Imminent Hard Drive Failure! or something else...
 

For the past four days my PC has been behaving very strange. The Application in use will stop responding and about four seconds later the mouse stops working and the system just locks up, this happens with any application, word, excel, internet, games, anything. The only way to get the computer working again is a reset. On the restart sometimes it can't find my IDE devices and needs to be reset, I've gone into set up and all of the hard drives are there. I even do an auto detect to ensure it's not just resident info. Well, after the eigth crash yesterday I had a warning from DOS telling me that a hard drive failure is imminent and to do all the back ups etc.

About 10 months ago I had some form of virus from an email that basically stuffed my e-mail so I thought upgrading my OS through MS update would help over come the problem and that basically destroyed my system to the point where it wouldn't load windows. So I reformatted my hard drives and started from scratch.

I have been very weary about any e-mail that I receive so I don't think it is a virus but I can't rule that out. I did a thorough virus check and it found a trojan buried in _restore that it couldn't do anything about, could this be the cause?

I use PC-cillin for fire wall and virus checking, spy bot and ad aware to keep the spyware out.

I have not heard any strange noises from the case.

My questions are:

Do you believe the DOS message?
Could it be a virus?
Is three years a good life span for a hard drive?
The last time I reformatted (replaced the hard drive) I couldn't archive my e-mails, they all came up with errors when I tried to put them back on, is there another method outside of out look express where I can send my emails and address book to pick up later, or some other idea?
Any suggestions as I really don't want to have to install the whole computer again?

System:

I built it about three years ago,

Motherboard LV7TA (I think, can find out when I get home if it is needed)
AMD 2100
512 Mb (PC2700)
20 Gb C: drive (about four years old, and is the one about to fail)
4 Gb D: drive (about six years old)
Windows ME

if you want any more info please feel free to ask.

Check out the CPU cooler fan to see if it is still going. Symptoms could be massive overheat of CPU.
Had that problem with father-in-laws 'puter..heatsink came off during transit and system would start then randomly freeze and not reboot. Leave for 5 mins and it would start again only to repeat the cycle.

The hard drive msg is probably a function of all the reboots/freezes

Re Outlook Express ..Do a google search on export or backup of OE. There are ways to do it, just make sure that the current version is the latest version (updating retains the data) before exporting.

Max

On the hardware side...

I'd expect a desktop hard drive to last quite a bit longer than three years. In my experience they tend to fail as soon as you get them or many years later.

If you've got your system up and running can you not just scan the disk for bad sectors?

In XP select My Computer, right-click the drive you want to scan then Properties > Tools > Check Now.

Opt for a thorough scan that scans for bad sectors.

If you've got bad sectors then you've got a hardware problem - in theory you can continue to use a drive with bad sectors but it's not wise. They tend to spread fairly rapidly.

In my experience if a hard drive doesn't suddenly fail completely - it usually only takes a few days from the onset of the first symptoms to complete failure. Frequently as the problem gets worse and bad sectors spread you hear more and more odd noises coming from the drive as it tries again and again to retrieve data from corrupt parts of the disk.

Also worth opening the case and reseating the IDE cables.

They can sometimes work loose.

Some years ago I retired a computer because of a bad hard disk. It was essentially obsolete anyway.

Come the find out the real problem was that the cooling fan on the processor chip wan't working, so the machine would slow down, make errors and freeze after a short while. HD OK.

I have had three hard disk failures, all within the 3-year warranty period:
One Seagate many years ago.
The only two Western Digital drives I've bought.

Never had a failure with Maxtor even after quite a few years of use. Knock on wood.

Cool_Hand,

While reading your post the first thing that came to mind was heat issue as Agent86 mentioned.

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. There is a chance that your OS is corrupted but my first guess is heat related with the CPU.

Cool_hand if following Lost_luggage34's advice, please earth yourself first!!

Good point newswatcher.

Was half asleep when I posted - not quite up to usual (bad) standard !

But has worked for me a few times.

Yep - earthing is very important when poking about. Make sure you disconnect the mains lead, and touch the metal chassis with one hand before you touch anything else.

Better still wear an earth stap as I always do.

Talking about drive failures I have a question but will start another thread as it's masquerading itself slightly differently.

Cheers

On the subject of earth straps - make sure thet you use a PROPER anti-static wrist earthstrap and don't try to make one out of a gash bit of wire. That's a quick way to an early grave, and we don't want that!

"Proper" earth straps are high resistance and shouldn't lead to an electric shock risk. They allow the slow(ish) dissipation of many thousands of volts that can build up on your person as you scuff around the house in your nylon soled shoes whilst wearing your polyester vest with a wool top (ignore the vision!) - just think of the zap you might occassionaly get when you slide in and out of a car, you don't want to do that to your electronic stuff.

Sorry if we're into "granny sucking eggs" territory.

:8

ST

Thanks for the help so far, I've looked at the cooling fans and they seem to be working, I have one on the processor and one on the side of the case (as well as the one for the power supply). I've been into set up and my CPU is running at c.56C (fan running at c.5100RPM) and my motherboard is at c.46C. Looking at the manual setting for temperature shut down these don't seem high but I don't know what temperatures are considered high. I also checked that the graphics card fan is in operation and it's also blowing air. Is there a preferred direction of air movement? For example the one on the side of the case seems to be blowing the air out of the case. If the CPU fan is also blowing air onto the processor is it not going to be of reduced effectiveness as there will probably be reduced mass air flow. I don't know, I'm just grabbing at straws.
At the moment I have one side panel removed and a desk fan blowing into it. Which is a very temporary measure, the fan is for me.

I did try a thorough disk scan but the system died half way through, I'll try again tonight. I did manage to clear out the _restore directory though and the trojan is gone.

The computer was still hanging last night prior to the desk fan and I haven't run the machine for long enough to see whether this has solved the problems. I'll see tonight.

If anyone has any other suggestions or answers to the above questions any answer is appreciated.

Regards,

Cool_Hand

My power supply is 350W
and my graphics card is an ATI 9500/9700 128Mb (with cooling fan)

The temperatures you have quoted are within range I would say.

Have you got any diagnostic software to give you the hard drive temperatures ?

I am now thinking down the PSU route - 350watt sounds a little under rated. (Hurriedly tries to find the advice Richard gave me re. PSUs ages ago which was spot on! )

Doesn't explain the sudden appearance of the problem though.

Interesting one.

When you said it died during the disk scan - what did the PC do ?

Blue screen ? Shut itself down ? Froze ?

Cool_Hand,

Are you running a Dual CPU mobo or is what you are calling the second CPU the Mobo's Northbridge? (The Northbridge will have a much smaller heatsink than the CPU and could either be with or without a small fan on it.)

It does sound like the room you have your computer in gets a little warm. Personally I do not like seeing the Mobo temps above 35C. It could be that the temps inside your case are getting a little high. As for your fans, they are all blowing in the correct direction from your description.

I would try keeping the side of the case open and pointing that desk fan (room fan would be better) at the area between the CPU and Vid Card.

If your Vid Card Driver reads:

Then it sounds like you have a generic Driver installed. I would install the latest Catalyst Driver from:

Catalyst Driver Downloads

I would also look for the latest Drivers for all your hardware.

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. Lost_luggage34 here is the link for the Power Supply Calculator :ok:

This sounds like an imminent hard drive failure,make sure all your files are backed up onto a disc before it"s to late,I had exactly the same problem on a 13 month old computer and lost everything(I know do as I say not as I do)you have been warned.
Matkat:{

Matkat,

Even if it is not an "imminent hard drive failure" you should always backup, as a part of your daily routine, any data you cannot afford to lose. ;)

Take Care,

Richard

Richard

It's a single CPU system, the two temps I quoted were CPU and motherboard. The room is normally fine but during the warm spell we had I bought a fan to follow me around the house.
I'll upgarde the drivers as soon as I can and see if that helps.

Lost Luggage

That is a useful power supply calculator, (thanks Richard) it suggests a power supply in the region of 355W. So it's a close shave.
During the disk scan it froze.
Unfortunately I don't have any hard drive diagnostic software if anyone could suggest some I would be grateful

TCS

I've not added any hardware for quite some time now. The only software upgrades I have performed is the virus checker, that could be a possiblility. Unfortunately I have never managed to get a system restore to work, it nearly completes then proceeds to tell me it failed. I'll see if I can get to before the virus update.

In the main I've been quite happy with ME, not really wanted to bother with XP.

Thanks to all so far, all suggestions are very welcome,

I'm in the process of gleaning off all important data.

Cool_Hand,

See if the open case and room fan works or not first.

I had misread your post earlier. For some reason I thought you were thinking you have two CPUs.

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. Warning, once you go to WinXP, you will NOT go back to Win9X. ;)

"The hard drive msg is probably a function of all the reboots/freezes"

Agree. Rather than a true-blue indication of imminent failure.

Managed to use the computer last night, not for extended periods though, without a crash/freeze/lockup.

The case is still open and the room fan is blowing merrily into the case. One thing I did do last night, as I started to get suspicious after the mention of software changes, is uninstalled my virus protection and reinstall to the prior to update version, the system restore didn't work again. I'll see how things go tonight.

When I started up the system last night, the CPU was c.46C and the system temp (I noticed last night it's not the motherboard temp) was c.36C. Apparently the machine had been used periodically through the day by the missus.

Thanks to everyone for their continued help, if anyone has any other thoughts it would be great to hear them, and I'll keep you posted for the next couple of days.

Jason.

Jason,

If you are not hearing any clicking sounds from the hard drive, any number of things could be going wrong with your system other than the hard drive.

I am still not convinced that the hard drive is the problem. With the other problems you have listed, I would think about either upgrading to WinXP or doing a fresh install of WinME.

Take Care,

Richard

Hi Jason,

Have you tired booting the PC from a CD or Floppy and running system and disk checks having booted that way?

It might just throw a bit of light on things by taking booting off of a "suspect" the drive out of the equation.

I can burn and post you a boot CD (Knoppix, FreeDos etc.) if you need one.

Regards

Memetic


P.S. If Knoppix sounds a bit alien take a look at this http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwork...y/l-knopx.html

It's why I carry a Knoppix disk in the laptop drive!