Disk backup causes reboot

[Philip]

I have been trying to back up my XP home desktop to a network server/drive.

I have tried ntbackup.exe and NasBackup. However, in both cases, they
get a good deal into backing up 5-10 GB when the system spontaneously
reboots (just like a "reboot now" command when installing software).

When the system recovers, and I re-log in, I get the send error dialog
which follows with a serious hardware failure web page ironically
advising me to back up my disk.

I ran a disk check diagnostic (C: Properties, Tools tab, Check Now) and
had no problems. Everything seems fine. Never any problem like this before.

Any thoughts as to track down the cause of this.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have been trying to back up my XP home desktop to a network server/drive.

I have tried ntbackup.exe and NasBackup. However, in both cases, they get
a good deal into backing up 5-10 GB when the system spontaneously reboots
(just like a "reboot now" command when installing software).

When the system recovers, and I re-log in, I get the send error dialog
which follows with a serious hardware failure web page ironically advising
me to back up my disk.

I ran a disk check diagnostic (C: Properties, Tools tab, Check Now) and
had no problems. Everything seems fine. Never any problem like this
before.

Any thoughts as to track down the cause of this.

If the system spontaneously reboots and reports a hardware error while
backing up, the message is pretty clear, and it's less important now to know
the cause than it is to protect the data.

If you can't reliably back up the drive with the OS running, remove the
drive and attach it to another system and back it up that way.

Then, you can check the system logs to see if there are entries as to what
exactly failed. It's possible that you may need to replace the drive.

HTH
-pk

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Do you monitor the temperatures in your computer? Are you overclocking?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have been trying to back up my XP home desktop to a network server/drive.

I have tried ntbackup.exe and NasBackup. However, in both cases, they get
a good deal into backing up 5-10 GB when the system spontaneously reboots
(just like a "reboot now" command when installing software).

When the system recovers, and I re-log in, I get the send error dialog
which follows with a serious hardware failure web page ironically advising
me to back up my disk.

I ran a disk check diagnostic (C: Properties, Tools tab, Check Now) and
had no problems. Everything seems fine. Never any problem like this
before.

Any thoughts as to track down the cause of this.

I can think of a couple of possible causes:
- You have a memory leak. Observing the Task Manager when the backup
process approaches the critical time would reveal this.
- There is a conflict with some third-party program. Disconnect your
network from the Internet, then use msconfig.exe to kill all
non-essential
programs ***and services*** before running the backup process.
Firewalls and virus scanners can do this sort of thing.

 

[Philip]

If the system spontaneously reboots and reports a hardware error while
backing up, the message is pretty clear, and it's less important now to
know the cause than it is to protect the data.

If you can't reliably back up the drive with the OS running, remove the
drive and attach it to another system and back it up that way.

Then, you can check the system logs to see if there are entries as to
what exactly failed. It's possible that you may need to replace the
drive.

I am not sure how to interpret the log events. Here is what I found.
Does not mention a disk hardware failure.

Details
Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 1003
Source: System Error
Version: 5.2
Symbolic Name: ER_KRNLCRASH_LOG
Message: Error code 0000009c, parameter1 00000000, parameter2 8054d570,
parameter3 a2000000, parameter4 84010400.


The helper app said there might be a related 1001 event. There was:

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000009c
(0x00000000, 0x8054d570, 0xa2000000, 0x84010400). A dump was saved in:
C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini021108-02.dmp.

 

[Philip]

No an no. This is a circa 2001 stock 1.2Ghz HP Pavilion 750n. Nothing
has changed for years. I do not think there is a temperature sensor that
I know of.

 

[Philip]

I can think of a couple of possible causes:
- You have a memory leak. Observing the Task Manager when the backup
process approaches the critical time would reveal this.
- There is a conflict with some third-party program. Disconnect your
network from the Internet, then use msconfig.exe to kill all
non-essential
programs ***and services*** before running the backup process.
Firewalls and virus scanners can do this sort of thing.

I ran the back up with just task manager running, nothing else. Memory
utilization stayed constant at 30%. I did not see anything that looked
like a leak. The cpu load never got over 40%.

It always seems to fail when backing up my directory tree of jpeg
photographs. It never fails when other directories are backed up. It
almost sees like whenever a particular disk area is accessed it triggers
the fault. I say this because every back up mechanism I try always
fails: NasBackup, NTbackup.exe, Nero BackItUp ...

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I ran the back up with just task manager running, nothing else. Memory
utilization stayed constant at 30%. I did not see anything that looked
like a leak. The cpu load never got over 40%.

It always seems to fail when backing up my directory tree of jpeg
photographs. It never fails when other directories are backed up. It
almost sees like whenever a particular disk area is accessed it triggers
the fault. I say this because every back up mechanism I try always fails:
NasBackup, NTbackup.exe, Nero BackItUp ...

Good observation. In this situation I would do this:
1. Demonstrate that the crash can be caused by backup up this folder.
2. Copy this folder to some other folder. Does this cause a crash too?
If not, what's the difference between copying and backing up?
3. Run one of your backups on the copied folder. Does it crash the
machine?

 

[Philip]

Good observation. In this situation I would do this:
1. Demonstrate that the crash can be caused by backup up this folder.
2. Copy this folder to some other folder. Does this cause a crash too?
If not, what's the difference between copying and backing up?
3. Run one of your backups on the copied folder. Does it crash the
machine?

Thank you for the suggestions, I think I have the culprit.

I made a new folder and did a drag-n-drop-copy of the photograph
directory into it. Watching it closely, it crashed as I was fortuitously
watching the filename on the copy dialog. Recovering from the crash, I
manually selected and attempted to drag-n-drop-copy that one file to the
new folder, and it crashed again! Recovering from the crash, I then
attempted to copy the all the remaining files. NO problem. I then tried
to copy this one file again, it crashed! I then tried to backup the
copied folder without this file, NO problem. Then I deleted the specific
file and was able to backup the original folder.

What would be in a jpeg that would cause a system crash that records a
hardware failure in the event log?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thank you for the suggestions, I think I have the culprit.

I made a new folder and did a drag-n-drop-copy of the photograph
directory into it. Watching it closely, it crashed as I was fortuitously
watching the filename on the copy dialog. Recovering from the crash, I
manually selected and attempted to drag-n-drop-copy that one file to the
new folder, and it crashed again! Recovering from the crash, I then
attempted to copy the all the remaining files. NO problem. I then tried
to copy this one file again, it crashed! I then tried to backup the
copied folder without this file, NO problem. Then I deleted the specific
file and was able to backup the original folder.

What would be in a jpeg that would cause a system crash that records a
hardware failure in the event log?

The operating system does not care about the contents of a file
but these might:
- a virus scanner
- a physical flaw on the disk
- a logical flaw in the filing system

 

[Philip]

The operating system does not care about the contents of a file
but these might:
- a virus scanner
- a physical flaw on the disk
- a logical flaw in the filing system

Given that a little time has passed here, I can report that since I
removed the culprit file, I have never had a crash since then, despite a
daily backup regimen. So because the fault was deterministically
triggered by one file and the disk has passed repeated diagnostics, I
would think a disk flaw can be ruled out.

I do not use a virus scanner

So I guess that leaves a NTFS filing system flaw somewhere.