most all files on hard drive corrupted...help

[surferpop]

I got up this a.m.,started the defrag utility and got a message that it couldn't as there were errors on the hdd.I ran scan disk(auto fix)and now my games don't work(error messages at start-up) and I can't connect to my isp(I'm on my son's computer)....bottom line
is.....nothing works.
Every thing worked fine yesterday!
I know I will have to format and re-install
windows but my questions are:
1)Any idea what happened?
2)As long as I am going to have to start from scratch I want to upgrade my mobo. Is the be6-2 really as bad as I have heard.Should I stick with the be6?
3)Most Important-----I finished all matches
on UT sp but the final assault map,2 ctf
maps and the final match.Is there a save game folder or something similar? I looked but couldn't find anything.I really don't want to start at the beginning.

P3 550@645,256 pc133,w98se(not well)
xitel storm platinum,13.4hdd,9 hdd,bx6r2,etc.

[cputnam]

Yikes...it sounds like you picked up a virus. By chance have you visited some noxious web site or received an e-mail with an attachement?

[surferpop]

cputnam,
I ran Mcaffee.
It didn't show any viruses.
Any chance overclocking did it?
I tried for a 124 fsb last week. Got to windows and the q3 timedemo but it crashed
back to the desktop so I took it back to 117.
The thing is, everything ran fine after I did this.
Very strange.
Any ideas on how to salvage UT ?

[Rags]

Hi surferpop,

What is the way you have your drives setup? Example: I have my 8.3G primary HD on the primary channel on the promise controller with my Yamaha CDR as slave, my CDROM on the secondary IDE on the ATA33 primary channel with a DVD running as slave......

Rags

[Maggi]

I tried for a 124 fsb last week

... you didn't have a SCSI controller listed so I presume you are on IDE, right ?

If you didn't use a 1/4 FSB/PCI divider and/or didn't disable UDMA in your BIOS, chances are that you physically damaged your HD and you definitely destroyed its data structure ...

Background:

Using an FSB of 124MHz with a (regular) 1/3 FSB/PCI divider leads to a PCI clock of ~41.3
MHz which is way above spec (33.3MHz) and could damage your system and/or its components.

I once did so by using an FSB of 83MHz with a divider of 1/2. Upon first bootup, it hung while accessing the windows registry and hitting my reset button only resulted in a hang at the same spot, but this time with a looping, scratching sound ... rebooting into NT at default FSB and running Norton DD revealed that I had physically damaged my HD and luckily (not) exactly where my registry was located ...

I had to reformat that disk after NDD mapped out the bad block and did a complete re-installation.

Next attempt at 83.3MHz FSB, but this time with UDMA disabled let me run anything flawless with a slightly degraded HD performance ... I guess the OCed PCI bus compensated the loss of UDMA.

Conclusion:

Either use a divider of 1/4 (124/4=31 > slightly underclocked PCI) with UDMA enabled
or disable UDMA when your MoBo doesn't offer such a divider.



------------------
Cheers,
Maggi

Despite my nickname causing confusion, I am not female ...

[surferpop]

Rags,
Both hdd's are on the ata33 primary.The 13.4
is the master(c) and the 9 is setup as the slave(d).
An interesting point is that the defrag and
scan disk didn't show any errors on my d drive but Q3 will not run now and it is on the d drive.
My dvd and cdrw are on the secondary channel.
Steve

[Rags]

Hi surferpop,

Maggi's suggestions are sound, so do make sure that you have your PCI divider selected properly under CPU plug and play, there should be a 124(1/4) option there.

Also make sure that you have your High Point controllers disabled in device manager.

Rags

[surferpop]

Maggi,
I'm pretty sure that I had it set with a 1/4
divider but I wouldn't bet my life on it
and dma was enabled.
I think you hit on the problem.
Oh well...new hard drive,new mother board....What the $%^$, as long as I'm starting from scratch maybe I'll get a new cpu.
I still need to figure out how to salvage
my position in UT.
Thanks to all for your responses.
Steve

[LAMFDTK]

Any chance overclocking did it?


In a word ..yes..

[surferpop]

What's are the odds that my hdd's are ok and only the data was corrupted?

[Jorden]

I wouldn't know about the odds, but I do know I got in a similar situation twice.

Once with a 1.2Gb hdd as slave (had mostly my Windows swap file on it,phew), and the last time when my 9.1Gb hdd crashed without a reason given, but for that it was 6 hours before midnight to the new Millennium

First hdd I managed to reformat, but it had physical errors, the 2nd hdd I had to send back to Quantum, and haven't heard word from them yet.

I should stress that I didn't oc a thing at the time (well, but for my G400, but that's different), didn't have a heat-problem (although maybe with the second hdd, it being a 7200rpm 5mm above a 5400rpm drive...)

I don't think your hdd will survive for long, even if you reformat it. Best and most expensive is to buy a new hdd, and possibly use this one for backing up data that wouldn't be a problem to lose when it finally crashes.

It didn't make any unusual sounds the past few days when you booted up?

Jorden.

------------------
Have you noticed that the fori got through the Leap Year Day okay??

[surferpop]

Jorden,
No,no unusual noises and scan disc doesn't
show any physical problems.

[Wombat]

Did you have scandisk do a surface scan? Also, I'd recommend a thorough reformat before I even considered reusing the drive.

[Hunsow]

I would zerofill the drive first, then scandisk it with surface scan.