Gaming Windows well and truly f***ed.

[Thoob]

Well it's come to the point where I think a reinstall is on the cards. Windows 7 is freezing constantly. All I know is that the hard drive indicator light goes solid green, the hard drive just spins for about 20-30 seconds, then the light goes off and I can hear the hard drive stop, then restart again. Windows is then usable for between a second and a minute before this happens again. I know it's not a hardware issue as I can use my dual-booting Ubuntu perfectly, that's what I've had to do for the last few weeks as Windows is totally unusable. Before I copy all my documents to a separate partition and reinstall Windows, is there anyone who has had this problem and knows if there is any way to fix it without a reinstall? And before anyone asks I've done multiple virus scans all coming back clear. Thanks for any help in advance!

 

[mAlvarado]

I had experienced something like this a few months ago, but in my case were some sectors damaged on the win7 partition (the first in the HDD, no good idea after all).
EDIT: something I forgotten, in my case Win never restarted himself, it only frozen after booting


Then I backup the data on my HDD (5 partitions in total). After this I repartition my drive thinking that everything will gonna be alright like this:

sda1: swap for linux --(almost never used)
sda2: Ubuuntu drive
sda3: Win drive
sda4 - extended
sda5 to sda7: fat32 for all my backuped stuff

everything goes fine since then, but when I update to Lucid, and use the Disk monitor, it says that 3 sectors of my disk were damaged and cannot read the smart data. So I used the "HDD Regenerator" of "Hirens boot CD".

It took 12 hours to scan and restore 47 sectors of my disk, and until now everything is fine. (that was not necesary at all, because neither win or Ubuntu had troubles with the HDD and the sectors damaged were on the swap partition)


I suggest you try this :
copy your files from the win partition to other partition, if you had lags or the pc get stuck doing this, could be some sectors are damaged on the win partition.

If you copy all the data without troubles is something on the win OS.
I was reading this before your post http://gbatemp.net/t208774-spyware-adware-...guide?&st=0, maybe could be useful

good luck, and sorry if I'm bad with the English

 

[Am0s]

I had a similar issue, but for me it did turn out to be the hdd, I had a dual boot of mint 7 and win 7, and after a short while win7 would take 15 mins to boot, and on mint7 it would complain about sector issue, but mint worked without a hitch.

if its a hdd issue, try cooling down the drive before you use it, see if it is the drive itself, I remember people saying that on the click of death issue, cooling the drive down in a freezer obviously in a bag or something and preventing any condensation from getting on the drive, being totally cold helped the drive function but as it began to heat up the drive would fail again, I suppose worst case scenario you could try that, maybe its just a knackered windows install but you never know with hdd today.

 

[Thoob]

Hmm... I suppose I could try this Hiren's boot CD thing first if you think it's a sector problem.

EDIT: Just looked at the Hiren's website... what tool is it that I should be using to find problems?

 

[mAlvarado]

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Y suggest you try this :
copy your files from the win partition to other partition, if you had lags or the pc get stuck doing this, could be some sectors are damaged on the win partition.

If you copy all the data without troubles is something on the win OS.
I was reading this before your post http://gbatemp.net/t208774-spyware-adware-...guide?&st=0, maybe could be useful

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if you had already done this, and you want to try Hirens you have to

1. download from HERE, I have the 10.5 but i guess 10.6 have the tool too
2. burn it on a CD
3. boot from the CD
4. when the CD has booted, select "DOS PROGRAMS"
5. HARD DISK TOOLS (option 6)
5. Select MORE (option 8), select MORE again (option 8), and finally select HDD REGENERATOR 1.* (option 7)

it will load the program on DOS

once it has been loaded, it will show your HDD, press "Enter" to continue and then select option "1. Scan and Repair", leave 0 to start from the beginning of the disk. It will took a lot of time depending on your HDD (my 250 GB took 12 hours

)

but as I said before, first try coping your data from the win partition to any other place, just to see if a sector issue, if you can copy the data without troubles then is not necessary to try with the Hirens disk

 

[Thoob]

Well I've run that tool and it came up with 0 bad sectors. I also ran chkdsk in the Mini XP thing and that came up with a lot of stuff that it fixed. Windows seems to be running fine now, but I'll wait for a few days before thinking it is "fixed". Thanks for the help guys!

EDIT: The HDD Regenerator program only took 2 hours for me and I have a 320GB hard disk!

 

[mAlvarado]

I'm glad to be helpful
I hope its fully fixed, if no, you can PM me

...and adbout the HDD regenerator, maybe my disk... @_@

 

[Velveteer]

If you were getting issues, I'd double check the drive with Seatools. On Hiren's 10.6, it's Dos>6>8>5, if I remember right.

Graphical Mode and Long Test.

 

[Thoob]

Damn. It worked for the rest of yesterday and until about 7.45 today. Then it died again. So I was on the verge of reinstalling Windows, put in the install disc and thought maybe I'll just run chkdsk again. So I click on "repair windows" on the install disc, and what do you know, it freezes. Windows freezes even when its not running from the hard drive! It was the same thing too, the HDD indicator went solid green and after about 20 seconds the indicator goes off, and the hard drive spins down, then up again. So I'm left thinking that there is a hardware problem that Ubuntu is somehow immune to. I don't know what to do, now reinstalling Windows isn't even an option, unless I try a different hard drive. Or what if it isn't even a hard drive issue, but a motherboard issue? I feel like throwing the laptop out of the nearest window.

 

[Mantis41]

Not sure if you are in the position where you can try some different RAM from another laptop. Memory problems would account for the disk problems found in the HDD test and the Windoze fails. Windoze is also a resource hog and has an extremely large memory footprint when compared to Linux which would explain why Windoze falls over when Ubuntu is ok.

Just be careful to handle the memory by the edges and try not to touch any contacts. Memory is the easiest component to damage with static.

 

[Thoob]

Ah, that could actually be the problem. The "hard disk indicator" I was looking at is actually what looks like a perspective view of a square next to the LED, rather than the more usual cylinder picture which the laptop has on the hard drive access flap on the bottom. Is this actually a RAM indicator, and it sounds like the hard drive is spinning down and up because it needs to reload information onto the RAM? Is there a memory diagnostic test I could run through Ubuntu?

 

[Mantis41]

this should do the trick
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

 

[Thoob]

Hah, I'm actually just back from running the memtest86+ tool and it said no errors. So... what next?

 

[Njrg]

In a sense it is hardware

 

[Coto]

Hah, I'm actually just back from running the memtest86+ tool and it said no errors. So... what next?

I`ve had read the whole issues you were pointing. So far RAM problems are related to missing components correctly loaded such libraries, or BSOD (in windows), however, it was a good action to scan for memory faults, so at least you know RAM isn´t.

I´d go all the way backing up essential files onto a new HD, deleting all partitions, and do a

LOW LEVEL FORMAT DISK. So if you still have Hiren Boot CD, open up your notebook, check HDD manufacturer, and in Hiren Boot CD choose "Hard Disk Tools" depending on what version you`re using. Then load up your corresponding HDD TOOL listed there.

Then inside options look for something like "LOW LEVEL FORMAT". You´ll lose everything in your disk, incluiding MBR`s (partitions, linux, windows, whatever) but this allows you to "remagnetize" cluster`s disk plates. THEN you must use HDD regenerator for fixeable HDD sectors.

If the above instructions fail, then your hard drive must be damaged beyond repair and would be a good time to reconsider buying another.

And also, sometimes corrupted motherboard drivers can lead to data corruption, i had some clients having such issues in their computers.

Edit: Due to your new HDD model, you will need the latest Hiren`s Boot CD available or you will probably have MB/HDD detection problems.

; )

 

[Mantis41]

Did you get this sorted?