System lockups during reformat, defrag, scandisc...
I've been searching the net for a few good forums to help resolve my problem (M$ was no help ... surprise there. x.e) until finally I stumbled here. Hopefully, someone reading this might be able to shed some light onto a most annoying problem.
I'm not really the most careful of people, in fact, about 2 weeks ago I dropped my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1100, closed, luckily.) on my kitchen floor. I had just finished updating windows as well as some random drivers for my system. All seemed well at first until I started getting odd lockups and system freezes. Immediately I ran the OEM XP Home disc that came from Dell and attempted to repair windows. No luck there. A few times I even got a blue screen of death stating something about a cyclical redundancy check error (CRC)? I've never heard of that one. Unable to even log into my desktop now, I was forced to reformat.
All seemed well for the first 20ish% of the reformatting process (I chose the standard NTSF option) when it suddenly locked up. Naturally, I didn't want to turn off my computer during a hdd nuke, so I waited a good 6 hours, got some dinner, and came back. Still locked up around 20%. I powered down, and started the process over again but this time chose the Quick Format option for the NTSF file system. Somehow, it worked.
Or so I thought. I managed to get most of the stuff back on my hard drive, and decided that I should defrag to crunch data up for faster access. BAM, the lockup returned during the defrag. I couldn't DO anything, but the light that registers disk activity was virtually flashing to the point where it looked like it was constantly illuminated. Upon reboot, I got an error saying a file was missing or corrupt (think it was nvschost.dll or something?). Again, I was forced to reformat using the same quick method I did before.
Immediately afterwards, I tried running scandisk to see if any errors were on my hdd. All seemed well until it started to verify my disk free space. Lockup, reformat, more pain and suffering.
This has become a constant thorn in my side. I've been familar with all types of Windows OS since I was a kid and I've NEVER encountered such a pestilant and persisting problem as this. The lockup itself is odd, in that the disk activity "clicks" twice at about a 1-2 sec interval, followed by a series of 4 "clicks", then pattern just repeats itself 'till you pull the damn power cord out of the wall. Any help would be MUCH appreciated. Some random specs are listed below. Thanks guys!
Inspiron 1100
2.0 GHz P4
256 SoDIMM pc2100 ram (2 slots, but the other one FRIED somehow.. cant use my 128 module to run at 384 like I was for a while.)
20 GB hard drive
56k(g)ay connection
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