getting "access violation at address."

[Jeff]

Using XP MCE SP-2 on a Toshiba notebook.
In the past month I've had 3 episodes of a popup about an "access
violation". Except for the last one, I unfortunately clicked on OK without
writing down the details. I assumed they would be in the Event Viewer but
they were not there. So on the most recent episode, the 3rd one, I
carefully copied down the wording.

It said:
"access violation at address 00404fdo in module 'Mailwasher.exe'. Read of
address 22FFFFFC." (The others may have had different numbers).

I am not sure if this has to do with defective RAM, HD problems, or badly
written software.

I've checked the RAM and it tests OK. My HD is defragged and scanned for
errors and there are none.

I do have good backups (in case it is the HD going bad) but I've also had
HDD Health installed for a very long time and it tells me with a 97%
prediction precision that "there are no known problems with this hard
drive". However it also has in the right bottom box (Nearest T.E.C.) the
date 4/21/2007 and once in a while, on coming out of hibernation, I get a
notice that the "Spin Retry Count changed from 134 to 135" or similar.

Should I be worried? If so, about my RAM, my HDD or about something else?
Any suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[Ed Metcalfe]

Using XP MCE SP-2 on a Toshiba notebook.
In the past month I've had 3 episodes of a popup about an "access
violation". Except for the last one, I unfortunately clicked on OK without
writing down the details. I assumed they would be in the Event Viewer but
they were not there. So on the most recent episode, the 3rd one, I
carefully copied down the wording.

It said:
"access violation at address 00404fdo in module 'Mailwasher.exe'. Read of
address 22FFFFFC." (The others may have had different numbers).

I am not sure if this has to do with defective RAM, HD problems, or badly
written software.

I've checked the RAM and it tests OK. My HD is defragged and scanned for
errors and there are none.

I do have good backups (in case it is the HD going bad) but I've also had
HDD Health installed for a very long time and it tells me with a 97%
prediction precision that "there are no known problems with this hard
drive". However it also has in the right bottom box (Nearest T.E.C.) the
date 4/21/2007 and once in a while, on coming out of hibernation, I get a
notice that the "Spin Retry Count changed from 134 to 135" or similar.

Should I be worried? If so, about my RAM, my HDD or about something else?
Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Jeff,

I have seen this question posted a few times recently and a couple of the
MVPs have suggested possible problems with RAM.

This could certainly be a cause of the problem, but I believe badly written
software can also cause this issue.

As you have tested your RAM, and as you have not stated you are getting the
same message from other applications, I am going to opt for buggy software
being the cause in your case.

I believe that the HDD Health reports are unrelated to this problem. If HDD
Health solely uses SMART data for its diagnostics I would be somewhat
dubious about relying on this as your only diagnostic tool. If I was asked
for a recommendation I would say SpinRite from www.grc.com. It's dug my out
of a few holes in the past!

Ed Metcalfe.

 

[Jeff]

Jeff,

I have seen this question posted a few times recently and a couple of the
MVPs have suggested possible problems with RAM.

This could certainly be a cause of the problem, but I believe badly written
software can also cause this issue.

As you have tested your RAM, and as you have not stated you are getting the
same message from other applications, I am going to opt for buggy software
being the cause in your case.

I believe that the HDD Health reports are unrelated to this problem. If HDD
Health solely uses SMART data for its diagnostics I would be somewhat
dubious about relying on this as your only diagnostic tool. If I was asked
for a recommendation I would say SpinRite from www.grc.com. It's dug my out
of a few holes in the past!

Ed Metcalfe.

Thank you. I'll look for SpinRite.

 

[Jeff]

Jeff,

I have seen this question posted a few times recently and a couple of the
MVPs have suggested possible problems with RAM.

This could certainly be a cause of the problem, but I believe badly written
software can also cause this issue.

As you have tested your RAM, and as you have not stated you are getting the
same message from other applications, I am going to opt for buggy software
being the cause in your case.

I believe that the HDD Health reports are unrelated to this problem. If HDD
Health solely uses SMART data for its diagnostics I would be somewhat
dubious about relying on this as your only diagnostic tool. If I was asked
for a recommendation I would say SpinRite from www.grc.com. It's dug my out
of a few holes in the past!

Ed Metcalfe.

I checked out Spinrite. It's almost as expensive as buying a new HDD. Are
there no free utilities that could do the trick? Thanks.

 

[Ed Metcalfe]

I checked out Spinrite. It's almost as expensive as buying a new HDD. Are
there no free utilities that could do the trick? Thanks.

Jeff,

Yes, it is nearly as expensive as a new drive. However when a drive dies it
is extremely unlikely that the hardware itself is the most valuable thing
you will have lost - the data is far more precious.

SpinRite performs the following tasks:

1. Routine maintenance of drive surfaces.
2. Advance warning of pending failure (far more reliably than SMART data
alone).
3. If the worst happens and the drive does die SpinRite can often (though
not always - if the drive mechanism is phyiscally trashed you're screwed)
restore the drive to working condition and restore the data in situ.

As far as I am aware there is nothing else that does what SpinRite does.
There is certainly nothing free that does it.

Ed Metcalfe.

 

[Jeff]

Jeff,

Yes, it is nearly as expensive as a new drive. However when a drive dies it
is extremely unlikely that the hardware itself is the most valuable thing
you will have lost - the data is far more precious.

SpinRite performs the following tasks:

1. Routine maintenance of drive surfaces.
2. Advance warning of pending failure (far more reliably than SMART data
alone).
3. If the worst happens and the drive does die SpinRite can often (though
not always - if the drive mechanism is phyiscally trashed you're screwed)
restore the drive to working condition and restore the data in situ.

As far as I am aware there is nothing else that does what SpinRite does.
There is certainly nothing free that does it.

Ed Metcalfe.

Thank you Ed. You are very helpful and I may spring for SpinRite. However
my problem is that I am not sure it is the HDD that is at fault. Every
scan and test I've done of the HDD on this laptop has come back fine. It
could be bad ram even though the basic tests I've done also seem OK. It
could also be just a software upgrade or XP upgrade problem causing
problems (I'm not even sure if it is always the same application that
causes it because XP does not seem to log these errors anywhere I can
find). If one of these were the problem then SpinRite would not be useful,
etc.

I appreciate all your helpful advice. I'm just trying to pin down and
diagnose the source of the problem better - while keeping good backups
using my Acronis "True Image" software which I have used successfully in
the past to restore the OS partition. This is a notebook PC that just over
a year and a half old and I am reluctant to replace it with one using Vista
which seems to be all that is available today .....

 

[Ed Metcalfe]

However my problem is that I am not sure it is the HDD that is at fault.
Every
scan and test I've done of the HDD on this laptop has come back fine.

<snip>

I can almost categorically say that it is *not* your hard drive. If you
purchase SpinRite solely to fix this issue then you will be wasting your
money

It could be bad ram even though the basic tests I've done also seem OK.

<snip>

I agree. It could be, but I don't think it's a RAM problem.

It could also be just a software upgrade or XP upgrade problem causing
problems

<snip>

Yep, that'd be my guess. There do seem to be a lot of people posting similar
problems at the moment (although a fair few of these are buggy third-party
IE plug-ins) which does make me wonder about OS problems, but I'm still
going with something non-OS related.

You might want to try downloading Process Explorer from www.sysinternals.com
This is a very good replacement for Windows Task Manager and has a utility
for finding the owning process of any Window - this may help you track down
the responsible executable (if it is one program). Process Monitor may also
shed some light on the problem (this logs all process/thread, file system
and registry activity for later perusal).

Defintiely *don't* splash out on any new hardware yet.

Ed Metcalfe.

 

[Jeff]

<snip>

I can almost categorically say that it is *not* your hard drive. If you
purchase SpinRite solely to fix this issue then you will be wasting your
money


<snip>

I agree. It could be, but I don't think it's a RAM problem.


<snip>

Yep, that'd be my guess. There do seem to be a lot of people posting similar
problems at the moment (although a fair few of these are buggy third-party
IE plug-ins) which does make me wonder about OS problems, but I'm still
going with something non-OS related.

You might want to try downloading Process Explorer from www.sysinternals.com
This is a very good replacement for Windows Task Manager and has a utility
for finding the owning process of any Window - this may help you track down
the responsible executable (if it is one program). Process Monitor may also
shed some light on the problem (this logs all process/thread, file system
and registry activity for later perusal).

Defintiely *don't* splash out on any new hardware yet.

Ed Metcalfe.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.