Sporadic error when booting up Windows Vista ?

[Cov]

Hello volks

Since I installed my Windows Vista (x86), I noticed that sometimes the boot up sequence is interupted with the error message:

The file is possibly corrupted. The file header checksum does not match the computed checksum.

It does nothing than displaying this message, in white letters on black background, until I press CTRL, Alt + Del ... then it boots up ok again.

I would say this happens about once every 10 times when switching on my PC.

A soft reset always helps but I wonder for what might be behind this strange error ?
Have you had this ever too ?

[Cov]

Ok volks, thank you very much for all your replies.
Much appreciated ...

... I smell a reinstall in your future ...

Sniff, sniff ... hmm .... really ?

I want to change from Vista x86 to Vista x64 anyway.

Does CHKDSK bring up anything?

Oh boy, running chkdsk is easy, but I didn't know how difficult it was to find the log afterwards:

How to run chkdsk in Vista

Click Start / Computer / right click the C drive and select properties / tools tab / Error-checking: check now / because the c: drive was in use, chdsk was scheduled to run after reset.

... after a restart the screen just got black and the HDD becomes very busy, for a long time. No graphical feedback - nothing.

Then Windows restarted. Again: nothing. No report, no result - nothing.

Google helped me finding that after running chkdsk a log has been stored, and here is where to find it:

Control Panel / System & Maintenance / Administrative Tools / Event Viewer / Left Panel: expand Windows Logs / click Application / Middle Column: find Wininit and highlight ... window underneath: the Details tab explains the outcome of chkdsk

My report says:

Checking file system on C: The type of the file system is NTFS.
A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.
334720 file records processed.
8107 large file records processed.
0 bad file records processed.
2 EA records processed.
41 reparse records processed.
389204 index entries processed.
0 unindexed files processed.
334720 security descriptors processed.
27243 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal... 35417640 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)... 334704 files processed.
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)... 51577590 free clusters processed.
Free space verification is complete.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.
976751968 KB total disk space.
769806732 KB in 288876 files.
165524 KB in 27244 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
469348 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
206310364 KB available on disk.
4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
244187992 total allocation units on disk.
51577591 allocation units available on disk.

Windows has finished checking your disk. Please wait while your computer restarts.

Guess what, after restart it stuck again on the error message described in my first posting.
A soft reset made windows start up ok again.

Well, with the help of google I found that several people had the same error message, like described in my first posting.

They found that it might be some kind of hardware incompatibility (DVD RW) or another person changed one of his RAM modules and the error disappeared for him.
It doesn't seem that there's a HDD fault and neither would then a reinstall of the same OS help.

Will see if installing the 64-bit version of Vista makes any difference.

[Singh400]

Did you try:

SFC /SCANNOW

?

[Cov]

Hmmm, that's strange ...

[Splash]

and what does it say in that log?

[Singh400]

Hmmm, that's strange ...

In that case try:

SFC /SCANONCE

And restart/reboot your computer.

If you could the same error, then grab your Vista DVD and boot into the recovery environment and do a SFC /SCANNOW.

[Cov]

I checked the the so called CBS.log and it's with 28.5 MB a massive HUGE notepad file.
99.9% of it I even don't understand. (Is it possible to attach a document to a posting at all ?)

I just paste the last sentences here:

Verify and Repair Transaction completed. All files and registry keys listed in this transaction have been successfully repaired.

Session: 29989010:644386204 initialized.

Session: 29989010:644386204 finalized. Reboot required: no

hmm ...

[Cov]

In that case try:

SFC /SCANONCE

resulting in ...



My Computer doesn't seem to understand this command.

(Sorry, it's not possible to resize the DOS window.)

[moogle]

Is it possible to attach a document to a posting at all ?

Mediafire - Upload to there and then post link. Easiest way to share bigger files. Not sure if anyone would sift through it though.

1mb for a log is long enough

[Splash]

Yep, upload it somewhere and I'll take a look.

[Cov]

Yay, ok ... the original log file (notepad) was 28.5 MB big, but it contained logs for every single day (!?!?) from 15th Feb 09 onwards until today (27th).

The part for the 22nd of Feb 09 takes approx 75% of the whole log (???).

Well, anyway ... I have extracted the log part which has been created on the 27th Feb 09 (last night) only after applying the "SFC / SCANNOW" command (thank you Singh400).
This extraction is about 1 MB large.

Oh boy, I love computers but it's getting really complicated now.


Ah, so what suspects are in my PC case left ?

• The HDD (as the error message might indicate) ?
• The motherboard (according to Western Digital) ?
• The memory (according to some other users who got same error) ?
  
• or ... The OS (Windows Vista) ?

Hmmm

Log results after applying the command SFC /SCANNOW on the 27th Feb 09

[Singh400]

resulting in ...

http://www.abload.de/img/scanoncetf6u.jpg

My Computer doesn't seem to understand this command.

(Sorry, it's not possible to resize the DOS window.)

Ah crap, I forgot Vista doesn't have the switch /SCANONCE. It only exists on XP...

Microsoft(R) Windows XP Windows File Checker Version 5.1
(C) 1999-2000 Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved

Scans all protected system files and replaces incorrect versions with correct Mi
crosoft versions.

SFC [/SCANNOW] [/SCANONCE] [/SCANBOOT] [/REVERT] [/PURGECACHE] [/CACHESIZE=x]


/SCANNOW        Scans all protected system files immediately.
/SCANONCE       Scans all protected system files once at the next boot.
/SCANBOOT       Scans all protected system files at every boot.
/REVERT         Return scan to default setting.
/PURGECACHE     Purges the file cache.
/CACHESIZE=x    Sets the file cache size.

Anyway, I think the best bet is to grab you Vista DVD boot into it, and run the SFC /SCANNOW command. Because you will be booting from the Vista DVD it should be able to repair any dodgy files.

Looking at your log file now...

[Singh400]

Mmm, ok. Looked at your log file (after I further narrowed it down). And it appears all of your cursor files (*.ani & *.cur) were corrupt. Along with mem.exe, secdrv.sys, MSHWCHTR.dll, himalaya.ttf.

The one in red MSHWCHTR.dll hasn't been repaired, because the backup was corrupt aswell.

MSHWCHTR.dll is some sort of handwriting plugin for tablet use.

secdrv.sys is some sort of copy protection that is commonly used in game. SafeDisc I think.

Heres what I would do.

Start > Run > OptionalFeatures.exe

Remove any tablet features, extra cursors.

Restart.

And see if you can find a SafeDisc "cleaner". Let me know how you get on.

[Cov]

Start > Run > OptionalFeatures.exe

Hmm, there aren't any tablets features or extra cursors.

And see if you can find a SafeDisc "cleaner". Let me know how you get on.

What does a disk cleaner do ?? ... other than e.g. CCleaner ?

[Singh400]

Hmm, there aren't any tablets features or extra cursors.

http://www.abload.de/img/windowsfeaturesfy68.jpg

Blimey a bit stuck now. Can't really help now, would need the actually PC in front of me to fix it now.

What does a disk cleaner do ?? ... other than e.g. CCleaner ?

No, I mean a SafeDisc cleaner. That file (secdrv.sys) is apart of a copy protection software that usually comes with games.

Did you try repairing using the Vista DVD?

[Singh400]

Just had another thought. Bad RAM. If possible use some different RAM and see if you get that error.

Also, try booting into Safe Mode. That will help narrow down which specific file is causing the problem.