Re: CHKDSK hangs -- HDD failing?

Dave Hardenbrook <daveh47@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I have a fairly old but operational 2002 self-built system running
Windows XP Home SP3 from a Maxtor 15 GB HDD (mainly for legacy games
that don't like newer hardware). Windows has started reporting
corrupted system files, and when I attempted to "Ghost" the drive with
Acronis TrueImage Home, it aborted almost immediately with the error,
"Index Corrupted".

I attempted to do a full-sector CHKDSK on the system partition, but when
CHKDSK tried to run after restart, it immediately gave the error,
"Cannot open volume for direct access" and after a few seconds,
proceeded to boot Windows normally.

Increasingly puzzled, I attempted -- several times -- to run CHKDSK from
Recovery Console. Each time it gives the following output:

The volume Serial Number is bcff-a6ab
CHKDSK is checking the volume...
CHKDSK is performing additonal checking or recovery...
CHKDSK is performing additonal checking or recovery...
CHKDSK is performing additonal checking or recovery...

It then *appears* to scan the disk giving its progress in %. But at
about 75% it jumps back to 50%, then slowly climbs back toward
75%, then falls back again to 50%... This repeats several times, until
it finally hangs (drive LED remains dark), at some point between 75 and
100%. I am forced to do a cold reboot at this point.

So is the drive failing? -- I also did a full SMART surface scan on the
drive with Maxtor's diagnostic software, but it claims the drive is fine
and dandy... ???

Any idea what's going on?

Use a different SMART tools and post the attributes (raw and cooked)
here. We will have a look. The Maxtor tool just checks for a failed
SMART status and the thresholds are typically overoptimistic.

This can also be other problems, not disk related. As the
long SMART selftest did not run into errors, a different
reason seems quite possible.

Possibilities:
- Memory problem
- CPU problem (especially if overclocked)
- PSU flaky
- Disk corruption the very low quality MS chkdsk just cannot deal
with from any of the above sources or from software sources.

Arno


Dave




.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: CHKDSK hangs -- HDD failing?
    ... Looks like massive corruption of the MFT. ... If Windows boots, back up Documents and Setting and any others, ... Windows XP Home SP3 from a Maxtor 15 GB HDD (mainly for legacy games ... CHKDSK tried to run after restart, it immediately gave the error, ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage)
  • Re: Ghost file
    ... You cannot delete a file or a folder on an NTFS file system volume ... How to locate and correct disk space problems on NTFS volumes in Windows XP ... File system corruption is preventing access to the file ... you to run Chkdsk. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
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    ... You cannot delete a file or a folder on an NTFS file system volume ... How to locate and correct disk space problems on NTFS volumes in Windows ... File system corruption is preventing access to the file ... run the Chkdsk utility on the disk volume to ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
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    ... If you are working with Windows XP Home Edition, ... can create an unlimited number of logical drives per disk. ... Description of Enhanced Chkdsk, Autochk, and Chkntfs Tools ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)
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    ... The following is the chkdsk report for the two drives (on the same disk); ... Windows is verifying files and folders... ... 16,384 bytes in each allocation unit. ...
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