Message boards :
Number crunching :
Computation Error = Caused by Hard drive failure ?
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Author | Message |
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Floyd Send message Joined: 19 May 11 Posts: 524 Credit: 1,870,625 RAC: 0 |
I had a "read error , click ctrl-alt-del to restart " After I restarted , one of the wu's that finished after that, showed as a compute error , My primary HD is apparently going out. I won't be able to get another one till after the first of May , So I have set to NNT and will empty the cache and stop till I can get the PC fixed , New HD and reinstall everything. http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=1204942674 http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/result.php?resultid=2910657886 |
WB8ILI Send message Joined: 27 May 03 Posts: 11 Credit: 12,942,299 RAC: 0 |
Floyd - If it is your XP computer, go to support.microsoft.com/kb/315265 and follow the instructions to schedule a chkdsk on re-boot. If it is your Windows 7 computer, search Google with "Windows 7 chkdsk" If you just have a "few" bad sections on your hard drive, these may fix it. |
Floyd Send message Joined: 19 May 11 Posts: 524 Credit: 1,870,625 RAC: 0 |
Floyd - I can run chkdsk ,I know how to do that , The pc won't even boot sometimes now until I restart it sometimes more than once. |
Darth Beaver Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 6728 Credit: 21,443,075 RAC: 3 |
Sounds like not bad sector prob , more like motor not spinning up to speed or electronic board overheating eather way you don't have long till it stops completely usually a bad sector is caused because the drive has been droped and is physically scratched |
Cliff Harding Send message Joined: 18 Aug 99 Posts: 1432 Credit: 110,967,840 RAC: 67 |
Whether you have XP or Win 7, you should be able to schedule the chkdsk to run at boot time. Had a similar problem with my system drive on 3/31. Ended up borrowing a spare from a neighbor until I can replace it with a SSD next week. Is there any way to move that drive to you other machine as an extra drive and run chkdsk from there. I don't know if you would have any problems since they are two different architectures. GOOD LUCK!! I don't buy computers, I build them!! |
Darth Beaver Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 6728 Credit: 21,443,075 RAC: 3 |
You should be able to do what cliff says . You shouldn't have a problem if you can set the drive to slave and connect to slave port if however you got a sata drive then i'm not shore |
Cliff Harding Send message Joined: 18 Aug 99 Posts: 1432 Credit: 110,967,840 RAC: 67 |
You should be able to do what cliff says . You shouldn't have a problem if you can set the drive to slave and connect to slave port if however you got a sata drive then i'm not shore I don't think that the drive being SATA is a problem, as long as the drive is not in the system drive (C:) spot. Just slip it into any available slot and it should work. Both of my machines are SATA and I have no problem doing this. At one time one of the machines was mixed and I had no problem swapping between SATA or setting the jumpers to slave. I don't buy computers, I build them!! |
James Sotherden Send message Joined: 16 May 99 Posts: 10436 Credit: 110,373,059 RAC: 54 |
You should be able to do what cliff says . You shouldn't have a problem if you can set the drive to slave and connect to slave port if however you got a sata drive then i'm not shore My old P4 was doing the same thing yors is doing now. Id have to restart it a few times before it would start up. In my case it was a failing powersupply coupled with a bad fan on the CPU and dried up thermal paste. But then a month or two later the hard drive did also die. So Im not sure I helped you much:) [/quote] Old James |
William Send message Joined: 14 Feb 13 Posts: 2037 Credit: 17,689,662 RAC: 0 |
I had a "read error , click ctrl-alt-del to restart " Just for the record, as I am sure you have all the neccesary steps planned to salvage the data off the dying HD: The boinc data directory can be transplanted wholesale to a new location, you don't need to start from scratch. Just make a backup copy of the data dir. Install Boinc on the new HD (to get all the registry entries and premissions set properly) and then exit again. Take the backup data dir and copy/move to where the new (mostly empty) data directory was created. You should be able to pick up seamlessly. The advantage is that you'll start with an established host ID and APRs and don't have to go through the hassle and shortcomings of a new attach. You also won't have to redo any of the optimisations (e.g. the trouble of finding an old copy of the Lunatics installer ;) ) Edit: I was advised that it is far, far easier to copy the data directory to the new location/HD FIRST and then make sure that the boinc installer picks up the right location. check here for the default location of the data directory - it may be a hidden one. BTW watching chkdsk work on a failing HD can be a bit like watching a setup of domino stones fall with a stroboskope... A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. (Mark Twain) |
Floyd Send message Joined: 19 May 11 Posts: 524 Credit: 1,870,625 RAC: 0 |
I ran chkdsk last nite , Took quite a few hours , It rebooted just fine after it finished , I have shut down and rebooted a couple times since then and it seems to be ok. I'm still going to get another HD asap , and use this one as a backup , I may try running a few WU's each day , and just watch close for any problems that may come up. I only had that one computation error so far , hope I can make this work till I can get another HD next month. EDIT- I have cache set to 0.25 days work No extra max days work , I hope to get that much done each day without any more errors. |
Cliff Harding Send message Joined: 18 Aug 99 Posts: 1432 Credit: 110,967,840 RAC: 67 |
Just to satisfy my own curiosity, how many HDDs to you have on your machine? If multiple, do you have your data directory on a different physical drive? Many years ago I found that it is better to keep my data directory on a separate drive from the system drive, so that if I have any major problems with the system drive the data is safe. The current problems that I am having is on the system drive, so all I have to do is re-image the system. The only problem that I will have with the new drive is that I can't restore the system image from my backups because from what I understand there is a difference in the formatting of backups between HDDs & SSDs. So it will take the major part of a day to re-install all of the programs. I don't buy computers, I build them!! |
Floyd Send message Joined: 19 May 11 Posts: 524 Credit: 1,870,625 RAC: 0 |
Just to satisfy my own curiosity, how many HDDs to you have on your machine? If multiple, do you have your data directory on a different physical drive? Many years ago I found that it is better to keep my data directory on a separate drive from the system drive, so that if I have any major problems with the system drive the data is safe. The current problems that I am having is on the system drive, so all I have to do is re-image the system. The only problem that I will have with the new drive is that I can't restore the system image from my backups because from what I understand there is a difference in the formatting of backups between HDDs & SSDs. So it will take the major part of a day to re-install all of the programs. I have 2 HD's on this machine , #1 = 1.5 TB ( primary ) & # 2 = 2 TB (Storage) all windows and boinc info is on my primary drive , only about 2 years old drive. Both HD's are only about 2 years old , Seagate HD's Both of them , I have always had Good results from Seagate drives , some of the old drives are about 10 years old. ( old 40 gig and 60 gig ) and still work , one is an old 20 gig ) . |
Tazz Send message Joined: 5 Oct 99 Posts: 137 Credit: 34,342,390 RAC: 0 |
<snip> When I made the move from hdd to ssd I made an image backup to a second hdd in the machine. Then I replaced the system drive with the ssd and restored the image. Then I found out about 'alignment' after running a couple of ssd lifetime expectancy programs. A fresh install of newer OSs will look after alignment when installing by itself. A disk image restored to a ssd will not be aligned. I found a free program that would, non destructively, align the partitions on the ssd. MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition. Worked for me. </Tazz> |
Cliff Harding Send message Joined: 18 Aug 99 Posts: 1432 Credit: 110,967,840 RAC: 67 |
Just to satisfy my own curiosity, how many HDDs to you have on your machine? If multiple, do you have your data directory on a different physical drive? Many years ago I found that it is better to keep my data directory on a separate drive from the system drive, so that if I have any major problems with the system drive the data is safe. The current problems that I am having is on the system drive, so all I have to do is re-image the system. The only problem that I will have with the new drive is that I can't restore the system image from my backups because from what I understand there is a difference in the formatting of backups between HDDs & SSDs. So it will take the major part of a day to re-install all of the programs. May I suggest that if you have the space on your storage drive that you create a separate partition and move your data directory there. If you do, reinstall BOINC after the move and point to the new data directory. This way you will not lose any of the data, when and if you have to re-image without a restore. The advantage of this will be that you won't waste time waiting for lost files being d/l'ed. It would be even better to put your data on a physically separate drive. I don't buy computers, I build them!! |
Darth Beaver Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 6728 Credit: 21,443,075 RAC: 3 |
Seeing as you did a chdsk and it seems to have fixed the prob . i'm wondering and yes this is probably reay stupid but could the error be caused because the drive hasn't been defragd in a while and just got lost trying to find the place it needed to store the info it was writeing First rule of a help desk it's usually something realy dumb like , "have you checked the power switch is turned on at the wall " if you realy wish to see if there is a problem with bad sectors you'll have to do a deep scan disk in dos but that mite take a freaking long time with a drive that big |
Floyd Send message Joined: 19 May 11 Posts: 524 Credit: 1,870,625 RAC: 0 |
Seeing as you did a chdsk and it seems to have fixed the prob . It hasn't been that long since I defragged the drive , I checked it the other day and it is only about 19% fragmented , almost all of that is in Files that cannot be defragged , Like music and Video files . and Games like halo , etc. I ran chkdsk with the option to check for and recover any bad sectors. |
Darth Beaver Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 6728 Credit: 21,443,075 RAC: 3 |
If you move those files to the other drive and then scan disk but don't bother to fix errors i'm shore the graphic will show you if you have any faulty sectors even the 1's that chdsk patched and then at least you can be certain it is stuffed as I said tho it will take a long time to do wow 19% fragmentation ops I had a bet a long time ago with someone about defrag he reakoned it didn't matter so I bet him 100 bucks it does , 8mths later the system crashed and I could not recover it I couldn't even defrag it gave up after 48hrs and just reformatted it and reloaded the system |
Darth Beaver Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 6728 Credit: 21,443,075 RAC: 3 |
Sorry Gary I relised after that you may have been offended when I put First rule of a help desk it's usually something realy dumb like , "have you checked the power switch is turned on at the wall " Sorry about that I wasn't insuting you I meant it as a joke That's why I also put that this is probably a stupid thing to say . Please don't take me to serious I often put my big feet in my mouth |
Darth Beaver Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 6728 Credit: 21,443,075 RAC: 3 |
See I did it again your not Gary your Floyd sorry again |
Floyd Send message Joined: 19 May 11 Posts: 524 Credit: 1,870,625 RAC: 0 |
Sorry Gary I relised after that you may have been offended when I put LOL... No problem , I laughed because a lot of the time it is usually something like that , I had a friend whose computer broke down and I had to replace the PSU , I got a call a couple days Later , that it was broken , she didn't know how to turn it on ... In no way was I offended , at all... LOL |
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