Computer help

[maint.man]

Here recently I've been havin' a few problems with the "stupid box" Here's the deal, I'll be using it and the screen will freeze, then the pointer will freeze , then if I wait long enough , I get a blue screen that says " Unable to write to drive C , press any key to continue. " When I press any key, it tries to go back to the task , but fails. The only way that I can get back to normal is to turn it off and restart it. Obviously this brings up the screen that says that I didn't shut it down right , but what else can I do ? It doesn't seem to do it unless I'm online, but I have been getting some stange noises that I believe are from the hard drive. Any help would be appriciated.

Thanks ; Brent

 

[illflem]

Push Ctrl, Alt and Delete on your keyboard at the same time then click end task. If that doesn't fix it push ctrl, alt, delete again, this will restart your computer correctly, you won't get the warning and scan disk. Sounds like you have Windows '98, do the least little thing wrong and it locks up. You should also run scan disk and defragmenter every once in a awhile it will help prevent lock ups. Go to your Start menu, then Programs,then Accessories, then System tools, then Maintenance Wizard, follow the directions from there.

 

[Power Wagon]

That error is caused by only a few things...



Here are the likely suspects, in no particular order.



1. hard drive failure. Eventually, it'll just stop working completely.



2. Bios setting or motherboard failure. Your hard drive is going into "sleep" mode, spinning down, and never waking up. Check bios settings. Listen to see if the drive is stopping, or if it suddenly spins up just before the blue screen vanishes.



3. Bad Hard drive ribbon cable. Intermittent or perhaps weak communication through it. maybe it's creased, folded, or even wrapped tightly with something else.



4. System power supply failure. It's getting reset when you power down and back up again. This one seems far-fetched.



5. hard drive needs scandisk and defrag done. You have bad areas of the drive, and it's unable to read and write properly. Run scandisk and then defrag. If it finds no serious problems, that's not it.



I would guess that the highest likelyhood is #1.



i'd reccommend you go to Staples, buy a 10-30 gig drive, use an imaging program to put your data from your old drive to the new one, and keep the old one in the machine as spare space. If it fails... you knew it. If it doesn't, or the new one behaves the same, you've just got a lotta space, and one of the other 4 is the problem.

 

[maint.man]

For what it's worth I usually run the maintenence wizard once a week (defrag. ,scandisk, etc. ) which seems to make no difference. As far as the drive running, sometimes it is running then makes a sound , almost like it is slidding to a stop , and then it will. The hard drive failure theory , is the one I have , but I always like to have a second opinion.

 

[WOWZY]

I was talking to the computer guy at work a few weeks ago while he was working on a Hard Drive making the same sound as yours.



He took it out and took it apart. The little arm thingy's that pick up and distribute the information had fallen on the discs themselves and made some terrible looking scratches on them. He said that these arms aren't supposed to touch the discs in anyway. He said that any sound above a gentle whirrr, means trouble for a Hard Drive.



I installed a back up HD in mine just in case something like that happens.

 

[maint.man]

Thanks Wowzy, I think that I'm gonna' take PW's advice and go to the local Staples and pick up a new hard drive. I'll let ya' know what happens. Thanks guys.

 

[The patriot]

Sounds like what mine was doing. It eventually would not come out of the sleep mode..... only one month out of warranty!!

Mine didnt give any warnings (cursor freezing, strange nioses) it just went into a sleep like mode.

Eric

 

[maint.man]

Thank to all , I got the new hard drive in this morning and problem solved. Looks like its happy computing for a while now ( I hope)

 

[johnrv4]

See if your old drive is still under warranty

I don't know how old your computer is, but many manufacturers of hard drives have a 3 year warranty or more. My buddy had a bad one in his computer that he bought from Best Buy. He had purchased the extended warranty which ran out. I checked the manufacturer's website(hard drive manufacturer) and found out it was still under warranty. I sent it in, and recieved a replacement in about a week. Sometimes they even send one larger than the original. Might be something to think about-you could send in the old one and maybe have a spare for a back-up. They didn't even require a reciept for the original.