Crashing computer... hardware or software problem?

[SiM]

I don't want to kill it! I want to get some data off first!

Well I have gone back to earlier nvidia drivers... I'll reconnect the drive and test tomorrow, I will also extract SMART info using speedfan.

After I will replace the new ram with the old stuff...

Oh another symptom that I forgot to mention, a few seconds before crashing the mouse pointer gets stuck the hourglass or the text marker thingy. Sometimes I can successfully close media player classic and restart the PC before it crashes (after I realise that its about to crash)

[Flewis]

That is exactly what happened to me when my hd was failing sim. Mouse still moves but nothing responds, definitely sounds like hd failure.

[SiM]

SMART looks ok, I am trying to copy something off the drive now... wish me luck!

[SiM]

File copied successfully... MD5 hash matches...
I'm going to disconnect drive again until I am able to get something to back it up to.
I haven't had the problem since I stopped using that hard drive, so I think it must be the drive...

[SiM]

Its speedfan..

[Flewis]

Speedfan can give you that information but It seems extremely variable. Sometimes it will tell you your hard drive is about to fail and then do it again a second later and it tells you everything is rosy.

[SiM]

/exec dumbass me.

Damn you are quick! I fixed it after 10 secs... the forum automatically removes links sometimes... its a bug, you have to manually edit it back in and uncheck a box after...

Speedfan can give you that information but It seems extremely variable. Sometimes it will tell you your hard drive is about to fail and then do it again a second later and it tells you everything is rosy.

Thats just SMART screwing up isn't it? not speed fan...

[TAKTAK]

i was going to post

Its..

OOOooOOh i love blankety blank

but i thought better of it
and decided to let you edit

[SiM]

mine must be good then.

you mean this

although I am not sure how that link works because it was the same for me!

[SiM]

Brand new hard drive?

[grayg1]

Have you used SeaTools yet? (just scanned the thread and I don't seem to see a mention of it)

[SiM]

Have you used SeaTools yet? (just scanned the thread and I don't seem to see a mention of it)

No, but I will give it a go today

[SiM]

Passed the short seatools test.

I then upgraded to the latest version of seatools, but seatools stopped working. It now doesn't open... are there any other hard drive testing programs?

[vrykyl]

Have you tried using Hiren's Boot CD? theres a load of apps for hdd condition testing...

[SiM]

Have you tried using Hiren's Boot CD? theres a load of apps for hdd condition testing...

Naughty, naughty, that's Warez!

I'll give it a try

[SiM]

Well I don't think it was the hard drive after all. After doing a system restore, resetting video filter settings and reinstalling nvidia drivers it seems like I can play video from the hard drive without any problem!

I haven't got a clue what caused the problem, but I'm sure it was a software problem.