Possible bad hdd?

[Samwisegee]

over the last couple of months my computer will occasionally lock up for about a minute or so and all of my programs will stop responding during this time. even crl-shift-esc to bring up the task manager won't work. if im playing a game sometimes the sound will start looping when it locks up. these lockups have been getting more frequent lately. i suspect that one or both of my hard drives is going bad. should i go out and buy a new one? or am i diagnosing this problem wrong?

 

[zigzag3143]

over the last couple of months my computer will occasionally lock up for about a minute or so and all of my programs will stop responding during this time. even crl-shift-esc to bring up the task manager won't work. if im playing a game sometimes the sound will start looping when it locks up. these lockups have been getting more frequent lately. i suspect that one or both of my hard drives is going bad. should i go out and buy a new one? or am i diagnosing this problem wrong?

We could use your system specs to know what hardware we are dealing with.

 

[Samwisegee]

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965
MOBO: Gigabyte 8800GM-UD2H
RAM: Crucial 4GB DDR3
GFX: Radeon HD 6950 2GB GDDR5
HDDs: Western Digital Caviar 500GB and Western Digital 80GB
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

 

[zigzag3143]

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965
MOBO: Gigabyte 8800GM-UD2H
RAM: Crucial 4GB DDR3
GFX: Radeon HD 6950 2GB GDDR5
HDDs: Western Digital Caviar 500GB and Western Digital 80GB
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

There are several ways to find what the problem is. The best is to go into event viewer (type eventvwr in search). Event viewer (local) and look for errors listed in the last day, week, etc. Then go to the windows log>application tab. Finally the windows Logs>system tabs.

You want to look for all errors (they have red in the left column ).

When you find them you want to look for critical errors that say app hang, app crash, or anything that relates to the problem.

When you find them please note the event ID, and the source codes and tell us what they are.

 

[Samwisegee]

im seeing over 1600 errors from source "atapi" with eventid 11 as well as 345 errors from source "Disk" with eventid 11 in the last 7 days, most of which were in the last 24 hours. There are 2 errors that also are from "Disk" but with an event id of 15. Also i see 10 "Application Error" with eventid 1000 in the last 7 days which seem to be from ssp.exe, bf3.exe and steam.exe.

 

[zigzag3143]

im seeing over 1600 errors from source "atapi" with eventid 11 as well as 345 errors from source "Disk" with eventid 11 in the last 7 days, most of which were in the last 24 hours. There are 2 errors that also are from "Disk" but with an event id of 15. Also i see 10 "Application Error" with eventid 1000 in the last 7 days which seem to be from ssp.exe, bf3.exe and steam.exe.

Starting to sound like a failing HD. Run chkdsk.


A- CHKDSK /R /F:

Run CHKDSK /R /F from an elevated (Run as administrator) Command Prompt.

Do this for each hard drive on your system.

When it tells you it can't do it right now - and asks you if you'd like to do it at the next reboot - answer Y (for Yes) and press Enter.

Then reboot and let the test run.

It may take a while for it to run, but keep an occasional eye on it to see if it generates any errors.

See "CHKDSK LogFile" below in order to check the results of the test.


B- Elevated Command Prompt:

Go to Start and type in "cmd.exe" (without the quotes)

At the top of the Search Box, right click on Cmd.exe and select "Run as administrator"


C-CHKDSK LogFile:

Go to Start and type in "eventvwr.msc" (without the quotes) and press Enter

Expand the Windows logs heading, then select the Application log file entry.

Double click on the Source column header.

Scroll down the list until you find the Chkdsk entry (wininit for Win7) (winlogon for XP).

Copy/paste the results into your next post.

 

[Samwisegee]

My computer actually ran chkdsk on its own upon the last start up heres the result from that one:


Checking file system on E:
The type of the file system is NTFS.


One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency. You
may cancel the disk check, but it is strongly recommended
that you continue.
Windows will now check the disk.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
128000 file records processed. File verification completed.
172 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 0 EA records processed. 0 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Index entry config.vdf of index $I30 in file 0x30a points to unused file 0x948.
Deleting index entry config.vdf in index $I30 of file 778.
Unable to locate the file name attribute of index entry appinfo_log.previous.txt
of index $I30 with parent 0x40f in file 0x434.
Deleting index entry appinfo_log.previous.txt in index $I30 of file 1039.
Unable to locate the file name attribute of index entry APPINF~1.TXT
of index $I30 with parent 0x40f in file 0x434.
Deleting index entry APPINF~1.TXT in index $I30 of file 1039.
The file reference 0x2a000000000949 of index entry localconfig.vdf of index $I30
with parent 0x415 is not the same as 0x28000000000949.
Deleting index entry localconfig.vdf in index $I30 of file 1045.
The file reference 0x2a000000000949 of index entry LOCALC~1.VDF of index $I30
with parent 0x415 is not the same as 0x28000000000949.
Deleting index entry LOCALC~1.VDF in index $I30 of file 1045.
146862 index entries processed. Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is scanning unindexed files for reconnect to their original directory.
2 unindexed files scanned. Recovering orphaned file APPINF~1.TXT (2377) into directory file 1039.
Recovering orphaned file appinfo_log.previous.txt (2377) into directory file 1039.
CHKDSK is recovering remaining unindexed files.
1 unindexed files recovered. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
128000 file SDs/SIDs processed. Cleaning up 3 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 3 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 3 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
9431 data files processed. Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

488384000 KB total disk space.
194710264 KB in 117728 files.
50896 KB in 9434 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
208904 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
293413936 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
122096000 total allocation units on disk.
73353484 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
00 f4 01 00 c4 f0 01 00 c8 86 03 00 00 00 00 00 ................
36 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 6...............
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................




And the other disk:

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 5)...
158464 file records processed. File verification completed.
304 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 0 EA records processed. 44 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 5)...
222012 index entries processed. Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 5)...
158464 file SDs/SIDs processed. Cleaning up 1019 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 1019 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 1019 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
31775 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
36260160 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
158448 files processed. File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
4694155 free clusters processed. Free space verification is complete.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

78148160 KB total disk space.
59039416 KB in 105437 files.
65936 KB in 31776 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
266184 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
18776624 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
19537040 total allocation units on disk.
4694156 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
00 6b 02 00 09 18 02 00 3f ea 03 00 00 00 00 00 .k......?.......
2a 02 00 00 2c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 *...,...........
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................

 

[Samwisegee]

also if it is a bad hard drive, which seems pretty clear at this point, will reformatting it help at all? or is it too far gone and time to pick up a new one?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'd go to the Western Digital web site and download their disk tool package and see what it says.

I'm no check disk expert, but I notice that both drives have 0 bad sectors and that the file system was corrected on both drives.

I don't think a re-format would help if it is failing.