0000.04e4 0409.04b0 0409.04e4

The outdated Atheros NIC problem is the cause of the BSOD on 14/2/2015. Update it here:
https://www.atheros.cz/

Monitor for further BSOD, and if any occur, create a new ZIP file and upload it again in your next reply.

 

[LKW198]

Golden

I'm sorry but I know nothing about computers, so I do not know what I'm suppose to do when I go to that web site. There is a section entitled Qualcomm Atheros Network Driver's and there is a listing for L1C. Is this the one I need to click on and what will happen when I do?

I went to Device Manager and opened the Network Adapter. It lists a Atheros AR8161/8165 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller. Is this the one I need to update; and if so, can I do it by going to Properties and Updating the software from there? Or is doing it your way the best way?

Thank you for all you are doing for me, I really appreciate it. I just don't want to make matters any worse.

LKW198

I went back to that site and saw a listing for AR8161 in that section and that matches the first four numbers in my Network Adapter. Is that the one I need to select?

LKW198

 

[bigmck]

Yes, click on AR8161 and it will download. Install that and see if it helps. If you get stuck, let us know.

 

[LKW198]

Golden and bigmck

First off, I want to thank-you both for being so patient with me and helping me out. I followed your instructions and the Network Adapter has been successfully updated and every thing appears to be running fine. I hope I can come back to this thread at a later date and mark it as Solved. Time will tell.

It's nice that you offer your expertise in helping people who are having computer problems or have questions on how to do things. Have a nice day.

LKW198

 

[Golden]

Thanks for the compliments

 

[bigmck]

Thank you, It was a pleasure.

 

[LKW198]

Hello again Saturday Jan. 9,2016

It saddens me to report this, but my computer shutdown on it's own again yesterday. When I restarted it, I got the screen telling me it had shutdown unexpectedly and I selected to have it re-start normally. It did and it is running fine.

I re-ran the dm log collector program and have it attached.

I know nothing about computers, but I would like to tell you when I think these unexpected shutdowns are happening. I have the computer set to enter Sleep mode after 10 mins. of inactivity. I believe that during the last 30 seconds or so of that 10 mins. sequence, when Windows is doing what ever it does to get things in order so the computer can enter Sleep mode, some thing goes wrong and it shuts down instead.

My reasoning for this is that I am on and off this computer many times during the day, and I usually come back to the computer after 10 mins. of inactivity to see if it has gone into Sleep mode. I have never seen it in Sleep mode and than come back later and find it shut off. Hope this makes a little bit of sense.

Thank you very much in advance to any responses to help me.

LKW198

 

[LKW198]

Monday---February 22

Hello

Once again I found this computer had BSOD. It happened on Thursday, Feb. 18th. If you look at my post directly above this one you'll see that it also happened back on Jan. 8th. I submitted a DM Log for that incident and I am submitting one for this most recent one also.

Unfortunately I did not receive any response to my Jan. 9th. post, and perhaps that may be because I made the mistake of posting my original thread in the wrong category, (Hardware and Devices), and the members here that have the expertise to interrupt those DM Logs spend most of their time helping people in the BSOD Help and Support category. So am wondering if my thread can be moved into the BSOD Help and Support area which may give me a better chance of getting help? If it can be moved, will whom ever can do that, please move it?

Thank you in advance for any responses to help me

LKW198