CHKDSK Freeze

How often is it the case that when CHKDSK freezes, the problem is hardware?

I wasted a lot of time this weekend before determining that one of my hard
drives was bad. Fortunately, I have a RAID 10 array, so did not lose anything.

I wonder if anything in my experience should have given me a clue to check the
HD earlier in the process.

The symptom was that, in Windows, my system would freeze after startup and
after most of the startup programs had loaded. Freeze = mouse either would not
move or clicking had no effect; only way out was to do a hard reset (button on
computer) or power off.

After this happened the first time, I had similar results trying to start in
SAFE mode. I then booted into Recovery Console and ran chkdsk, which seemed to
stop at 56% (Stage 3) and, after 13 hours, I powered off.

I eventually determined that the disk was bad by running a utility downloaded
from the HD manufacturer. After removing the bad HD, chkdsk ran OK as did
Windows and the computer. HD was under warranty, so that will be replaced this
week sometime.

But were there clues here that should have led me to suspect a hardware problem
sooner?
--ron

Ron

Do you monitor Event Viewer reports?

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Ron Rosenfeld wrote:
> How often is it the case that when CHKDSK freezes, the problem is
> hardware?
>
> I wasted a lot of time this weekend before determining that one of my
> hard drives was bad. Fortunately, I have a RAID 10 array, so did not
> lose anything.
>
> I wonder if anything in my experience should have given me a clue to
> check the HD earlier in the process.
>
> The symptom was that, in Windows, my system would freeze after
> startup and after most of the startup programs had loaded. Freeze =
> mouse either would not move or clicking had no effect; only way out
> was to do a hard reset (button on computer) or power off.
>
> After this happened the first time, I had similar results trying to
> start in SAFE mode. I then booted into Recovery Console and ran
> chkdsk, which seemed to stop at 56% (Stage 3) and, after 13 hours, I
> powered off.
>
> I eventually determined that the disk was bad by running a utility
> downloaded from the HD manufacturer. After removing the bad HD,
> chkdsk ran OK as did Windows and the computer. HD was under
> warranty, so that will be replaced this week sometime.
>
> But were there clues here that should have led me to suspect a
> hardware problem sooner?
> --ron

On Mon, 6 Jul 2009 09:35:50 +0100, "Gerry" <gerry@nospam.com> wrote:

>Ron
>
>Do you monitor Event Viewer reports?
>
>You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
>Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
>of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
>are important.
>
>A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
>click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
>button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
>Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
>the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
>Event Viewer.

Gerry,

I do, but there were no warnings prior to the event. After the problem
started, I was no longer able to access the Event Viewer.

After recover, I reviewed it again, and found only a single error message that
I could interpret as being related to the HD failure.
--ron

Ron

Not all hard drive errors get picked up by Event Viewer. This situation
can arise when the bad sector is detected before Event logging starts.

Another way to monitor hard drives

Try HD Tune. It only gives information and does not fix any
problems.

Download and run it and see what it turns up. You want HD Tune
(freeware) version 2.55 not HD Tune Pro (not Freeware) version 3.00.
http://www.hdtune.com/

Select the Info tabs and place the cursor on the drive under Drive
letter and then double click the two page icon ( copy to Clipboard )
and copy into a further message.

Select the Health tab and then double click the two page icon ( copy to
Clipboard ) and copy into a further message. Make sure you do a full
surface scan with HD Tune.


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ron Rosenfeld wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Jul 2009 09:35:50 +0100, "Gerry" <gerry@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>> Ron
>>
>> Do you monitor Event Viewer reports?
>>
>> You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
>> Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
>> of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
>> are important.
>>
>> A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and
>> double click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which
>> appears is a button resembling two pages. Click the button and close
>> Event Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the
>> body of the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting
>> from Event Viewer.
>
> Gerry,
>
> I do, but there were no warnings prior to the event. After the
> problem started, I was no longer able to access the Event Viewer.
>
> After recover, I reviewed it again, and found only a single error
> message that I could interpret as being related to the HD failure.
> --ron

On Mon, 6 Jul 2009 13:23:03 +0100, "Gerry" <gerry@nospam.com> wrote:

>
>Ron
>
>Not all hard drive errors get picked up by Event Viewer. This situation
>can arise when the bad sector is detected before Event logging starts.
>
>Another way to monitor hard drives
>
>Try HD Tune. It only gives information and does not fix any
>problems.
>
>Download and run it and see what it turns up. You want HD Tune
>(freeware) version 2.55 not HD Tune Pro (not Freeware) version 3.00.
>http://www.hdtune.com/
>
>Select the Info tabs and place the cursor on the drive under Drive
>letter and then double click the two page icon ( copy to Clipboard )
>and copy into a further message.
>
>Select the Health tab and then double click the two page icon ( copy to
>Clipboard ) and copy into a further message. Make sure you do a full
>surface scan with HD Tune.

Gerry,

I'll take a look at that program. Does it work properly with RAID arrays?

Hmmm... Looking at the web site, they don't seem to mention RAID. A search of
their web site using RAID as the key word does not match anything.


Although, now that I have downloaded and used it successfully to identify the
bad drive, I am inclined to just use Western Digital's free drive testing
utility. It runs under DOS and has no problems with the hardware RAID
controller on my motherboard.

Thanks for the suggestions.
--ron