Tom's Guide | Tom's Hardware | Tom's Games
 |
 |
 |
I'm having issues. I had Windows 98 and had a history of bad clusters turning up on my hard drive. Once my computer wouldn't turn on for weeks and then I cleaned it out the dust and it turned on but all my programs were uninstalled, though nothing was missing. Once it overheated and I had to get a new powersupply, fan and motherboard. Just last week, files seemed to be disappearing and then it wouldn't turn on because shell32.dll had "became corrupted."
So I gave my PC to this kid I know and he put Windows XP on it and put another hard drive from my other computer on it so it had lots of extra HD space (I was always cutting it close before) and the extra hard drive was great to store all my MP3s so I wouldn't lose them.
But now, it keeps randomly freezing or rebooting itself. Sometimes I am lucky to get a half hour of use without it locking up. I'm hoping it won't freeze right now as I type.
Did he hook up something wrong or is my hardware just messed up? What do I do? I'm looking at buying a new computer but if that's not neccessary, I won't.
(I have a thread in the Windows 98 forum if anyones interested in what happened that made me give my PC to this kid here: http://www.computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/165799.html)
Thanks!
"I had Windows 98 and had a history of bad clusters turning up on my hard drive"
A bad hard drive would give you the behavior that you describe.
0 
I read your other string and several of the posters suggested that you probably have a bad HDD.
Have you been following your other string?
0
Yeah, I have. But I was wondering why it's suddenly freezes or rebooting. That didn't happen before. And I can't get a new computer *right* away so I wanted to try to stop my PC from interupting me in the mean time.
Thanks.
0
Did you remove and replace the bad harddrive? If so then your lockup problem may relate to other things. If you know how to boot into bios then do so and have a look at the system health screen if you have that option. It should tell you your CPU temperature. Overheating can be a reason for lockups. So can other things like overheating graphics card, or faulty/inadequate powersupply
I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.
0
Click on Start, select run then enter this "eventvwr.msc" and press Enter, click on Application and System to check for the lastest errors, warnings reported in there.
Hopefully the information from there could help you figure out what your problem is.
0
Sounds to me like you have had two problems, one being the HDD and the other being either a overheating problem or maybe a power saving mode problem. Do you smoke around the computer? Or have pets that are around the computer? Do you have a UPS hooked up to the computer to clean the power line up? Does your house have a history of bulbs going out constantly or faulty wiring? It could be a number of problems. Since the HDD has been replaced, and I am assuming it wasnt set as the slave, secondary drive. Try buying a cheap can of compressed air, then clean out the inside as best you can. Turn off screensaver and powermanagment completly to verify that these are not the problem. To do so, right-click on the desktop and goto properties, then select the screensave tab, disable the screensaver, then click advanced and disable powersaving.
0
The hard drive wasn't replaced. But a second hard drive was added.
I don't see how it could be temperature when I don't even have the casing on my tower -- I think it can get plenty of air.
I ran that thing NAN said. Mostly just "information" that seemed pointless but I found one thing: The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x1000000a (0x00000054, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x804dbc8e). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini062205-01.dmp.
I'll try your other suggestions. Thanks. :)
0
^ Oh, but I'd like to add that while sometimes it reboots itself, many other times it simply freezing where the mouse and keyboard do nothing and the screen is stuck.
0
(Sorry -- I wish they would let me edit my posts)
Another error found: The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.
Also, sometimes webpages will just up and disappear if I click something. I dunno if that's related, but it's strange.
0
I'm sorry to post yet again but this just happened so I typed in up in Safe Mode and saved it:
A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.An attempt was made to write read-only memory.
If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:
Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any Windows updates you might need.
If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to do this, restart and press F8 to select advdanced start-up options.
STOP: 0x000000BE (0x80563998, 0x00563121, 0xFC8D7D90, 0x0000000A)
Beginning dump of physical memory
0
All of your problms may be due to a bad HDD.
Unless you replace it, you will never get this computer to run properly.
0
^ That isn't the point. I already know it's messed up and I can't keep it as is. I'm wondering if there is a) a way to stop or lessen the reboots and freezes until I get my new computer and b) if I should stop using this computer because I'm doing damage? I don't want to lose my stuff that's on these HDs.
Thank you everyone!!
0
Remove the bad harddrive.
I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.
0
I think Windows is on the bad hard drive. I don't know that much about computers but I think the "good" smaller hard drive is just a slave to the other "bad" HD and it's components. Are we ruling out that something was installed improperly?
0
Grok Lobster posted at the same time as me...
I don't know what "capacitors" are but I'm looking inside my tower right now and I see nothing that looks unusual or different than from when I gave the kid my computer.
0
Katie:
with a bad HDD, you can't rule out other problems. The bad HDD is so hinky that anything that happens may be a result of the drive.
Good luck to you .... but give yourself a break and FIRST replace the bad HDD.
0
Don't know if you are still monitoring this thread or not, but I would replace BOTH hard drives as soon as possible!
0  |
 Fan Question
|
Computer boot problem! 
|
This post is quite old and has been locked from receiving new replies. Please create a new posting instead.
| Ads by Google |
