On Sat, 10 May 2008 18:49:28 -0700, Malke <malke@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

>Big Bill wrote:
>
>
>>>The SPTD.EXE is from Daemon Tools or some other drive virtualization
>>>program. It is well known that programs like this can cause major issues
>>>because of their low-level drivers. And/or your hard drive may be damaged.
>>
>> Aha. That does ring a bell.
>>
>>>1. Test the hard drive with a diagnostic utility downloaded from the drive
>>>mftr.

That'd be Maxtor in this instance, this is a Maxtor Sata drive.

> Obviously you'll need to download and create a bootable CD (with
>>>third-party burning software since XP's built-in burner doesn't do this)
>>>from a working computer.

Which I've done with the latest version of Memtest, it's just started
running as we speak. Tell you what, Malke, I ran an earlier version on
floppy last night and it made 8 passes with no errors.

>> Well I have a CD that boots into FreeDOS which won't work because of
>> the memory thing - ah, you'd be talking about a boot CD for windows,
>> yes - would that work? I have another plain vanilla XP machine, can I
>> make one from that? Or boot from the original XP disk if it surfaces?
>> I assumed that I probably couldn't because of the memory corruption.
>
>No, I'm talking about using a diagnostic utility downloaded from the hard
>drive mftr. You will create a bootable CD with the file you download, then
>boot with it in the target computer. I don't know what you mean by "memory
>corruption". Maybe the "bootable CD" you have just isn't working with that
>particular computer.

No, I tried NTFS4DOS from floppy and that had the same error message.
It won't let me load any kind of DOS, apparently. Try Googling for
"mcb chain corrupted". MCB stands for Memory Control Block. It looks
like recovery console is the only way to go.

>>>If the hard drive fails any physical tests, it's dead.

So far it's ok. I'll let it run more passes with the Memtests and see
what that tells me.

>> You aren't impressed by the way it passes chkdsk with no problems? I
>> assumed that means it's ok.
>
>I don't make assumptions when testing hardware and prefer using the
>diagnostic utilities from the hardware mftrs.
>
>Perhaps the drive is physically sound but your virtual drive software has
>corrupted the partition table. If the drive passes its hardware test, use a
>well-known rescue system such as Knoppix (Linux Live CD) or a Bart's PE to
>see what's in there. If you can't boot to Knoppix, pull the drive and slave
>it in a working machine.

I don't have one that will take it. I have an old mini-tower with 987
on it and a teeny desktop Dell that you couldn't fit a fag-paper into.

> Now boot to Knoppix or a partition manager if you
>have the skills to do that work. If you don't have the skills, bite the
>bullet and wipe the drive after you put it back in the original computer.
>Don't install virtual drive software again. There have been a rash of posts
>about machines that will no longer boot because of Alcohol 120 and Daemon
>Tools.

I've been looking in the forums, I know. OK.

BB

--

http://www.kruse.co.uk/seo-services.htm
http://www.kruse.co.uk/internet-marketing-uk.htm
http://www.here-be-posters.co.uk/