I left my computer on overnight as I always do, and this morning I found the following error on the screen... Error No Boot Disk Has been Detected or the Disk Has Failed So I rebooted the computer and it came up normally. During the night, the system crashed either before an incremental shadow protect (SP) backup or during the SP backup - because the daily SP incremental file was not there. In any case, the SP backup fired up and caused the same error message as before. I ran a chkdsk /f on and got a fairly lengthy report of corrections having been made. When I rebooted, I got a blue screen with an error message: critical_process_died I rebooted again and the computer seems to be working okay at the moment. I suspect that if I run SP, it will crash again. So I'm not sure what to do now. I'm wondering if it is a memory problem - the last time I was having problems with imaging software, it turned out to be a bad memory stick. So I'm about to run memtest to see what comes up. If memory is good, I could then try to restore an SP image. Any thoughts on this? Should I maybe run chkdsk /r? Thanks, Len
I would reboot again. Whenever a reboot "appears" to fix a problem, I always reboot again to ensure whatever changes occurred during the first reboot, "stuck". I would not do a restore if it appears to be running good. You may restore the fault! Understand chkdsk /r is almost the same as /f. In fact, /r includes /f but adds a couple more tests. If you do a chkdsk /? you will see this. I never do a /f, only /r. If me, I would backup you data. Then I would clean out the clutter on the disk with Windows Disk Cleanup or CCleaner, reboot (because some things are not actually cleaned when Windows is running so the clean up schedules that to happen during the next boot), and then run chkdsk again. You might also check to make sure all your data and power cables are securely fastened and while in there, ensure the interior is free of heat trapping dust. You might check Event Viewer for errors too. Often a system will crash before being able to register an error, but worth checking anyway.
Thanks Bill - I followed your direction - got the same result afterwards - the backup crashed. I requested tech support from Storage Craft and have submitted log files to them.
Worse case scenario would be your Hard Drive is failing, but like you suggested it could be bad RAM too. When faced with such conditions, you should focus on backing things up firstly (if possible to eventually boot up into Safe Mode.) Before hammering way with chkdsk and such. You might not remember, but log is created when having done chkdsk. Was all problems repaired? Or did you see read errors? Was there any or additional marked bad sectors? Is this a desktop computer? Was you recently installing / replacing hardware recently? Regardless, perhaps unplugging the cables from the hard drive and replugging it in a couple times might be the magic fix. Using the manufacturer disk diagnostics would be something to highly consider also. First things I would cover.
All the data is backed up. The machine appears to be working perfectly with the exception of Shadow Protect which keeps on failing. It's a desktop from HP - about 7 months old. It's actually my son's - he beats the cr*p out of it with all his gaming. I ran memtest - no problems with memory. I ran chkdsk /f and the report is attached - I don't know how to interpret it. It doesn't look good to me based on the sheer volume of output, but I don't know what it all means - it might be routine stuff. I'd be curious to know if reverting back to an earlier image would solve the problem, but I'm afraid that SP might crash in the middle of the restore and then I have a dead system. So I'm not doing that - at least not yet. I've sent some log files to SP support - and hopefully I will hear back from them on Tuesday. Thanks Bill (as always) and thanks Phant0m - I appreciate your help.
If you marked bad sectors then later you continue to see more read errors, then your hard drive is failing. I've seen hard drives that when it begins failing, it goes at a fast rate. But are other cases where you find bad sectors and mark them, and you good to go for long while. But I think your luck has run out with this hard drive.
You shouldn't have to "buy" a new HD. The computer is 7 months old. It should still be under warranty.
I just quickly browsed this thread and didn't notice anyone suggesting to check both the power and data (SATA) cable plugged into your drive. Unplug both of them from the drive and replug them. Then unplug the data cable from the motherboard and replug it.
