UPDATE!! w/ screen shots: vdub corrupting outputted video in Vista -please help!!

[BilboFett]

UPDATE!!
Hello.
I am on an AMD 64 6000 running Vista ultimate in 32-bit mode, w/ 4 gigs of ram, nvidia video card, a couple 7200 rpm hdds, etc. I am current and updated on all Windows patches.

No matter what codec I use, whether its divx, lagarith, huffyuv, or even full uncompressed, virtualdub corrupts my outputted video.

By "corrupt" I mean single frames where 1/2 or more of the screen is eaten up by jagged rainbow lines. It flashes randomly throughout the entire video.
I was cutting out the corrupt frames one by one in premiere, but thats ridiculous, I shouldn't have to do that.

I've noted that tmpgenc, premiere, windows media encoder, etc. do not corrupt the video. It is only virtualdub, and it doesn't seem to matter what version. I tried 1.7.6, 1.8, even tried vdubmpeg2.

No capture, its when I am compressing any video. It doesn't matter if the source video is mpeg1, avi (any codec), uncompressed avi, or wmv by way of avisynth. It doesn't matter if I use filters or no filters. It does not go away if I omit filters. Interestingly enough, its only after the file has been written to disk that the rainbow-line corruption enters in, not during the dub preview.
Thanks so much for the help.

Here is a zip file w/ 5 screenshots showing what I am talking about. I included 2 samples of the frames just before and after corruption. The corruption is random, and has no reason or rhyme.

http://download.yousendit.com/F132979B1E939021


This is very frustrating. Please help!

[foxyshadis]

This is definitely hardware trouble, someone here might be able to help you better.

[jeffy]

@BilboFett:
I agree with foxyshadis, this looks like a hardware problem, not a software problem.
My advice: test your system really thoroughly. Are you overclocking? Do you run your RAM memory at its rated voltage? Have you tried MemTest? Have you tried your hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic software? Have you tried something like 3DMark? If not, try the RAM first, the hard drive second, some stress test, like 3DMark then.

Links:
MemTest - unzip and burn the ISO file
http://www.memtest.org/download/2.01/memtest86+-2.01.iso.zip
Reboot and wait (if you are in a hurry, at least 5 passes should be sufficient, otherwise leave it for 12 hours or more).
Number of errors must be 0. Otherwise, you have a problem.

If you don't know where to get drive tests, please tell us your exact hard drive type(s).

3DMark:
http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark06/

IMHO: I suspect a corrupt file structure or a bad memory.

[BilboFett]

@BilboFett:
I agree with foxyshadis, this looks like a hardware problem, not a software problem.
My advice: test your system really thoroughly. Are you overclocking? Do you run your RAM memory at its rated voltage? Have you tried MemTest? Have you tried your hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic software? Have you tried something like 3DMark? If not, try the RAM first, the hard drive second, some stress test, like 3DMark then.

Links:
MemTest - unzip and burn the ISO file
http://www.memtest.org/download/2.01/memtest86+-2.01.iso.zip
Reboot and wait (if you are in a hurry, at least 5 passes should be sufficient, otherwise leave it for 12 hours or more).
Number of errors must be 0. Otherwise, you have a problem.

If you don't know where to get drive tests, please tell us your exact hard drive type(s).

3DMark:
http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark06/

IMHO: I suspect a corrupt file structure or a bad memory.

Awesome fast response. Thanks so much.
I have 3 hard drives, all Seagate, the first is SATA 500 gig, 7200 rpm, the 2nd is ATA100 500 gig 7200, and the 3rd is 400 gig. I will try memtest here first.

[jeffy]

ISO CD-ROM images:

SeaTools for DOS graphical:
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOS207EURO.iso

SeaTools for DOS text:
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOS110.iso

More info here:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools/seatooldreg

I prefer text version. Try short test first (approx. 5 minutes for each drive), then you might try a long one (approx. 80 minutes for 320GB drive).

[BilboFett]

ISO CD-ROM images:

SeaTools for DOS graphical:
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOS207EURO.iso

SeaTools for DOS text:
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOS110.iso

More info here:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools/seatooldreg

I prefer text version. Try short test first (approx. 5 minutes for each drive), then you might try a long one (approx. 80 minutes for 320GB drive).


Memtest passed. I did not do the 12 hour test, but 3-4 rounds twice showed zero errors. Running seatools now.

[BilboFett]

jeffy, I was just wondering,
if this is purely a hardware failure, how come tmpgenc, premiere, windows media encoder, etc. do not corrupt the video or have some sort of write failure?

[jeffy]

jeffy, I was just wondering,
if this is purely a hardware failure, how come tmpgenc, premiere, windows media encoder, etc. do not corrupt the video or have some sort of write failure?

I have seen really weird things :eek::
The bad memory causing some files at some time getting corrupted, but only sometimes...

x264 being encoded without a single error, yet the same file encoded with xvid full of errors (wrong - too small voltage set for otherwise healthy RAM modules - when set according to the specifications, the problem vanished)...

An overclocked machine which would sustain 100% CPU usage in x264, yet it would lock up with xvid...

Bad memory slowly corrupting the file system until the point when the NTFS partition in Windows XP "vanished" and became "RAW".

I don't know the explanation for some things, they may "just happen".

May I ask once more, are you overclocking?

[BilboFett]

I am not overclocking. Thanks for all the assistance so far.

[foxyshadis]

Try something like Motherboard Monitor or RightCPU, and watch the temperatures. x264 tends to stress the CPU to the maximum, because of how it uses simd and instruction scheduling, and is a better stress test than prime95 (but give that a try too).

[BilboFett]

Ok now this is getting really weird.
A file I absolutely confirmed was "uncorrupted" ie. missing the jagged rainbow lines, etc. now has them. It seems to come and go.
I noted that when I moved it from one drive to another in a copy, it started to appear. When I moved it back, it stayed.
Yesterday I noted that the lines came and went, meaning, they were there when I was scrubbing back and forth, then later that day they were not there. Right now they are there.
Also interesting, a file I wrote to disk earlier, I absolutely confirmed was uncorrupted.
I am playing it presently, and the lines are there.

Is this a hardware problem? Someone mentioned voltage on my motherboard for ram and the drives. Since it doesn't seem to be codec specific... is it an error streaming the video back and forth from my drives? Do I have a bad IDE cable? Or a bad IDE channel itself on the motherboard? Or wrong voltage for something? Hmmm.
I am a novice at this and have no idea what I'm doing.

I did note that tmpgenc, windows media encoder, and adobe premiere didn't seem to corrupt the files when it writes them to disk. Perhaps virtualdub is singled out because of something in the communication from the disk to the program?

I ran memtest and it passed. I ran seagate diagnostics on my drives, and they passed, but I'm a little suspicious of one of them because often when I run chkdsk it finds many errors.. but again, I am not reading or writing from that specific disk with these video files.
I have 3 hard drives. If one out of the 3 is bad, and the video file in question isn't even on it, would the entire IDE channel stuff run wacky, resulting in something like this?

I don't know how to check my motherboard voltage. Perhaps I am using a power supply that isn't giving enough power to all my drives, video card, etc?

Any thoughts tips or troubleshooting ideas? PLEASE HELP

[setarip_old]

Hi!

Just a thought - Check to see that your video card is properly seated and that all connections are secure...

[jeffy]

Is this a hardware problem? ... I ran memtest and it passed. I ran seagate diagnostics on my drives, and they passed, but I'm a little suspicious of one of them because often when I run chkdsk it finds many errors.. but again, I am not reading or writing from that specific disk with these video files.
I have 3 hard drives. If one out of the 3 is bad, and the video file in question isn't even on it, would the entire IDE channel stuff run wacky, resulting in something like this?


I'm sorry that you still haven't found the cause.
Do you have the pagefile enabled on that specific drive?
Check all the cables and if you can afford a few dollars purchase, you might try another cable as well.

You can try comparing the two files, the one that was okay and the other one that got corrupted (seems to be corrupted). You can try a simple command line
fc /b full_path_to_the_original_file full_path_to_the_copied_file.

If fc tells you they are the same, it means they are the same byte for byte. If you can confirm that the files are the same, then your hard drive should be out of question. If this is the case, run the abovementioned 3DMark and watch out for the artifacts (image corruptions).

If they are different, then either the drive, the cable or the memory is at fault. Then please post your exact motherboard type (I will look up the manual and tell you where you can check the voltage in BIOS, if possible), your exact memory modules types (eg. TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF) and (if possible) to which connectors you have connected which drives (exact types again, plese).

Question for ALL:
I don't think it should happen, but may the cache itself on the drive be bad? Have you encountered it? How would you test? (How to disable it? The only way I know of is this: http://www.maximumpcguides.com/enable-advanced-performance-on-your-hard-drive/)

[BilboFett]

Try something like Motherboard Monitor or RightCPU, and watch the temperatures. x264 tends to stress the CPU to the maximum, because of how it uses simd and instruction scheduling, and is a better stress test than prime95 (but give that a try too).

I was not able to find a download link for RightCPU, however, I installed Motherboard Monitor, and the latest version I found was from 2004, and it did not have my motherboard model in there, and when I ran it, it made my fan spin superhigh, so I stopped using it.

Any other suggestions?

I have an HP Pavilion Media center m8200n:

Motherboard = MCP61PM-HM (Nettle2)
Item is listed under the following part numbers:

GC671-69002
GX621-69001
KE620-69001


specs are here:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?docname=c01077676&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&dlc=en&lang=en

[jeffy]

Regarding the temperature, try simple CoreTemp:
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

Did you try filecompare via fc?

[BilboFett]

I don't know if this helps, but:

1) My 1st drive that keeps having chkdsk errors when I run it was *just* replaced with a brand new one. And lo and behold, still getting random errors on the new drive. Most every time I run chkdsk it has to delete tons of orphan files, mark space as previously used as free in the drive bitmap, etc. etc. I just replaced the drive, and am getting the exact same errors on the new drive?
2) My 2nd drive (out of 3 total) is constantly spinning down to sleep. All power management settings are disabled in Vista, including drives. If I try to access the drive it first has to spin up. I've checked this drive for errors, and don't get any. But Seagate tech support was telling me the only reason why the drive would be going to sleep is because it is bad. Sometimes when I first boot up, the BIOS takes *forever* to detect my drives, and when you go into Windows from that, device manager under IDE ATA controllers lists the IDE channel for this 2nd drive as DMA mode 2 (incorrect). However, if you reboot again and if it instantly detects the drives, once you go into Windows and check that IDE channel again, it lists the drive as DMA mode 5 (which is the correct speed listing).
3) One of my drives is constantly caching, because the light is constantly blinking, you hear the noise, it sounds like its defragging.
4) Never seemed to have any trouble with my main SATA Seagate (boot) drive. The other 2 drives are IDE.

Both of these drives house all my data and are the location of my video files in question.

can a bad IDE cable cause this? Is it possible my motherboard has a factory defect and the IDE channel is jacked?

And I just wanted to say in general that ever since I bought this computer, I haven't been that pleased with its performance. Its a dual core Athlon 6000+, (each processor is 3ghz), it has 4 gigs of ram, a fairly fast nvidia video card w/ 1 gig of onboard ram, etc. And I know its subjective, but it seems like my old computer and my parents computer both run seemingly faster than this one, and they're less than 1/2 of the power in the specs.
If something is really wrong with the IDE channel, that would explain its use of caching, ram, reads/writes. etc. It definitely does not feel like I have 4 gigs of ram.

[BilboFett]

Regarding the temperature, try simple CoreTemp:
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

Did you try filecompare via fc?

Jeffy, we've got a problem with filecompare. I know I said I copied the file, but what I actually did was cut > paste from one drive to the other. :(

I'll try coretemp now.

[jeffy]

I don't know if this helps, but:

1) My 1st drive that keeps having chkdsk errors when I run it was *just* replaced with a brand new one. And lo and behold, still getting random errors on the new drive. Most every time I run chkdsk it has to delete tons of orphan files, mark space as previously used as free in the drive bitmap, etc. etc. I just replaced the drive, and am getting the exact same errors on the new drive?
2) My 2nd drive (out of 3 total) is constantly spinning down to sleep. All power management settings are disabled in Vista, including drives. If I try to access the drive it first has to spin up. I've checked this drive for errors, and don't get any. But Seagate tech support was telling me the only reason why the drive would be going to sleep is because it is bad. Sometimes when I first boot up, the BIOS takes *forever* to detect my drives, and when you go into Windows from that, device manager under IDE ATA controllers lists the IDE channel for this 2nd drive as DMA mode 2 (incorrect). However, if you reboot again and if it instantly detects the drives, once you go into Windows and check that IDE channel again, it lists the drive as DMA mode 5 (which is the correct speed listing).
3) One of my drives is constantly caching, because the light is constantly blinking, you hear the noise, it sounds like its defragging.
4) Never seemed to have any trouble with my main SATA Seagate (boot) drive. The other 2 drives are IDE.

Both of these drives house all my data and are the location of my video files in question.

can a bad IDE cable cause this? Is it possible my motherboard has a factory defect and the IDE channel is jacked?


Let's start somewhere. I agree with Seagate, the drive doing this [My 2nd drive (out of 3 total)] should be bad. If you can, disable it in BIOS, or even better - if not affecting the warranty -, disconnect it (physically).

Do you know BIOS? Unfortunately, the only document I found is this:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=bph07110&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3548185&lang=en
(FYI: All other available downloads here:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3548185&lang=en&)
As I see it, there is no possibility in HP BIOS for verifying the memory voltage. The standard for DDR2 is 1.8V.
Unless you find something, you might take a chance and contact HP, if there is a possibility for memory voltage check in BIOS (I doubt it).

Regarding 1): I have changed at least 3 (4?) drives on a single computer last year, so it's definitely possible (durability = one week, two weeks, one month...).

Bad DMA mode might be caused by a cable (even a SATA cable can be broken, so I don't specifically say an ATA cable - but in your case ATA (IDE) has a higher possibility).

Regarding the filecompare, you may verify whatever file that seems bad after copying. Just copy something (don't worry, even several GB in size are not a problem - it will just take longer) and verify it against the original file.

[jeffy]

Perhaps I am using a power supply that isn't giving enough power to all my drives, video card, etc?


I can't find a rating for your PSU, but according to this site:
http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

A64 X2 6000+ AM2, 2 × DDR2, nVidia 8800 GT 1GB, 2 IDE drives 7200 rpm, 1 SATA drive, 1 DVD drive, 1 modem card, 1 TV tuner, 2 USB devices (100% peak load, 100% TDP)
= 391 W

You didn't write what graphics card you have, but this should give an approximation. If your PSU is weak, then HP should be aware of it (the drive spinning down might be caused by insufficient power - worth a Seagate consultation).

[BilboFett]

I can't find a rating for your PSU, but according to this site:
http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

A64 X2 6000+ AM2, 2 × DDR2, nVidia 8800 GT 1GB, 2 IDE drives 7200 rpm, 1 SATA drive, 1 DVD drive, 1 modem card, 1 TV tuner, 2 USB devices (100% peak load, 100% TDP)
= 391 W

You didn't write what graphics card you have, but this should give an approximation. If your PSU is weak, then HP should be aware of it (the drive spinning down might be caused by insufficient power - worth a Seagate consultation).

I'm also running an Nvidia Geforce 8600Gt which requires minimum 350-400 watts.
I popped in all my specs and came up with 440 watts.
My system came with a 300w standard power supply.....
Maybe we're getting somewhere.

[BilboFett]

I have now installed a 500 watt power supply, Antec, earthwatts, top of the line. As a precaution, I ran chkdsk on all 3 of my drives: 1 Seagate 400 gig 7200 IDE, 1 500 gig IDE, and 1 500 gig SATA, all Seagate.
Guess what... EVERY drive had errors on them. Deleting orphan file... recovering free space in the volume bitmap, etc. etc.
It finally finished, I went into Windows, and was curious... so I ran it again at reboot time.
More errors! WTF.
I have 3 theories:
a) seagate drives are being made like crap now with that 5 year warrranty
b) seagate drives get corrupted in vista if you have the right hardware combination
c) When I originally partitioned out all my drives, using an underpowered power supply, with not enough wattage to support all my devices, every partition was corrupted.
I'm not sure about theory C, but it would at least explain how chkdsk finds errors every single time I run it on a reboot. I find it very hard to believe somehow I got 3 bad hard drives from Seagate, including the brand new replacement drive I just got.
Btw, since I got the new power supply in, BIOS detects all my drives instantly, and the IDE port always lists DMA mode 5 for the drives as it should now.

[jeffy]

I am glad that the strong PSU seems to be the solution to some of your problems.

a) agreed, several ones died on me (250GB, 500GB), but not only Seagate ones

The drives are getting cheaper and cheaper, but the quality is IMHO getting lower and lower.

I am not sure if this program works on Vista, I use it on XP, (option Verify), but if it tells me there is a bad sector, then it is there, no matter what's in S.M.A.R.T.
http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/

When I encountered a corrupt format of the drive and I could afford losing its contents (it was backed up), I just wiped it as a non-system drive:
http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2006.04.13-HDD-Wipe-Tool/
(Again, not sure, if supported under Windows Vista.) Then, although it is time consuming, I will format it; I don't do quick format under XP, if the drive won't pass a standard format, it won't last too long.

[jeffy]

Deleting orphan file... recovering free space in the volume bitmap, etc. etc.

I have goosebumps when I see such messages. In the past, some files (not yet backed up) just vanished after chkdsk did its work. How much? What about 70GiB out of 200GiB partition?

Since that time I am looking for a working, gentle replacement of chkdsk. Unsuccessfully, so far:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=129829&highlight=autochk

I don't consider it as a solution, but under my XP system I deleted autochk.exe; when I need it, I will run it from the install CD out of the OS. But the full backup is the condition for me to run it at all. The main reason was that you should be able to stop it if it asks while booting, but NO: mine stubborn one would sometimes react to the keyboard, and sometimes not. And when not, the result is above.

[Inventive Software]

Seagate have gone down the pan in the last few years, especially since they've been taken over by Maxtor. Currently, several people I know have recommended Western Digital. Samsung Spinpoints seem to be quite quick, but I'm unsure as to their reliability.

[jeffy]

@Inventive Software
Every drive can be DOA or short-living :(
Just Google whatever brand :(

[BilboFett]

ok how's this for incredibly weird: I knew Vista was doing something!
a) I download fileA from the internet onto partition1 on my 2nd drive. I try to process it in virtualdub, virtualdub gets an error and can't finish the dub. I go back and try to scrub back and forth on the fileA in virtualdub; virtualdub crashes. I repeat the process by downloading FileA onto a different drive and/or partition, just to ensure something didn't corrupt in the download. The same thing happens; Vdub can't finish the dub and crashes when I scrub (nice rhyme?) BTW this file plays fine in WMP and various applications.
B) I create a virtual XP PC (not Vista) on that same partition1 on my 2nd drive. I copy over FileA from my parent-Vista OS onto the XP virtual PC install running within Vista on the same partition and same drive.
c) I load FileA into Virtualdub, and get the same results. A failed dub, and crashing when I scrub the file back and forth.
d) Within XP, (running virtually inside Vista) I download a fresh copy of FileA from the internet. I load that into virtualdub (in XP)... I can scrub easily back and forth. I can process no problem.

WTF!??? What the hell is Vista doing?

Addendum: those same jagged rainbow lines are still coming up, even after installing the new power supply. However, video processed on virtualdub in XP does not have any of those lines in it.

[BilboFett]

ANOTHER UPDATE.
Well, I've pretty much resigned myself to think that its the motherboard, something on the chipset.
I ran chkdsk on the virtual pc and as soon as it rebooted it started deleting orphan files like crazy, writing changes to the volume bitmap, etc.
Now my XP virtual PC is having trouble booting and I think its corrupted.
I bought this brand new HP in October so its 7 months old. I wonder if HP is going to fight me on replacing the motherboard because I changed the ram, hard drives, and video card. They'd better not.
Does this sound like the route I want to go? I'm going to tell them that I've replaced 2 hard drives in it, and every drive keeps getting corrupted no matter what.

[jeffy]

Before you give, please, can you please try fc /b corrupt_downloaded_file_in_Vista_partition good_donwloaded_file_in_XP?

Are the downloaded files really the same, byte for byte?

I'm sorry to tell this, but if they are, RMA is the way to go :(

Please let me/us know if they find something (a bad motherboard, a bad drive, whatever...).

[BilboFett]

Before you give, please, can you please try fc /b corrupt_downloaded_file_in_Vista_partition good_donwloaded_file_in_XP?

Are the downloaded files really the same, byte for byte?

I'm sorry to tell this, but if they are, RMA is the way to go :(

Please let me/us know if they find something (a bad motherboard, a bad drive, whatever...).

Jefy, I don't have any way of using filecompare between a file on a virtual PC inside a partition and a regular file on the same partition. And if I move the file to a location that will connect between the OS's, then I've pretty much initiated a possible change on the file, and that's the very thing I'm trying to find out, which defeats the purpose if I do that.

[jeffy]

I'm sorry, so use whatever utility (eg. this one: http://www.diamondcs.com.au/freeutilities/md5.php) you can get to calculate MD5 checksum, calculate it on a virtual PC and calculate it on a regular file.
Are the checksums the same?
Example of the MD5 checksum of the abovementioned file:
10650E7F6705C7CF7EF024E6C891F746

[BilboFett]

I'm sorry, so use whatever utility (eg. this one: http://www.diamondcs.com.au/freeutilities/md5.php) you can get to calculate MD5 checksum, calculate it on a virtual PC and calculate it on a regular file.
Are the checksums the same?
Example of the MD5 checksum of the abovementioned file:
10650E7F6705C7CF7EF024E6C891F746

Jefy, my XP virtual PC is now corrupted so I guess I have to start over and do it all over again, so I have some hours ahead of me.
Here's the thing though: I already ran seatools for DOS on this drive and it passed the tests...

[jeffy]

Jefy, my XP virtual PC is now corrupted so I guess I have to start over and do it all over again, so I have some hours ahead of me.
Here's the thing though: I already ran seatools for DOS on this drive and it passed the tests...
I know, but as you know my other thread, my drive passed all the tests and then was gone without a warning in half an hour (75 days lifetime).
I know it is weird when under the Vista OS the file is corrupt and under the virtual XP OS it isn't corrupt.

[BilboFett]

I know, but as you know my other thread, my drive passed all the tests and then was gone without a warning in half an hour (75 days lifetime).
I know it is weird when under the Vista OS the file is corrupt and under the virtual XP OS it isn't corrupt.

Jefy.. if I run Seatools and the drive(s) pass the tests... then what? I don't think Seagate is going to send me new drives?

[jeffy]

Jefy.. if I run Seatools and the drive(s) pass the tests... then what? I don't think Seagate is going to send me new drives?
Neither do I :(

It's sad to say, sorry.
Your only chance will be the RMA of the motherboard with HP.

Unfortunately after this short living drive and the one before it (that system drive, 250GB), neither of which had a single bad sector, I don't know what to believe.

If you read this carefully, you will find out that "more than half of all failed drives were put out of operation by factors other than scan errors, reallocation count, offline reallocation and probational counts" and S.M.A.R.T. did not help:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/30990/113/

Suggestion: you might try one thing: install the drive in a different computer and try it there. Does it get corrupt as well?
If yes, I don't believe it is the OS [EDIT: or the motherboard], but the drive.

[BilboFett]

Neither do I :(

It's sad to say, sorry.
Your only chance will be the RMA of the motherboard with HP.

Unfortunately after this short living drive and the one before it (that system drive, 250GB), neither of which had a single bad sector, I don't know what to believe.

If you read this carefully, you will find out that "more than half of all failed drives were put out of operation by factors other than scan errors, reallocation count, offline reallocation and probational counts" and S.M.A.R.T. did not help:
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/30990/113/

Suggestion: you might try one thing: install the drive in a different computer and try it there. Does it get corrupt as well?
If yes, I don't believe it is the OS [EDIT: or the motherboard], but the drive.

Jeffy, first of all, you have been awesome in your assistance. I really appreciate it bud.

[BilboFett]

Jeffy, Guess what. The Virtual PC that I installed XP onto is on my AMD HP system. And it got corrupted not long after I ran the XP SP3 update on it. That's when I ran chkdsk, it found errors, and then got stuck in an eternal reboot. Sound familiar?
Perhaps my Virtual PC of XP on my Vista system was not corrupted by the motherboard after all? So many variables... it's driving me nuts! :)

I got an RMA for my motherboard to get shipped back to HP for repair or replacement. Here's the deal though; I have to have it in the condition it was when I bought it... which means putting back in the original power supply, yanking the 2 extra IDE drives, and restoring the original single-partition factory image from HP on drive C:. Lame. I don't quite think that will do it because 90% of the errors were on the IDE portion, not the factory SATA.
So I'm not sure I'm going to send it back.

[jeffy]

@BilboFett:
I don't recall you mentioned it anywhere, but even if you did... the news is not that old anyway, so I would not think of the SP3 as (another) possible cause. But it reminds me of IE7, some computers had serious problems with corrupt file system.
http://www.castlecops.com/modules.php?&name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=872520
This is/was not an insolated case.

[jeffy]

Jeffy, Guess what. The Virtual PC that I installed XP onto is on my AMD HP system. And it got corrupted not long after I ran the XP SP3 update on it. That's when I ran chkdsk, it found errors, and then got stuck in an eternal reboot. Sound familiar?
Perhaps my Virtual PC of XP on my Vista system was not corrupted by the motherboard after all? So many variables... it's driving me nuts! :)

I got an RMA for my motherboard to get shipped back to HP for repair or replacement. Here's the deal though; I have to have it in the condition it was when I bought it... which means putting back in the original power supply, yanking the 2 extra IDE drives, and restoring the original single-partition factory image from HP on drive C:. Lame. I don't quite think that will do it because 90% of the errors were on the IDE portion, not the factory SATA.
So I'm not sure I'm going to send it back.

Mad :mad: (not at you.) Before you send it back, and after the SP3 problems, endless reboots (not mentioned explicitly before -"Now my XP virtual PC is having trouble booting and I think its corrupted."-), you should know that there was a similar Vista endless reboot issue in the past:
On Friday, a day after Microsoft released the Vista SP1 RTM to MSDN and TechNet subscribers, some testers who downloaded the servicing stack update from Windows UpdateKB937287 reported getting an error during the third configuration stage that caused their machines to enter an endless reboot cycle.


http://www.crn.com/software/206800854

[BilboFett]

I feel like shooting myself I am so effing sick of all this. I feel like there's nothing I can do. I've spent so much money to make this an awesome video editing machine and I can't even edit on it.

[jeffy]

@BilboFett: I apologize that I can't do more. What I can: I had (and still have) the least occurrency of software corruption with XP SP2, with IE6 only (yes, I did not upgrade to IE7 on this machine). If XP is sufficient for you, try this simple configuration for some time. If you don't get any file corruption, any file system corruption and if you get rid of the video corruption mentioned, then this might be your option. Honestly: I am not going to upgrade this working system to IE7 unless forced and I am not going the Vista way yet, either. I am sick and tired of all the hard drive problems I have had so far, I don't need the software problems to top them off.

(No automatic updates allowed, IE7 disabled in MS reminders.)

[BilboFett]

@BilboFett: I apologize that I can't do more. What I can: I had (and still have) the least occurrency of software corruption with XP SP2, with IE6 only (yes, I did not upgrade to IE7 on this machine). If XP is sufficient for you, try this simple configuration for some time. If you don't get any file corruption, any file system corruption and if you get rid of the video corruption mentioned, then this might be your option. Honestly: I am not going to upgrade this working system to IE7 unless forced and I am not going the Vista way yet, either. I am sick and tired of all the hard drive problems I have had so far, I don't need the software problems to top them off.

(No automatic updates allowed, IE7 disabled in MS reminders.)

Well, today I made a rar file of a large 24 gig video on my XP virtual PC. I then copied each rar volume segment onto my main sata C: drive. No problems. When I start extracting each volume to rebuild the final video, every rar file fails CRC and RAR reports each volume is corrupt.
I feel like giving up.
The HP box w/ return label arrived today... I don't know what to do with the motherboard.

[jeffy]

Well, today I made a rar file of a large 24 gig video on my XP virtual PC. I then copied each rar volume segment onto my main sata C: drive. No problems. When I start extracting each volume to rebuild the final video, every rar file fails CRC and RAR reports each volume is corrupt.
I feel like giving up.
The HP box w/ return label arrived today... I don't know what to do with the motherboard.
I had this problem in the past and it was bad memory (bad modules). Unfortunately, its behavior was quite unpredictable. Sometimes it would pass MemTest, sometimes it would not (!). I RMAed it and bought a different type.
What helped me the most: I left only a single one module in the machine, until I found that both of them were faulty (!). The errors repeated with either of them. At its last phase, every downloaded program file (eg. an update, freeware install, whatever), every compressed file (zip, rar) became corrupt. Sometimes re-download helped. Then came the RMA.

Can you afford a full hard drive wipe? If you can, go ahead (that corrupt drive). SeaTools bootable CD, Erase Drive - Zero ALL. Why might it help?

A "Defective drive" can often be revived with a datadestructive
zero fill data pattern or a low level format. This
is because today's modern disc drives contain thousands of spare
sectors which are automatically reallocated if the drive senses
difficulty reading or writing. Since SeaTools is read-only
(data safe) occasionally a drive with many problem sectors that
have not reallocated to a spare sectors can be forced to do so
by writing to the sectors. Spare sector reallocation is a
normal intelligent drive operation.(http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOSguide.pdf)


If you don't give up yet, format it again and try again.
A simple XP SP2 install, all the latest updates except IE7.
It is exhausting, I agree :(

Should you need some help, PM me.

[BilboFett]

Jeffy... possibly good news. I changed out the IDE cable with a new one, and reseated my ram and made sure all cables to all drives and cards were nice and tight. I've been scrolling through my large videos, and haven't seen the rainbow lines yet. Going to do a few renders in virtualdub to see where we end up. Thanks for helping out man. Awesome tech support.

[setarip_old]

@BilboFettI changed out the IDE cable with a new one, and reseated my ram and made sure all cables to all drives and cards were nice and tight.Sounds like my suggestion earlier in this thread (Post #12) provided at least part of your solution...

http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1134009&postcount=12

[BilboFett]

@BilboFettSounds like my suggestion earlier in this thread (Post #12) provided at least part of your solution...

http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1134009&postcount=12


nevermind, didn't work. I'm scrubbing through, there's video corruption. And virtualdub crashed I tried 3 different codecs on two different video files on 2 different drives.
So all in all I changed out the power supply, hard drives, cables, and re-seated all the ram.
Every drive tested fine, so did the ram.
No dice.
And HP is not going to take it back with new IDE drives in it or more ram.
This sucks.

[BilboFett]

I had this problem in the past and it was bad memory (bad modules). Unfortunately, its behavior was quite unpredictable. Sometimes it would pass MemTest, sometimes it would not (!). I RMAed it and bought a different type.
What helped me the most: I left only a single one module in the machine, until I found that both of them were faulty (!). The errors repeated with either of them. At its last phase, every downloaded program file (eg. an update, freeware install, whatever), every compressed file (zip, rar) became corrupt. Sometimes re-download helped. Then came the RMA.

Can you afford a full hard drive wipe? If you can, go ahead (that corrupt drive). SeaTools bootable CD, Erase Drive - Zero ALL. Why might it help?

(http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/SeaToolsDOSguide.pdf)


If you don't give up yet, format it again and try again.
A simple XP SP2 install, all the latest updates except IE7.
It is exhausting, I agree :(

Should you need some help, PM me.

Hey Jeffy, I'm still here bro.
So I installed XP and went up to SP3 with no problems. XP seems to work fine on this system. I did not install IE7 or WMP 11. I think my two IDE Seagates are failing. I did a memtest again and ran all tests (including bit fade test) for about a day straight (15 hours or more). Ram never failed once. Today, as a nice present, upon rebooting, Windows checked my G: drive for consistency, and deleted my outlook.pst file.... which contained all my personal email dating back 9 months. Totally awesome! I'm not about to shutdown my computer and run a recovery utility to try to get the file back. Dammit dude. The other drive is where most of my video files are stored, and that gets the random "windows needs to check this drive for consistency" upon reboot a few times a week. It deleted orphan files and made changes to the volume bitmap just yesterday. I'm so done with all this dude. I'm RMA'ing both drives back to Seagate. Maybe I should just go out and buy a single SATA 2 Terabyte or something. If that drive fails I'll only have one drive to RMA back.
Thanks for standing by, I'll report back on what happens. I AM SO DONE! heh ;(

[jeffy]

@BilboFett: I'm sorry for your (hopefully recoverable) Outlook file. This "consistency check" upon reboot - although it should be harmless on a good drive - made me sick and tired - under Windows XP SP2 I have deleted autochk.exe from both of the folders \windows\system32 and \windows\system32\dllcache. Unless the drive (whatever the size) is being properly backed up, I wouldn't buy any drive having more than a single platter anymore. Some recovery companies, if necessary and in case of a serious hardware failure, will charge you this way: the more the platters, the more you pay.
Thanks for the news.

[BilboFett]

@BilboFett: I'm sorry for your (hopefully recoverable) Outlook file. This "consistency check" upon reboot - although it should be harmless on a good drive - made me sick and tired - under Windows XP SP2 I have deleted autochk.exe from both of the folders \windows\system32 and \windows\system32\dllcache. Unless the drive (whatever the size) is being properly backed up, I wouldn't buy any drive having more than a single platter anymore. Some recovery companies, if necessary and in case of a serious hardware failure, will charge you this way: the more the platters, the more you pay.
Thanks for the news.

Jeffy, how can I tell which drives are single-platter?

[Blue_MiSfit]

Ick. That sounds terrible... I hate working through problems like that.

Sounds like you've got bad HDDs (or maybe IDE controller), get those swapped out and we can help you from there!

~MiSfit

[BilboFett]

Ick. That sounds terrible... I hate working through problems like that.

Sounds like you've got bad HDDs (or maybe IDE controller), get those swapped out and we can help you from there!

~MiSfit

the IDE controller is permanently part of the motherboard, right? I have to get the whole motherboard replaced, which HP is making it sound like I can't do... maybe :(