Question
Thread display: Collapse - |
All Answers
Start or search
Create a new discussion
If you're asking for technical help, please be sure to include all your system info, including operating system, model number, and any other specifics related to the problem. Also please exercise your best judgment when posting in the forums--revealing personal information such as your e-mail address, telephone number, and address is not recommended.
Windows/HDD problems
This will be a long one.
To start off with my computer is:
ABIt IB9 Mobo
2gb Ram
e4400 (2.0ghz o/c to 2.6ghz)
8500GT
Sata:
Seagate 500Gb HDD - 4 parts. one contains windows
Seagate 320Gb HDD - 1 part (problem drive, see later in problem for details)
Seagate 320Gb HDD - 1 part
Problem:
The most recent changes I started making around my computer were a few days ago. I started to customize the pc by changing bootscreen, log-on, cursor effects, icons and the such (via Stardock) and encountered no problems. Later on I start up my computer and try to sign into my msn, which subsequently freezes the whole pc needing a forced (manual) shutdown. This kept happening so I uninstalled/reinstalled msn and the such until I found it was probably a problem with Zone Alarm. Anyway I used a system restore to go back before I had done any customisation or any possible problem ZA updates. The restore worked but now Zone alarm was no where to be found, it was in the start menu but wouldn't run/open from there, however the zalarm process was running in Task Manager. So Uninstall and reinstall for Zone Alarm fixed this, however the computer was still giving me trouble (some files has dissapeared after restore, weird ay?)
Anyway got sick of that an tried to restore back to a closer date just after the modding had occured,got a failed restore. Ok try a different restore point, another failed restore.... It turns out I had less than 200mb of space on my windows disk (when I had over 8gb before any of this business) so I removed some stuff then restored. BTW I dont know if this is normal but when it failed to restore to those points they then subsequently dissapeared as points that I could use to restore to.
At my new restore point I uninstalled ZA and MSN Live and then reinstalled both, but windows was still a bit iffy so I tried to do a system repair with the windows cd. This didnt turn out so well, the first time I went into it it displayed all the drives thats cool, but wouldt allow a repair, next time I went into the install, my drives (7 in total) were now 3, all of the same incorrect size and unrecognised format.... So I decided to go back into windows only to be greeted by unending Explorer cannot write memory errors which ended up freezing the computer, so I booted into safe mode and uninstalled all the Stardock ( cusomize programs) and anything recently installed. Out of safe mode and now XP works again, however when I went to check my files one of my hdds (320gb) is now unformatted and asking me to format it..... lame...
Anyway none of the other drives have this problem, and when i go to view the drive in Computer Management (Admin Tools) it actually says its a health working drive with 128gb formatted (but unable to access even via righ-click explore in Comp Manag. as it asks me to format the thing) and 170gb unallocated.
Anyway I was reccomended to run Test Disk which I did, finding all my other disks are in order but Test Disk cannot find any partitions/files on this disk and what is worse is its telling me its in FAT format (which I have/will never use), and at this point reading online I suspect the MBR of the drive.
I was going to go into the Windows repair console (via the install cd) to do the whole fixmbr command but wanted to get an idea of you guys first, even if i told it to fix it would it just 'fix' the fat mbr or would it restore it to ntfs or make the drive completely unaccessible? Also the install still sees my 7 partitions as just 3 drives same as above, wierd?
(BTW tried the bad drive in another computer and still got the whole unformatted thingo)
Sorry about the long post, Thanks in advance and looking forward to hearing from you!!!
Cheers
Sand
(Btw I changed my user name if anyone is confused)
Update: As of this morning my Zone Alarm is doing its funny trick of not being present in the system tray and will not open at all from nay shortcut or target, however the zlclient.exe process is running but not vsmon.exe, any ideas, is it possible this is all done by a virus?]