Also Known As: evanb90 Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Location: o kawaii koto
Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 3:13 pm Post subject:
Computer Fun Episode 3: False Alarm
On Monday, my laptop froze up while at a local restaurant, and the hard-drive stopped being recognized.
Some semi-successful reboots, scandsks, SMART tests, memory diagnostics, crash dump checks and event viewer reviews later, I had come upon a number of conclusions:
-The hard-drive was still perfectly healthy
-Memory is fine
-Other devices in the computer were possibly causing the issue
-My external hard-drive is dying
-The connection of the drive to the mobo might be loose
On Wednesday, I unscrewed the backplate and found that the drive was loose by 10-12mm and well, after resolving that it seems to be working again.
To this end, a lesson for those who are somehow stupider than me (not possible):
Regardless of how confident you are of your grip, don't walk up/down stairs with an open laptop. The shaking from going up each step is probably what loosened my drive to the point of being non-functional. And you might just drop it. And that would suck.
Also, for those wondering when this section will get a post relevant to Star Strike or any of my mods:
Not sure really. Star Strike is currently playing second-fiddle to another project I will probably announce within the next month. _________________ YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead DeveloperStar Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007) Last edited by EVA-251 on Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:32 pm; edited 3 times in total QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 18 Jun 2005 Location: Dordrecht, the Netherlands
Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 4:48 pm Post subject:
You sure have a lot of problems with HDD's Try to recover as much as possible, and perhaps stick the HDD in a different computer to see if it does the same there? QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: evanb90 Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Location: o kawaii koto
Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 6:04 pm Post subject:
I don't think it's the HDD now. I ran through an extended SMART test last night, over the course of two hours, no faults. No clicking noise, no sluggish performance or file-system errors.
I did find out that my external back-up drive is failing (after being used about 5 times over the course of 2 years), evident from the boatload of file-system errors it spit out when trying to copy files. So I have the new stuff on this drive backed up on a 8gig thumb-drive.
What I did notice is that...
About 10 minutes after enabling my network radio and connecting to the internet, the hard-drive died. (this was after 2 hours of uptime)
Some time later, while watching SpeedFan and the HDD's temperatures, the drop to 0C is accompanied by the program spitting out warnings that it can't read SMART data from the drive anymore.
And that Windows tries to shut-down when this happens.
Whatever is screwing up, the hard-drive is a victim of it. I'll probably make sure the drive is properly seated when I get back to my apartment. _________________ YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead DeveloperStar Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007) QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: evanb90 Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Location: o kawaii koto
Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:18 pm Post subject:
At my uni's business college computer lab, I downloaded Microsoft's debugging software and went over the 3 crash dumps I had, they indicated the problem was csrss.exe terminating or something like that.
Also found "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort0." atapi error messages in Event Viewer from one of the initial crashes.
When I got home about 30 minutes ago, I removed the laptop's back plate and lo-and-behold, the hard-drive was, well, like 10-12mm loose from the connector to the mobo. Slid it back all the way, and I think that fixed it (I'm posting from the laptop now).
I had begun carrying it up and down stairs between classes outside of its carry bag, I guess the constant shaking must have caused it to become progressively looser to the point the connection was unreliable. _________________ YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead DeveloperStar Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007) QUICK_EDIT
Also Known As: evanb90 Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Location: o kawaii koto
Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:15 pm Post subject:
FurryQueen wrote:
Nice job, jenius.
Do I have to point what's wrong and ironic with this post? _________________ YR modder/artist, DOOM mapper, aka evanb90
Project Lead Developer, New-Star Strike (2014-)
Former Project Lead DeveloperStar Strike (2005-2012), Z-Mod (2006-2007), RA1.5 (2008-2013), The Cold War (2006-2007) QUICK_EDIT
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Computer Fun Episode 3: False Alarm
Try to recover as much as possible, and perhaps stick the HDD in a different computer to see if it does the same there?
