Major Problems with HD?

[CheeseBeard]

Hi all,

I've had this computer for just over a year now and it's been plagued by what I think is hard drive failure. Problems normally start out of the blue - the last time it happened I was playing BF2 when the game crashed to desktop and refused to load up after this. After this I got frequent blue screen errors in addition to warnings about svchost.exe as well as messages saying "your computer recovered from a serious problem" and a lot of other illegal operations/warnings. Often when I start up my computer no HDD is detected whilst other times checkdisk runs automatically but never finds any problems/errors.

I've tried scanning for worms and viruses to see whether this could be the cause but again nothing has been detected. Usually the only way to fix it for a while is to completely format my HD and reinstall Windows but the problem usually comes back after a few months then I need to buy a new HD (on HD #3 in just over a year ).

Today, I installed a new HDD but I got lots of errors/crashes during Windows installation which makes me think it has something to do with another bit of hardware besides the HD.

Anyone ever had a problem like this before and know a way to fix it?

Thanks and sorry for the long post

System Specs

-AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3500+, ~2.2Ghz
-2048MB Ram
-NVidia GeForce 7800GT Graphics card
-Deskstar 7200RPM 160GB SATA HDD
-AsRock AMD-SIS As20C motherboard

 

[phucng_10]

Sometimes, the CPU can be the faulty in this situation. The BSOD comes up because either the CPU isn't working properly or the HDD is corrupted.

 

[veedubfreak]

Heh, deskstar. Its definately a good possibility that its the hard drive. Deskstars, fireballs and maxtors are my top 3 paper weights. Have you tried running a checkdisk and memtest86 just to make sure there arent any ram or hdd problems?

 

[CheeseBeard]

Thanks for the quick reply . I can't remember the exact error message on the BSOD since it popped up and restarted my computer so quickly but it was something along the lines of bad sector? I've also gotten lots of BSOD about corrupt files but i thought if i installed a new hard drive this problem would go away....no such luck .

 

[veedubfreak]

Run memtest86. From the sound of it you have a bad spot in memory and its giving you the good ole physical memory dump. By your last post im assuming you have tried a different hard drive with a clean in stall and still have the same problems?

 

[phucng_10]

Welcome to Tech Forums!

Forgot to say the nice greeting to newcomers! Well, if you can't get access to Windows then you can't run Memtest86 unless your friend or someone has a similar motherboard that supports your RAM model. Then you can try to plug it into his/her motherboard and see if the BSOD comes up.

 

[CheeseBeard]

To veedubfreak - yes i've tried on a clean hard drive and same problems occuring so it's most likely a memory problem?

Will give Memtest86 a shot to see if it finds anything.

Thanks again

 

[CheeseBeard]

Just scanned my RAM using Memtest and after around thirty minutes of scanning i'm getting constant errors: "Memory error detected! Pair 10518523 does not store values accurately" except the pair number keeps changing.

Does this mean it is my RAM that is causing the problem and replacing the dodgy RAM would fix my comp problems?

Thanks

 

[phucng_10]

If you're getting errors through Memtest86 then something is wrong with your RAM. Try getting another stick and plugging it onto your motherboard.

 

[CheeseBeard]

Ah thanks for all the help .

Will buy some new RAM once i figure out which stick it is that needs replaced.