Hard Drive corruption causing winXP slowdown?

[Guest]

A couple of days ago I decided to take my computer tower to school. After I
got there (carried it on the bus ) and set it up it wouldn't boot (said it
"could not load OS"). I tried starting in save mode but it would hang while
trying to load the system files (specifically on the file 'agp440.sys').

When I got back home I tried the Microsoft bug fix suggestion for the
'agp440.sys' (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324764)
problem but it didn't help (safe mode just hung up on a different .sys file).
I was suspecting some OS files got currupted.

Then I tried booting from the WinXP SP2 CD, pressed 'R' and then tried to
run chkdsk /p and /r which took A WHILE (at first it was fast, but after
getting to about 70% it went back to 50% and then took about 1.5hrs to
finish).

I then reinstalled Windows XP SP2. It kinda worked...Windows started up
fine, but it was VERY VERY SLOWWW (the first time it started it took about
20sec for the start menu to open after it was clicked). I restarted, it was
better but it was still SLOW (the cursor would jump, took a while to open any
program, etc). I quickly started backing up my data to my other HD, which
also was SLOWW (transferring a 700MB file to my other HD took about 35min!).
Burning CD's and DVD's was also 10 times slower (took 2hrs to burn a DVD
which usually takes 15min).

I tried running hardware diagnostics tools such as PowerMax (both my HD's
are Maxtor), Tuff-Lite (full hardware system tests) but they claimed all was
fine!

I ran Defrag which found the HD to be rather fragmented (didn't defrag for 5
months). To Defrag the 80GB drive took about 8hrs! There was no improvement
in symptoms afterwards.

I tried running ScanDisk, which went through the first 3 phases fine but was
VERY slow on phase '4 out of 5' (checking file data)...it took about 2hrs to
get to 13% at which point I gave up and stopped it.

Currently I’m running 'HDD Regenerator v1.41' which does a physical surface
scan (and repair) for bad sectors. Currently it went through the first 20GB
but found no bad sectors!

I'm running out of ideas!!!
Is my HD done for?? Would doing a clean format fix this? And even if that
does work would it be dangerous to store data on it because it's 'unstable'??

---- My System Specs:
- P4 2.0Ghz 512K 400FSB S478
- motherboard: ABIT BD7II ATA100
- RAM: 512MB PC2100 266Mhz
- Video card: ATI Radeon 9600XT
- HD1 (OS on this one): MAXTOR 80GB
- HD2: MAXTOR 120GB
- OS: WinXP SP2 fully updated.

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Moving the system may have loosened a connection.


..

 

[Guest]

FIXED!

I formatted and did a clean install of Windows...and all was good! Just
proves that often formatting is the best (and easiest) fixing method.

I still have no idea what was wrong with it specifically (software problem
for sure though). Here's my theory: When I brought it to school I guess all
that shaking somehow managed to corrupt a few system files on the HD (that's
why windows wouldn't start). After I reinstalled windows I guess those files
were over-written but something else got messed up (drivers, file system,
swap file...we'll never know).

Suggestion for similar problem of this type:
1. Do a virus scan, defrag if you need to.
2. check all hardware connections (especially IDE cables) and restore your
BIOS setting to default.
3. check Hard drive for problems (ScanDisk or physical surface scan using
programs like HDD Regenerator to find bad sectors)
4. If neither one helps, back up your data, format the drive and do a clean
install of windows
5. If the problem still presists, well then there is something for sure
wrong with your hardware. Try using the hard-drive in another computer,
basically do a process of elimination until you find the culprit.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions everyone!