PC Issues
My computer at home has been plagued by issue after issue over the last month or two. I’ve re-installed Windows XP three times and had a few trips to the Recovery Console. Some of the original issues seem tied to a bad Windows install. I knew something was up when no updates would install on the machine. In addition to some other odd behavior, I’d often have a few of the major system config files corrupt to the point that Windows would throw an exception and not boot. This issue had been so frequent that I put a temporary directory in place with fresh backups from the installation CD for that set of files. Every time something went wrong, I’d boot in Recovery Console and replace them. It was irritating, but I didn’t have time to find the problem, let alone deploy a more permanent fix.
After those bouts finally settled down, I thought I was sailing smooth again. Then on Thursday morning I woke up to an error on boot-up stating one of the system files was corrupt or missing. It wasn’t exactly the same thing I had previously seen, but it was one of the system files that I was perpetually replacing. So I hit the Recovery Console. Only this time, I couldn’t seem to change directory from root. It appeared that the C:/WINDOWS directory was not there! Scary stuff. When I tried to view the root directory’s contents, I received a cryptic error from the command line: Directory Enumeration Failed. Wow. This is a doozy.
I searched Google for a bit, but really didn’t come up with many solid leads. Most folks were pointing to either hard drive issues or a seriously jacked up Windows install. I opted for the first since it could answer a ton of questions about how things have been acting up lately. So I ran SpinRite and let it do its thing for the next 26 hours. When I came home last night, SpinRite had indeed found and fixed a few hard drive errors. I re-installed Windows and a few of my apps and I’m basically back in business. But I am keeping everything tightly backed up and worriedly awaiting another issue.
Jason Powell
2008-07-26 2203hrs
Dude...get a new HD ASAP. Typically once a drive starts having issues it will only go down hill from there. SpinRite is awesome to get the drive back up and functioning, but we always replace a drive that had been found with errors. Drives are cheap these days :-)
David Russell
2008-07-26 2207hrs
Yeah, I’m looking at some options on NewEgg. I had another drive completely tank on me a few months ago. Western Digital, 120GB IDE, just like the one that’s going out in there now and purchased around the same time! Yeeks. Dave Clark said he thought it might be a bad IDE controller. But with SpinRite actually showing errors and the other one just dead, I have a feeling it’s the drive. :)
What’s your experience with Seagate? I’ve been Western Digital only for as long as I’ve been building my own machine.
Ajp
2008-07-26 2331hrs
seagate rocks. I’ll only use wd in a non crucial drive. They tend to be cheaper and flake out with issues like the ones you’re having.
JasonPowell
2008-07-26 2340hrs
I like anything BUT maxtor. I can’t count the number of maxtor drives we’ve tried to recover over the years.
Kirk Longhofer
2008-07-27 0859hrs
I’m with Jason. Head for Best Buy today. Seagate is fine. WD is fine too. Just get a new drive. And the, go spend $5 a month, and sign up for Mozy for backup!
David Russell
2008-07-27 1246hrs
AJP I think I’m going Seagate. :)
Jason Thanks.
Kirk Yeah, it’s not mission critical. I mean, it does have my OS and apps installed, but it’s a home rig with all important data stored safely on newer SATA drives. (Documents mapped to D, Photos to F, etc.) I set it up so that I can intentionally lose the C: drive and OS and not be concerned. So I can wait a couple of days for NewEgg to send me a Seagate drive.
Oh and Mozy rocks! :)
David Russell
2008-07-28 0851hrs
500GB Seagate HDD and 2x1GB RAM on the way from NewEgg. :)