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Thread ID: 134475	2013-07-05 04:11:00	System error - help please	jupiter1 (2578)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1348066	2013-07-06 10:20:00	Seeing as the age of this system dates from May 2002, I would suspect it may have more problems than just one HDD fault. It may be overheating, dust or failed fans or dried-up/loose heatsink on CPU, or similar. Failing power supply unit? Leaking capacitors on motherboard or PSU? http://www.badcaps.net/ Bad RAM? http://www.memtest86.com/ Etc.	feersumendjinn (64)
1348067	2013-07-08 05:59:00	Just to recap ........My HDD config is.... IDE0 pri = drive C 40 Gig XP Pro system slv = drive D 80 gig data IDE1 Pri = drive E 80 Gig Data Backup slv = DVD Rom I de-dusted all fans and grills a short while back when the cmos battery was replaced. Both fans are working properly and temperatures are within spec. All cables were reseated when cmos was changed. Over the past day or so I have changed the pagefile on to each of the HDD's above but the same error report, (see data in original post), comes up "every hour" to within 5 secs or so ! The original data referred to seems to imply that either HDD1 or 3 could be at fault but that is probably me not knowing what I am looking at. I have changed the ram (2x2gig sticks) one at a time with no effect on the error. Could the fault lie in WinXP pro ? XP is fully updated. I accept that it could be a bad capacitor or mobo but the exact timing of this fault to a few seconds seems to exclude this. The psu was tested as ok a short while ago. Everything seems to work fine to me as I notice no problem in performance. I only know what is happening because I looked at cntlpnl/.........../event viewer. I am totally confused. Any thoughts will be gratefully accepted. Phil H.	jupiter1 (2578)
1348068	2013-07-08 11:47:00	"Over the past day or so I have changed the pagefile on to each of the HDD's above but the same error report, (see data in original post), comes up "every hour" to within 5 secs or so !" That should be telling you something. You describe drive E as "backup". Do you have an automatic backup scheduled once every hour?	Jayess64 (8703)
1348069	2013-07-08 21:40:00	Hi No, I do my BU's manually not on auto. There are no application programs launched and running or minimized. I have disabled the screen saver and the monitor is usually powered off. I work outside most of the day and the m/c is left running day and night with only win xp active. Not sure why there should be any disk activity at all. Cheers, Phil H.	jupiter1 (2578)
1348070	2013-07-08 22:00:00	Incidentally, Malwarebytes and MSessencials are both right up to date and both give a clean bill of health to my system.	jupiter1 (2578)
1348071	2013-07-08 23:48:00	It's a weird one, perhaps it's worth disabling the page file altogether and running a full scandisk check on the drives. Then defrag the drive you want to set a pagefile on and enable it again (you don't want a fragmented pagefile). I'd suggested manually setting the min/max size as well, set them the same and the pagefile won't change size 4-8Gb set on both should be plenty. I'm wondering if windows is trying to resize the pagefile and failing for some reason. Also when you change it to another drive make sure you remember to disable the original pagefile or it will use both. As a drastic measure I'd suggest clearing off one of the drives, disconnecting the rest and trying a clean re install of XP on it. If it's a software fault this will most likely fix it and if it's hardware it will not. If it works at least it'll point you in the right direction to start with.	dugimodo (138)
1348072	2013-07-08 23:59:00	It's a weird one, perhaps it's worth disabling the page file altogether and running a full scandisk check on the drives. Hi yes, I have already done this. Scandisk runs OK Then defrag the drive you want to set a pagefile on and enable it again (you don't want a fragmented pagefile). I'd suggested manually setting the min/max size as well, set them the same and the pagefile won't change size 4-8Gb set on both should be plenty. I have done this also but set the pagefile to 3069 - 4096. will try a fixed size next. I'm wondering if windows is trying to resize the pagefile and failing for some reason. Also when you change it to another drive make sure you remember to disable the original pagefile or it will use both. I did disable the old PF As a drastic measure I'd suggest clearing off one of the drives, disconnecting the rest and trying a clean re install of XP on it. If it's a software fault this will most likely fix it and if it's hardware it will not. If it works at least it'll point you in the right direction to start with. I have cleaned of one of the drives ready for a new install but am holding off on the re-install in the mean time to see if I/we can isolate the problem. What is the reason for disconnecting other drives when installing new XP ? See comments in quote above Cheers, Phil H.	jupiter1 (2578)
1348073	2013-07-09 01:07:00	I have cleaned of one of the drives ready for a new install but am holding off on the re-install in the mean time to see if I/we can isolate the problem. What is the reason for disconnecting other drives when installing new XP ? See comments in quote above Cheers, Phil H. btw *** DO NOT *** run a defrag if you have a possibly faulty drive. Good way to loose data, corrupt files. This wont be easy to track down with all those OLD HD's Make sure the drive is in DMA Mode, not PIO mode , look in the hardware device manager under IDE adapters (the CD might be PIO mode) Remove any usb dives,flash sticks, any card readers or printers with built in card readers . Disable any CD Direct write programs, any CD Virtualiser type programs etc. Disable power save completely (for now) . Disable write caching on all HD's for now. Run surface scans on all HD's or Just Re-install, see if it runs without the issue then. Its usually the quickest/easiest fix. Re-install, without the other hd's connected. Keep it as simple as possible untill you are sure the issue has gone, thats why you disconnect the other drives Keep the c: on a separate cable from the CD for the re-install (for now)	1101 (13337)
1348074	2013-07-09 02:03:00	Yeah what 1101 said re the single drive for reinstalling, also protects you from stuffing up the old installation by accident. Not strictly necessary to disconnect the rest but not difficult so I'd recommend it. Regarding the defrag, good point but I seriously doubt there are 4 faulty hard drives all passing scan disk (going from previous posts) so I suspect that's not the issue. It's good practice to defrag a drive before setting a page file on it but again not strictly necessary. I've even seen it suggested a while back (matching the vintage of your hardware) to set the page file on it's own dedicated partition similar to what linux would do. For now we just want to try and eliminate as much as possible, disconnecting any unnecessary devices is part of that. Once you have it running without incident you start adding everything back slowly to see if the problem returns and hopefully find the cause if it does. Two similar schools of thought here - eliminate options 1 by 1 until you are left with the cause - or eliminate everything all at once and work your way back 1 by 1 looking for the cause. The second option is often faster as it establishes right away if your system can run without the issue.	dugimodo (138)
1348075	2013-07-10 08:23:00	Hi Guys, Well, I went the whole hog and removed everything except the 3 HDD's. I figured that if it still went wrong then it had to be the MOBO or CPU. I ran chkdisk, (or scandisk as it's called on my system), on all 3 HDD's. There were no failures. The previous error reports suggested HDD 3 was failing but I had just tested (sucessfully) all 3, but wait, starting with 0 then 3 = a forth HDD, Yes ? I have a Seagate 1Tb USB external drive, could this be HDD 3 ? YES. I re-connected this and I got the error warnings that this thread is all about. So, I disconnected it again and reconnected everything else and all is working fine, (10 hrs now). I will run like this for a few days, if all is well, no problem. If I get another failure then I may try doing a clean instal of Win XP with nothing connected as suggested. It's strange as I get no error reports when I am backing up my data to this 1Tb external drive, all the data transfers occurs just fine ! Perhaps there is a configuration problem somewhere ? Win XP detects it ok and transfers complete Ok. Very strange, stay tuned, will report back in a couple of days. Thanks for all your advice.	jupiter1 (2578)
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