Dan_Aykroyd

Hi!

I just found this forum and registered to join this community and further participate in it! Seems pretty big...

Anyway, I have quite a problem in my PC that is *literally* taking sleep time from me. The thing is that files randomly get corrupted! Let me explain...

Some time ago (a month aprox.) I detected that the Linux ISOs I downloaded from BitTorrent (using latest uTorrent client) downloaded corrupted. I.E.; the file would complete OK, and then, let's say it was a RARed file, when unpacking it would give a 'CRC error' on it. After some days, I tried going back to uTorrent and 'forcing a recheck'; then it would rehash the file, and the 100% file from before would be completed to 99.7% (for example) now. Redownload; file unpacked OK.

That was the first stage. All these images I downloaded I had to do the same for them. No big deal (for now), until I reformat again and I thought it would fix by a fresh installation of Windows.

Now, the real problem here began when I copied an Acronis True Image .TIB file from my laptop to my desktop, via ethernet cable. I copied it, burned it on a DVD (in my desktop), and then found that ImgBurn would fail the Verify stage. I said..: 'well... it SHOULD still work.'. Then, I went to Verify the image (file) with built-in Acronis verify function. Guess what? It failed that verification too! The files was corrupted! First gross check I did, the file has the same bytes size in the laptop, desktop and DVD. (At that stage, I didn't know what I was going into...!)

The fact was that in the laptop, the file would verify OK with Acronis (it was OK there). So, I tried recopying it (again, over the ethernet cable) to my desktop. Burned. Corrupted again. Neither ImgBurn or Acronis would verify OK the disc image / file . Right there I started to worry...

I went and burn an image of a DVD video disc I had from quite some time ago, and ImgBurn would fail the verification too! The funny thing here, is that the movie still fully played; and also the Acronis Image would mount as a virtual unit, from which I could extract files from, and those files would work OK too! For example, EXEs from installations programs, would install the apps OK! How can that be!? Maybe "a Bit" was corrupted, and thus fail verification but mostly "work OK"? Shouldn't they be totally useless files?

At that point I still thought, "well, maybe a virus / windows service / whatever is messing here, will reformat and fix". Well, that wasn't so.

I reformated, installed a fresh Windows, antivirus (NOD, Kaspersky, Antivir, Prevx), full scanned with them. Spybot full scanned to. Hard disks "chkdsk" with all the parameters to fix bad sectors, unmount, etc. Still tried to copy the original (UNcorrupted) TIB image file from the laptop, and even from the CD, and it wouldn't still pass the validation!

So, I started to think about "bigger" corruption here. I went and downloaded "HashMyFiles", a great free app to hash files! Runned it in the laptop, and in the desktop and... THEY WERE DIFFERENT! The hashes didn't match! So THAT was it I said! Now, I tried with smalles files (200 MB), and they were the same hash in both locations! Tried with 600 MB and the hashes were different!

Again, and to further find what could be going wrong here, I booted from outside Windows, with Acronis True Image boot disc (which runs the same app that in Windows, but boots from a standalone CD), verified the image file over the very same DVD that restores and verifies OK in the laptop, AND IT STILL WOULD FAIL! OMG IT WOULD FAIL EVEN WHEN BOOTED FROM A DVD OUTSIDE WINDOWS, WITH THE TOTALLY SURE 100% UNCORRUPTED FILE! WTF???

That's where I lost it. Now it isn't a Windows problem anymore. Even tried switching IDE channels and all the process would still fail. So it's not the cable neither.

What most troubles me now is... every app works perfect, Windows works perfect, drivers, internet, everything. And the computer corrupts files "as it wishes" and nothing crashes? How come everything still works? I really don't see where is the seed of the problem here. The motherboard if broken? Then again, if something so sensitive as a corruption to a file happens all over 3 HDs, how come everything still works flawlessly?

As you can see, I'm quite desperate and don't know where to turn or what to try at the moment. Please help me find a way to fix this. Any question, suggestion, whatever is more than appreciated! BTW, I'm running it in MS Windows XP SP2

Thanks in advance guys.