Bad hard disk?

[goe602]

"Windows was unable to save all data for the file *****..."

I got this popup last night and it froze my computer. Now when I restart it comes to a screen saying to try to repair the file by popping in the XP disc and hitting 'r'.

I've been having trouble with my computer for about a month now. I've had to format it multiple times. Once for getting a similar error, twice for it not booting into XP anymore, and a couple other times for it just running like complete crap. The last time I formatted was not even a week ago.

I recently (about 2 months ago) took it into a shop and they tested everything and said all the hardware checked out ok, so I'm pretty sure all the other parts in my box are ok. They had better be since everything in it, minus the hard drive, are only 3 months old.

Is it possible the drive went out?

 

[Seekermeister]

Anything is possible, but have you checked the drive with a diagnostic program from the manufacturer?

 

[Markbnj]

As Seeker said, run some diagnostics, either from the disk OEM, or at least start by booting up the recovery console from an XP install CD, and run chkdisk to see what it reports. Modern drives with SMART technology store errors internally. Here is a link to a tool that reads the error data from the drive. There may be other better ones out there. You can also right click the drive in Explorer, click Properties, click the Tools tab, then click Check for errors. All these methods may give some indication of whether the drive itself is failing. If there are no indications of problems with the drive, then it may be that Windows is encountering some other issue, such as the file having been marked read-only, or some permissions issue. If it is an application data or system data file, it may have been marked as in-use by some process.

 

[goe602]

Ok, I loaded the recovery console and ran chkdsk. It concluded that I have one or more errors on the disk.

What should I do now?

 

[goe602]

Bump

 

[151528]

no idea, bump, sorry

 

[fmriguy]

As mentioned before, your best bet is to download a diagnostic tool from the disk manufacturer to see if it is functioning properly.

For example, hitachi has the Drive Fitness Test:
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Seagate has SeaTools:
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

each manufacturer should have one.

If you want a great all-in-one collection to do diagnostic tests on all parts of your system, check out the FREE Ultimate Boot CD, which has many HDD tests:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

 

[Old Hippie]

Ok, I loaded the recovery console and ran chkdsk. It concluded that I have one or more errors on the disk.

If you want to recover the data, go try some free trial recovery programs. If you find one that "sees" your files, go for it.