XP and Hard Drive Problems - Help!

[ronny]

OK, so here's the story: After having copied a large amount of data to my C: drive from another drive, which I was planning to format, I restarted the computer as Diskeeper had been telling me it couldn't run until Windows had performed Chkdsk on C: drive.

As a side note, Windows does like to Chkdsk the C: drive maybe every month? And when it does, it usually fixes an error or two; this only started happening in the past few months and with my new drive (C: drive) which is a Western Digital Caviar SE SATA 120GB.

OK, so I reset and then upon trying to load from C:, it came up with an error message regarding a folder or file was not present but I can't remember what it was. It wouldn't proceed to load and asked me to try and repair it from the Windows XP CD. Upon restarting again, this time it came up with something about not being able to load from the drive at all. Not good. Now it has got to the point where after the recovery console option, after POST, there is just a blank screen when I select the option to load XP as normal. No error message or anything.

This same thing then happened to my other drive, which was now empty as I had been planning to format it after I had got everything off it. It came up with NTLDR missing at one point and so I re-installed XP on it as it was empty anyway. This then allowed me to check all my important stuff was still on C: drive. And it was, I could still access the C: drive on this particular XP installation. I've tried running chkdsk on C:, I have copied over NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM to it, I have used FIXBOOT from the recovery console and I have used a WD diagnostic tool to check the drive, which turned out to be fine. All of this to no avail. Do you suggest I use the FIXMBR option in recovery console (it says I have an in-valid or something or other boot record and if i go ahead with it I could find all of my partion inaccessible ). Or do I have to go ahead and re-format and do a fresh install of XP?

Is it co-incidence XP likes to chkdsk C:, and only C:, not too often but more often that it ever used to be since I got my Western Digital? Have I got a faulty drive possibly or could it be my SATA drivers? I am using Si3112r but can't remember what version, as I'm on a different PC and wpuld need to go on the one that doesnt work. I am using an NF7-S. The other HDs are a Maxtor SATA 120GB and a 60GB Maxtor IDE.

Please help, I don't particularly want to have to do a fresh install as I did one not too long ago

One thing this has taught me: ALWAYS have recent back-ups of your data.

Cheers

[ronny]

Anyone? Urgent help is needed

[pre]

Hi, chkdsk should only run when a PC fails to shut down normally and the MBR notes it as a "crash" or what not prompting the an OS to run it next time on boot up. FIXMBR might help once but it sounds like SATA corruption.

Are you running an Nforce 2 board using an onboard Silcon Image SATA 3112 controller. If so what board + sata bios/driver are you using?

[ronny]

Hi, chkdsk should only run when a PC fails to shut down normally and the MBR notes it as a "crash" or what not prompting the an OS to run it next time on boot up. FIXMBR might help once but it sounds like SATA corruption.

Are you running an Nforce 2 board using an onboard Silcon Image SATA 3112 controller. If so what board + sata bios/driver are you using?

Hi, I am using an Abit NF7-S with the Silicon Image 3112r SATA controller onbaord and the 4.2.47 BIOS for it. I am using the D25 BIOS for the NF7-S board. I do think it could be SATA corruption as the drive itself checks out fine and i think the chkdsk thing only started happening after I added the SATA driver into my slipstreamed automated XP installation CD. How is this SATA issue cured?

Edit: I found out I was using the 1.0.0.50 version of the Si3112r with my slipstreamed install. Could it be this version causes corruption? On the XP install I did on the other drive as a temporary solution, I used the latest, which is 1.2.0.57.

Edit 2: Interestingly, I just found out that 1.2.0.57 driver isn't meant for the Si3112r RAID onboard controller on my NF7-S. By the way, this is what I am using on my XP temporary installation while I try and get back C: drive, and yet it is working fine with that driver...

[pre]

If the previous driver was working fine stick with that. If not look for SATA Ext Discard Time in the BIOS. Try 30us or 1ms first. If you know what a CRC check is (you'll need a SFV checker if you dont) you can use it to find out if you are still getting corruption by copy/pasting a large file to that drive and checking it. If not then you'll have to see if it helps through normal use.

If not then try the 1.0.0.28.1 driver here. That driver fixed corruption for me regardless of any BIOS version/options back when I had an NF7-S.

[ronny]

OK, so I saw another post at another board and it jogged my memory about the original error message. It said windows/system32/config/system was corrupted or missing or somesuch when I attempted that first boot. A link was given: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307545

I'll see if it works.

[ronny]

OK so it worked but not completely. I am back into Windows but I can't system restore, I think possibly due to some password/account confusion that occurred when I set about employing the method in the above link. Anyways, I wouldn't have felt confident to have left it at that even if I did restore it back to normal. I will do a clean install with a slipstream SP2 custom install I am now going to set about creating. I have all my data so that's OK. I just hope this doesn't occur in the future. I am going to invest in Norton Ghost 9.0....