Is my HD dying?

OvenMaster

OvenMaster

VIP Member
This afternoon, I was in a forum and my PC suddenly went black and rebooted all by itself. CPU temp was only 44°C.

I ran chkdsk on the C: drive, and after all the stages finished, the chkdsk routine aborted with a message saying "Insufficient disk space to fix attribute definitions table", and then rebooted by itself.

When the PC automatically started in Safe Mode(!), a box popped up twice saying "A problem is preventing Windows from accurately checking the license for this computer. Error Code 0x8007007e".

I shut down and rebooted, and then the machine started normally. I googled that Error Code and it said that Dpcdll.dll was corrupt or missing, so I ran the sfc /scannow command. I then checked the Error Log in Event Viewer and there were 12 instances of "bad block" hard drive errors, and one instance of "The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the Volume C".

Long story, I know, but is my C drive dying? Lately I have had a few instances where I've had a few programs crash after restarting from a hibernated state.

Any advice or insight will be helpful. Thanks. :)

Tom
 
Hmm it doesn't always mean hardware failure it could be corrupted file system. You running windows XP?

I would suggest running a chkdsk /r in the recovery console when booted off a windows XP CD. Or you can schedule it in the OS to run a chkdsk /r after next reboot

it is important you use the /r switch because it will do a deeper scan and try to repair the file system. You may just end up needing to format your HD, or the drive could be failing. If you have access to any diagnostic application run it on the HD. Sometime the BIOS will have a self test or the manufacturer will have a software based test you can run on it. You may want to go to the maker's of the HD's website to see if you can download a diagnostic utility that will do a full sector by sector scan.
 
Okay, I went to Seagate for their SeaTools diagnostic that works on both Seagate and Maxtor drives. All available in-depth diagnostic tests showed zero bad sectors.
When I'm feeling brave I'll run chkdsk /r again, and keep all my backups up-to-date! Thanks again, all.
Tom
 
Well, I opened a command window and put in "chkdsk C: /r" and got a message saying I needed to reboot. I did so. When the PC restarted, after the moving bar on the opening screen went away, a blue Windows XP screen came on and said that the C: drive was NTFS, that it had been checked, and that the volume was clean.

All within ten seconds. Then the PC automatically rebooted and started normally.

I could have sworn that a full disk check would have taken longer! :P

Tom
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top