Oh Crap! "Catastrophic Error"...

[maxcom99]

Hi All,
Good thing I got 3 PCs. Was running about 5 different benchmarking/crunching programs at 150fsb (P4 1.6A), went to watch tv for about 15 minutes then I heard my computer reboot. Came back and after the WinXP Pro loading screen I got an error reading something like " There was a catastrophic error with the media or hard drives" I don't completely remember how it went. I went back into BIOS and reset everything back to default. Still same error. I am getting graphics and the CD drive works so I figure it not the GeForce 2 Ultra that got burned. I'm thinking the HDs. Any ideas on what I can do WITHOUT having to format?

Thanks. -max

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Have you tried the recovery console or booting into safe mode?

 

[maxcom99]

I tried safe mode. Same popup.

The recovery console.... I dont know really what I could do in there. I went in and did a "chkdisk c: /p /r" and the same thing for all my drives. It went through and fixed a couple hundred things. Tried getting into windows, same message. Is there anything else I should try in the console?

Thanks. -max

 

[DAPUNISHER]

You can try some of the other command options listed in the MS Knowledge base for the recovery console if your not already familiar with them. I would try Fixboot first and if that doesn't work try fixMBR. Also for future reference, you can make a recovery disk and use the Automated System Recovery to save your settings and stuff even if your HDD dies although it doesn't save your data files. I haven't created a recovery disk yet either but after reading what happened to you I intend to do so this evening. Good luck and let me know how your getting on.

 

[maxcom99]

Hehe, thanks. Ill try those tonight. Looks like while at 150, the drives were writing corrupt data to the disks or something along those lines. I'm gonna copy the important stuff to another HD then format the first. Damn.

 

[manko]

Um, max, exactly which 3 programs were you running? (I want to avoid this with my system.)

 

[lastig21]

I've had this happen to me 1 to many times. I now never test my overclocks on an OS I want to work on. 2 separate harddrives with 2 separate os's.

 

[maxcom99]

I was running prime95, seti, 3dmark2001SE, and that benchmarking one (cant think of the name) I was looping all of them at the same time. It could not have been the temperatures. It was running Processor-46C MB-30C (Case cover off). Its a Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM drive, brand new. We'll see how this ends up...

 

[Cruze8]

well what it seems like to me since you are running a 150fsb is that your hard drive couldnt handle the heat soto speak and you got yourself data corruption there.... it is common among the high fsb's.... unfortunately the only thing I would do is to format your hard drive and reinstall everything... also check for bad sectors... if you have alot it means your hard drive is dying... bad sectors spread like cancer so get the hd rma'd soon if you are experiencing bad sectors.... just my 2 cents

 

[maxcom99]

Ended up reformatting everything. No bad sectors though luckily. Let this be a lesson I guess... too scared to run above 133 now

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Scared???? You gotta get back in the saddle again, we'll have no gun shy ATers ya hear J/K and I'm glad to hear there's no apparent damage

 

[maxcom99]

Hehe, right after the post, i bumped it to 143

 

[Pabster]

Must have pushed the PCI bus a little too high for the drive. No big deal, I've done it a hundred times

You might consider hooking the hard disks to a cheap $25-35 TX2 controller or similiar. Then you can push the bus much higher without data corruption

 

[maxcom99]

Whats a TX2 Controller? Where can I get one? How do I hook it up?