200+ Cache errors found

My PC got the hicups last night. The HD started making a horrible noise and couldn't find C: whilst using Tug-zip, so I ran registry mechanic and that found over 200 cache errors - all down to me as the user. Any idea on the cause of this? HD Seems fine at the moment.

Did the utility give any more detail on the cache in error - precise error message?

Regardless of that, a backup of un-backed-up data would seem warranted.

Strange I thought about that on the way home - It was quiet late and the wife wanted the PC to do some work on, so didn't write it down. I could do a restore, but isn't woth the risk. Take it is possible look like the hard drive might be on its way out?, so will back up my photos and files now, just to be safe.

I would run the drive fitness test for your hardrive to check that its ok. and also do a backup.

Firstly take a backup!

You could then run a drive fitness test for your HDD or if you need to do a recovery I've found SpinRite to be very effective. It's a bit of a last resort and bought a copy when I was quoted

Thanks - good job I have an external drive on order As I have one of those PCs without an XP disc - where can I get Ntbackup.msi from?

Odd though, since I ran registry mechanic last night all appears well.

Edited by blfamily (Thu 21-Jun-07 19:47:12)

Not sure which xp ya have but here`s the .msi for xp home.

http://www.onecomputerguy.com/software/ntbackup.msi

thanks very much.

Well the new drive arrived and the diagnositcs program says thet there is nothing wrong with the original 40GB drive. Only problem is as it isd a FAT drive, I can't backuip more than 4gb at one time, should I reformat as NTSC?

Yes, format as NTFS. I can't think of any reason to use FAT16/32 unless you need compatibility with other operating systems.

Thank you - soon I will have a copy of my original drive. Strange I had the same problem as the other night again - very slow to find C: and a lot of noise, yet ran the WD diagnosis s/w and it came up clear.

It sounds like you might need your backed-up data quite soon.

As soon as you get alot of noise or poor performance from your hard drive make sure you backup all you can before it dies.

Also do backups if you are like me and delete files by mistake. Regular backups have saved me a lot of effort and worry.

Everything is backed up, although am scuppered if the drive"does" fail as the PC has the disc in a partition in the HD.

Curiously the event log, indicates a cable is failing at the cdrom (event 11), everytime I hear the noise of the hard drive hunting for a file, or C: doesn't appear instantly. Can't be right?
I have also used chkdsk, that said the volume was dirty.

You mean that your hard drive has more than one partition on it, C:, D:, etc. This shouldn't be a problem if you have the data backed up. I'd be tempted to open your box up and give it a general clean plus make sure all cables/boards are inserted firmly.

As long as you have your original XP/XP2 installation CD it doesn't take long to re-install Windows on a new hard drive (45 minutes, say). You would then have to re-install any vendor supplied drivers and your own applications. If the worst comes to the worst you'd lose 3-4 hours of your life getting your machine up and running again.

Yes Drive C: has 3 partitions -
One is my data
the other 2 are FAT32 partitions, which I take is the Page File and the other original Software that Dell installed - I don't have a XP2 installation CD as one was never shipped - Dell have System Restore instead - does the same thing, I believe.

I'll give it a clean out and check the cables.

You want to make sure you have a copy of that recovery partition because you will probably need that if you re-install. I guess that contains the equivalent of XP plus any Dell drivers you need.

If I remember rightly if you press F12 when booting your Dell machine it will give you an option of booting from the recovery partition. It might be worth doing that to find out what options it gives you (perhaps it'll let you burn recovery CDs).

I think that is why it is a FAT32 partiotion, compared to NTFS partion, it rebuilds the NTFS whilst protecting the FAT32?

I don't know why your partitions are formatted with different file systems. If I had to guess I'd say it's because more software has the ability to read/write FAT32 than NTFS.

Now using HDDlife on trial and have upgraded the DVD writer's firm ware
HDDlife says the drive is ok at 68%