Playback issuse - file transfers freezing - harddrive failure

[KuroiLight]

Hello all looking for a little help,

Started experiencing playback lag on most movies that were stored on my E Drive which is a 500gb western digital, taking a movie off that harddrive and placing it on my C drive(150gb WDraptorx) sometimes would hang during the file transfer for 10 minutes then start up again. playback would be smooth if played from my external or main c drive , so i thought this could be my E drive was failing, so i tried a disk check over night but was only 10% when i got up and didn't seem to be moving at all.

1week later i get a BSOD and freezes for 15 minutes so i did a hard reset, freezes on loading screen for windows and BSOD once again, once is started up in bios got windows is missing a certain file and prompted me to system restore and was freezing every couple of minutes but completed successfully. 2 hours later i get BSOD and BIOS reports the C drive as BAD. did a check disk for it and had a ton of unreadable sections but it completed, haven't been able to get back to windows since. ATM am trying start up repair but its already on 2 hours +.

This computer and its hard drives are 6 years+ everything is hooked up via SATA connections.

Should i take the main drive out and install windows on to my secondary or is it possible that they are both failing and should just purchase a new hard drive.

 

[F5ing]

See what results you get when running the disk tests available in the machine's BIOS.

Might want to try downloading diagnostic utilities from the manufacturers of the drives to test them.

SeaTools from Seagate can also test many disks, regardless of brand.

 

[KuroiLight]

Thanks i will give sea tools a try and report back.

 

[KuroiLight]

I ran Seatools in dos and its turns out its only my main C drive that is the issue here, also tried to install windows on my secondary drive, couldn't even get to the installation part just froze with a black screen, unplugged the C drive and tried again, it started up very quick.

Installing right now seems everything is going smoothly.

Thanks for the help, sea tools was very useful.

 

[F5ing]

Glad to hear! Please post back when you're all done to let us know how it turns out...

 

[KuroiLight]

OK so win7 installed smoothly and updated fine but I seem to be running into a new problem that might be related, installing software for my on board sound card i had to restart, when booting my monitor didn't turn on(check signal cables) i have my TV plugged in thru hdmi and it also wasn't getting detected, had to restart it many times until it finally worked, now it does this every time i shut it down, having to restart 5 times + just to see bios and get back in.

also with sea tools i only did the short test on the E drive(Passed) before putting win7 on it, tried the long test last night and got read sector errors / power failure couldn't repair.

 

[F5ing]

OK so win7 installed smoothly and updated fine but I seem to be running into a new problem that might be related, installing software for my on board sound card i had to restart, when booting my monitor didn't turn on(check signal cables) i have my TV plugged in thru hdmi and it also wasn't getting detected, had to restart it many times until it finally worked, now it does this every time i shut it down, having to restart 5 times + just to see bios and get back in.

Were you able to get all hardware drivers were up to date?

also with sea tools i only did the short test on the E drive(Passed) before putting win7 on it, tried the long test last night and got read sector errors / power failure couldn't repair.

So Seatools told you have two bad hard drives? Does this sound reasonable to you? Are they old, brand new, or handled somewhat carelessly (especially while running)? And can you elaborate on what this part means: "power failure couldn't repair".

 

[KuroiLight]

Yes i downloaded the latest drivers from MSI and video driver from ATI, installed smoothly, windows updated fully. Can drivers affect the motherboard bios before windows even loads, because i couldn't even access them with no monitors working.

First time i used Seatools i did short test on both drives and couldn't scan the C drive as it said S.M.A.R.T had been tripped, and E drive reported as good, but doing a Long test last night on this E drive(now my main C drive) didn't pass, i wish i wrote down the results, i will be doing another test tonight as it takes fairly long and give you exactly what it reports.

Built this computer sometime in 2006 replaced the video card 2 years ago with a Sapphire HD5800, always been in the same spot with ample air flow and never abused.

 

[F5ing]

Based on what you said in your last post, I would stop using the machine at all, including running any more tests, unless you already have all of your personal data backed up to known good media. If your backups are not up to date, I would do it now. If health of the drives is somewhat marginal, stressing them more by testing can degrade them to the point where you wouldn't even be able to get your data off of them.

When you're sure your backups are in order, then I would carry on with the testing. But honestly, it looks like you need to start shopping for a new drive(s) for the machine. If you feel it's worthwhile that is.

Do you reboot very often? If SMART has determined a disk has been critically degraded you likely would've been getting a SMART error message before Windows gets loaded (although I don't think this is the case with all motherboards/controllers).

 

[KuroiLight]

Alright got most of it backed up on to an external drive, guess its time to get a replacement drive.

hoping the issue with no signal on the monitors before bios even starts isn't a video card or power supply also failing.

Thanks for prompt reply's and help troubleshooting you have been very helpful.

 

[F5ing]

So the video problem you had, which seems numerous restarts were required to get video going again: you were getting no signal at all to either TV or regular monitor? Totally blind? Ever happen before? Just this one time, or is it now persistent?

 

[KuroiLight]

It seems to have started yesterday about 5 times in a row, both TV and monitor get no signal, multiple restarts are required to get it working, this has never happened before.

I realised a hour ago I installed the wrong driver for my sound card, actually had two conflicting with extremely slow boots and shutdowns, did a system restore and installed the right one, oddly enough it hasn't happened since but i dont see how this could affect anything before windows loads up, i will do some random power ups and make sure i don't need some other parts for this computer.

 

[F5ing]

I'm so sorry for not paying full attention when reading your first post, and missing a critical part of a sentence: "... and BIOS reports the C drive as BAD. did a check disk for it and had a ton of unreadable sections but it completed".

The first thing I should've posted was to recommend getting an up to date copy of everything you had on that drive that you could not risk losing. Chkdsk, although being a very useful program, is not good to run on a marginal disk (health-wise).

As far as your last post is concerned, no I don't think conflicting drivers would have anything to do with video before Windows even loads. But once it loads the conficting drivers can cause all sorts of problems. Are you always able to get into the BIOS? I mean, with video, of course...

 

[KuroiLight]

Are you always able to get into the BIOS? I mean, with video, of course...[/QUOTE]

Nope not at all, no signal on both monitors from the second i hit the power switch, also i waited for it to boot into windows and i herd the windows sound effects. Just happened again, this time taking many attempts restarting/switching off the power supply.

Ive been googling this problem for the last two days now, is it possible this is related to my power supply and my hard drives are fine?

 

[F5ing]

Time to go back to "bare bones" if you will... I would try going back to basic video, at least for the time being. Get rid of the multiple outputs and if you can, go back to a video output supplied directly by the motherboard if it's available/possible.

Power supply can cause all sorts of odd problems. Was it exactly a "S.M.A.R.T had been tripped" message or was it something more like "unable to read S.M.A.R.T data".

Were you able to finish getting all your data out of it? If you have to, you could pull the disks and connect them to another machine to finish copying data and then run the tests on them. And while you're at it you can clean the inside of the case and all the components (if you haven't already done that). As you probably know, all that dust and crud in there can cause an array of problems.