perplexed

[row]

hi, need a little help please. built this thing a couple of years ago for an individual who is no longer in the picture. it has very few hours on it. since the person left i turned it on once every couple of months just so it would update, other than that, not used. then a month or two ago i attempted to boot it up and...

once windows loads (more often than not it requires the installation disk to accomplish) and i get to the desk top and then attempt to perform ANY function it locks up and i have to manually turn it off.

spec:
asus maximus v gene - win 8.1 - intel i7 3770k - corsair force 240gb ssd (os drive) - seagate barracuda 1t x2 raid0 (storage drive)- kingston hyper 16g - sapphire 7850 2g - cooler master hyper 212 evo - lg 24x dvd - ostrog pinkcase - pc power & cooling silencer mklll 850w - creative sound blaster z w/5.1 logitech z-5500

i appreciate any thoughts on the subject and thank you in advance!

 

[C1]

Probably a corrupted system file.

I havent kept up with different flavors of MS's junk (nor do I care to any more).

Normally one would try things like safe mode, scannow, repair from the system disk, etc. to disabling crap via the maintenance utility for doing this (dont even remember what it is called) to just wipe the SSD & re-install OS.

Not sure what MS OSes support any more.

Ultimately you'll be forced to just buying what you use from the cloud.

 

[row]

thanks for responding C!. i guess i wasn't very clear up there, when i said i had to use the installation disk to boot, that included every option windows gave me including numerous re-installs of the os. every case gives the same result, once i am at the desktop any function locks the computer up. i'm thinking a bad ssd maybe?

 

[RLGL]

Standard drill:
Remove everything not needed to boot to the OS. Leave 1 stick of ram . If able, remove the vid card and go to the integrated graphics. What is left :1 drive, 1 stick of ram, nothing else. If it boots, start adding 1 item at a time to see what is causing the problem.

 

[Ketchup]

So it installs the OS fine, but upon the first boot it tells you files are missing? Yeah, sounds like the SSD. Doesn't sound like RAM problem.

 

[John Connor]

Hard drive failure. Try Crystaldiskinfo and HD Tune. But even if they don't report errors it's more than likely the HDD.

 

[C1]

I would attempt to back up the SSD. Typically use a created boot TI backup disk to use to image the OS installation on the SSD over to another drive (can be a disk).

I would then download a free utility to test the SSD integrity (there are Linux versions available for this). The issue is that to test the SSD, it will be required to read & write to it so your installation needs to be backed up. If you end up unable to back up, then that tells you what you need to know. Mainly that the SSD has one or more bad address locations that are not correctly readable (eg, fail parity or worse).

https://superuser.com/questions/512249/where-can-i-find-a-bootable-ssd-diagnostics-tool

 

[row]

thank you all for your reply's.

Standard drill:
Remove everything not needed to boot to the OS. Leave 1 stick of ram . If able, remove the vid card and go to the integrated graphics. What is left :1 drive, 1 stick of ram, nothing else. If it boots, start adding 1 item at a time to see what is causing the problem.

i will give it a try, thanks for your input!

 

[row]

So it installs the OS fine, but upon the first boot it tells you files are missing? Yeah, sounds like the SSD. Doesn't sound like RAM problem.

doesn't load the os fine, it's a pain in the ass to get it to boot, normally 3 or 4 tries and using every available option the install disc gives me. other than that it doesn't tell me anything, immediately upon accessing the desktop and attempting to perform ANY function, it freezes. my thought all along is it's probably the ssd, thanks.

 

[row]

Hard drive failure. Try Crystaldiskinfo and HD Tune. But even if they don't report errors it's more than likely the HDD.

ssd holds the os, hard drives (seagate barracuda 1t x2 raid0 ) have been disconnected while attempting to figure this out, thanks!.

 

[row]

I would attempt to back up the SSD. Typically use a created boot TI backup disk to use to image the OS installation on the SSD over to another drive (can be a disk).

I would then download a free utility to test the SSD integrity (there are Linux versions available for this). The issue is that to test the SSD, it will be required to read & write to it so your installation needs to be backed up. If you end up unable to back up, then that tells you what you need to know. Mainly that the SSD has one or more bad address locations that are not correctly readable (eg, fail parity or worse).

https://superuser.com/questions/512249/where-can-i-find-a-bootable-ssd-diagnostics-tool

i'll give it a try, no need to back-up the ssd though as it only holds the os (win 8.1), thanks for your help!

 

[EliteRetard]

I don't know why everyone is writing off the RAM as an issue.
I've had very similar issues with bad RAM, anything written to/from bad RAM and then put onto a storage drive could be corrupt.
RAM can be tested without windows, booted off a USB stick. Wouldn't hurt to test each stick individually.