Sporatic loss of Windows system files at startup

Hi all.

Asus CUSL2-C
Mushkin 128Meg rev.2 ECC
Maxtor ATA 100 20G
All In Wonder Pro PCI vid card.

Machine performed flawlessly for a month until a couple weeks ago at bootup, machine complains of missing various Windows system files and running scandisk hangs at 15%. Also hangs at beginning of safe mode.
HD light runs constant during hang.
Was able to recover by running ghost image of primary and system is restored without a hiccup. (Thank god for that util)
Ran full scandisk and reported no bad clusters.
This afternoon same thing happened.
Again, ghosted image over primary and I'm back in business.
At this point I'm gonna try running NDD from floppy and DOS to see if there is any weak areas of my new drive.
I'm inclined to go buy another drive just to rule out defective drive possiblity too.

Ever hear of something like this? any ideas to try and narrow the source of trouble?

Off to DOS, see you in a bit...

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It's either that or it's into the woodchipper

You got a 933mhz CPU or higher with that system?
www.storage.ibm.com/techsup/hddtech/dataloss.htm

This isn't only for IBM drives.

An older link when this first came up..... www.pcworld.com/news/article.asp?aid=18578


[This message has been edited by ghouldini (edited 03-28-2001).]

Sorry to keep you guys waiting, but ndd surface test takes a while.

did one pass, and passes with flying colors.

Am gonna do a 3 repitition surface test which should take overnight while I'm asleep tonight.

Anyway to answer your questions...

Ghouldini, it's a Intel 600EB, memory is running cas2 at 133.

Triple 7, only one I can remember missing is netsup.vxd

I went right into ghost this time, but last time ( a few weeks ago) it was missing a ton of system files and acting like a bad drive.

As for AV, I have PC-Cillin, updated bi monthly.

Jaak mentioned to me once he suspected shutdown may be too fast, and I have disable fast shutdown checked.

Wonder if Shutdown supplement might help even though I'm on FE.


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It's either that or it's into the woodchipper

Fast shutdown was the main culprit of the ATA100 problem I pointed out. It is "claimed" this only effects the "faster" CPU's, but I also heard this was a more random deal and that is why M$ has a patch out.
What happens is the system is so fast with these ATA100 drives and their big cashes, when you shut down, it turns off so fast, all the info is not saved completely. So when you said some files were missing and ATA100, I put the two together.

I also thought about virus because there was one of the more recent ones that had something about deleting system files and such. Don't remember which one. I believe maybe it was posted here with a link to it.

Hi,

Just read links Ghouldini provided and lead to here: http://www.microsoft.com/Windows98/d...17/Default.asp

Although it generally points to 933 MHZ processors and greater, this 600EB does indeed shutdown rapidly like was described for 933.
I shut down all running applications in taskbar and hit soft off.
Machine shuts down faster than you can say shut.
Problem is this issue addresses to SE and ME and have patches accordingly, I'm running on FE.
I question as to whether it's time to get the SE version.

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It's either that or it's into the woodchipper

Hi,
you already found the one I thought about http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q273/0/17.ASP

as to the other question, when I interpret the txt, it also applies to FE.
(it only a comma, but that's the way I read it...)

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If what I heard was free advice, would I take it? Jaak

Hi Jaak,

This Window IDE Hard Drive Cache Package is not in my available product update engine, as m$soft sees my OS as FE.

Is this package described the very same shutdown supplement?

anyhoo, does one know the URL I need to download?

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It's either that or it's into the woodchipper

Hmmm... I was just thinking...
I said machine worked flawlessly for a month until a couple of weeks ago, and then had two "crashes" within 2 weeks.

I started thinking what changes I have made between original ghost image files and crashes.

One came to mind and I'd like to ask if it's a certifiable possiblity.

VV's Powerful PC

I remember I used her powerful reghack a couple weeks ago and noticed a better performance, I e-mailed Jaak about this.

then a few days later, I 'crashed'

Ghost image contained original registry without powerful installed and I remembered to reinstall some few days before my last 'crash'.

Coincedence?

It may be completely unrelated, but I'm wondering if this reghack might have some effect to the shutdown issue.

What do you think?

Anyway, I'm going to leave powerful pc reghack out for a while as a test.

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It's either that or it's into the woodchipper

[This message has been edited by stev-rey (edited 03-29-2001).]

^^ BUMP^^

Thursday night seemed a slow night, thought I'd bump this up to the top.

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It's either that or it's into the woodchipper

^^ Bump again^^

I see Mo is around, wanted to pop an e-mail about this rehack as she may know about this.

But saw she has not addy listed.

So I bumped.

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It's either that or it's into the woodchipper

bump ^ ^ ^

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SMILE
and post back

Steve, the link ghouldini posted IS the download I also mention. http://www.microsoft.com/Windows98/d...17/Default.asp

Oh, Gee....

Never saw the download now button on the bottom of the page.

Duh... Doh!

Paint fumes I think...

Thanks.

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It's either that or it's into the woodchipper

Hi steve, at first LOL.
then I thought about your thoughtfulness, and realise you are quite right in questioning its applicability.

I been using it on my raid and the other machine (both EB600 like yours)
The one with raid setup would occasionally corrupt files at shutdown, but not after I installed this update.

actually, I wonder about the differences between this one and the shutdown supplement http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/d...SE/Default.asp

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If what I heard was free advice, would I take it? Jaak