Computer reset and corrupted SYSTEM folder

[Dreaming]

Hey guys.

I've just lugged my PC up to uni, and as per usual the push pins came loose and I didn't check. It was only one, but after about 40 minutes PC use it randomly restarted.

After restarting it ran chkdsk, and said it's fixing errors on C:, boot into windows after 1/2 hour and it starts reinstalling ALL my drivers for everything with about 50 prompts to restart. Ooer.

Restart, it does chkdsk again, fixes more errors, boot into windows in a more timely fashion and my desktop icons come back (albeit in the wrong places and background has gone). Still some 'unknown device' is missing it's drivers and I'm not sure what it is. And ATA channel 0 and ATA channel 1 have yellow exlamation marks saying the device couldn't be started. But they've both got duplicate entries in the device manager, don't know if this is normal.



Don't want to delete in case my hard drives don't work, they're SATA devices and are running ok for now. Also using RAID.

Everything I run is like it's running for the first time! And I've left my Windows disk at home, so I'll have to make the best of it for a while. I wasn't doing anything except browsing when computer restarted, didn't even slow down. But that's not to say windows wasn't playing with itself in the background, potentially corrupting data. I can't see why data that wasn't being written when it restarted would be corrupted?

No system restores or anything. Has this happened to other people, and will the system still run ok? Or should I just cut my losses and reinstall (). At least I make fairly regular (weekly) backups of all my documents and settings. They don't look to be affected anyway though. Just like my whole computer has just been reinstalled. 'Would you like to make firefox your default browser?' no. 'Ah, you've just installed this firefox plugin'. There's also loads of errors in the event viewer:

"The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume System." (times about 100)

"The Windows Search service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 30000 milliseconds: Restart the service."

"The Print Spooler service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s). The following corrective action will be taken in 60000 milliseconds: Restart the service."

"The file system structure on volume C: has now been repaired."

"Audit events have been dropped by the transport. The real time backup file was corrupt due to improper shutdown."

"{Registry Hive Recovered} Registry hive (file): 'SYSTEM' was corrupted and it has been recovered. Some data might have been lost."

"The Windows Search Service is attempting to remove the old catalog. "

There's loads of them and randomly placed. First one is of course the old gem 'previous shutdown at xx:xx was unexpected'.

Chkdsk c:

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is System.

WARNING!  F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File verification completed.

10 percent complete. (1 of 42 large file records processed)  
  42 large file records processed.                            

  0 bad file records processed.                              

  0 EA records processed.                                    

  42 reparse records processed.                

CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Index verification completed.
  5 unindexed files processed.                       

CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
Security descriptor verification completed.
  9682 data files processed.                                    

CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
The Volume Bitmap is incorrect.
Windows found problems with the file system.
Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct these.

  35839999 KB total disk space.
  22665212 KB in 43249 files.
     24180 KB in 9683 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
    163915 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  12986692 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
   8959999 total allocation units on disk.
   3246673 allocation units available on disk.

[threepe]

Honestly, when faced with issues like that I take the opportunity to double check my backups are up to date......and then reinstall. Sorry

Its rare that a machine can recover from something like that. Any problem you have in the future you will be unsure as to its cause. Just bite the bullet and get it done. At least you will be able to plan when you do it as the machine is currently usable.

The good news is that you make regular backups Perhaps also consider taking system images from time to time so that you just recover an image, plus data when these things happen in the future.

Personally I have weekly system images and daily backups of data. (data partition separate from system to speed things up)

[Dreaming]

How do you do system images? I have 4 partitions, 35gb windows & drivers & system apps, then 80gb games then 120gb apps etc. and 20gb raid0 docs / settings and so on.

My external HDD is 250gb which is plenty to backup documents but unless I had extremely high compression backing everything else up would take an age.

Also, is it possible when reinstalling games and apps to just say the directories where they were installed, it sees the files are there and will just write registry entries? Or will that not work .

I have work to do unfortunately so will have to leave it for at least two weeks, due in on the 14th which is fairly crucial to my degree . Did a restart with a chkdsk /r and it just reinstalled all the drivers on boot into windows again. Certainly not very happy system.

Also I don't actually *have* my windows CD, but I have friends who may have a copy. Unless I can ask my mum to send mine up. Why can't you just download the .iso from microsoft and use your own CD key :grump: is it just me that makes perfect sense to?

Edit: didn't corrupt system folder, corrupted volume 'system' which is my C:.

[threepe]

Acronis True Image can make compressed images of partitions. This would be good for the system partition. Other backup software is generally better for just data on data partitions (faster restore and incremental backups).

Acronis can also output images to DVDR(W), although this will of course take longer.

[peterb]

Worth running memtest86+ to make sure you haven't got a failing memory stick. I had had similar problems on a (non-windows) system where the memory failure caused a corrupted filessystem.

The windows system disk contains windows backup which you can install to back-up your data partitions. (It will back up everything else as well, but it looks as if some of the registry files have become corrupted, or got duplicate entries in them)

If the memory is damaged the problem will only get worse - if the memory is OK, then the system should be stable for the time being - however, while you could probably tidy it all up, a re-install will probably be quicker and safer in the long run.

[Dreaming]

I think the system is fairly safe, it was just because the CPU cooler had come off and my PC automatically shut down to protect data. This has upset the data in windows... I'll just reinstall in a few weeks I expect *sigh*

Here's a question:
when installing an application / game, can you not copy all the content files but just 'set it up' and tell it where the content files are? Because the games directory is absolutely fine, it's just the windows registry I think.

[Dreaming]

Ok, booted up today, all the desktop had gone again and it started installing drivers again even though shutdown last night was safe, was doing that and then it bluescreened itself. I didn't have time to see what it said though. I think it may be because I was pushing my memory too far? I've turned off all overclocks for the time being. Really annoying I left my Vista at home but I'm going to a LAN in a week where someone should have it, then I can use the option to put my key in later. Exam today though and assignment in next week, this is really not the best time for my computer to be dying

[Dreaming]

0x00000023 - FAT system error.

Who knew a USB stick could crash a PC?