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Running Vista here and I'm getting a couple of problems with what appears to be the HDD.

Symptoms are the system becoming totally unresponsive. Cannot shutdown via start menu. Other symptoms include being unable to open any MMC windows ("event viewer has stopped working").

Event Viewer is showing up 2 things I think are related to it.

A warning: An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 during a paging operation.

An error: The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume Vista.

Already tried disabling paging; didn't seem to work. Still on the to do list is a defrag.

chkdsk has already been run - Windows will do it every time I unexpectedly shut down.

A quick google will tell you that the problem happens with a variety of hardware/software combos. UPH Cleanup service from Microsoft fixes the problem in previous versions of Windows but its installed by default in Vista.

The machine is about 4 months old. I'm hoping the HDD isn't on the way out already :P already prepared for the worst though

Any suggestions/comments welcome. If you need any more info please comment.

Thanks in advance for reading :)

**Edit: ** This is starting to feel like a heat problem. When the problem occurs, I restart. When I restart I seem to get less and less time to use the machine. But when I leave it to cool, it seems I can use it longer... Could this be heat related?

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3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Sounds like you're right, it appears to be the hard disk. You can check it out with a third-party tool like SpinRite to see if it truly is the hard disk, but it sounds right with the info provided.

I'd contact the manufacturer of the hard disk and see if you can get a replacement. Some of them will send the replacement hard disk to you and then you can ship it back afterwards (after you transfer all of your data to the new one (I recommend Ghost)).

-JFV

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  • Would be more open to trying a freeware application seeing as this is a personal, rather than professional matter. Can you recommend any free alternatives to SpinRite?
    – frusDev
    Jul 29, 2009 at 21:54
  • Here is a good site that has both the hard disk check software and data transfer software: thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml
    – JFV
    Jul 29, 2009 at 21:58
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Check the hard drive's SMART status. If the drive is failing, you will see errors there.

PassMark DiskCheckup should be a good choice.

Edit:

If the hard drive is not to blame, it could be another hardware fault, such as a problem with the memory. Run Memtest86+ overnight and see if it reports problems there.

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  • Not familiar with the app but the SMART info shows everything to be "OK" under status The first result it displays though, Raw Read Error Rate, shows 195, maximum 200, threshold 51. Not sure what to make of this data
    – frusDev
    Jul 29, 2009 at 21:53
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Turns out this drive has 2 partitions and Windows was only checking one of them.

Looks like whats fixed it is running a chkdsk on the other partition.

Whats weird is the fan wasn't responsive before and it is now.

So there you go, if you run into a problem like this with a newish hard drive, make sure you check all partitions!

Will not accept my answer until I'm 100% sure that the issue is resolved

Edit: No problems since running the chkdsk on 2nd partition so happy days!

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