Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

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Err
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Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

Post by Err »

Last night I was watching a stream in Firefox and decided to open Chrome. Chrome immediately shut down. I tried again and the same thing happened. I checked the Windows logs (application and system) and there was nothing indicating an issue. I tried reinstalling Chrome and again it shut down as soon as I opened it so I restarted the system. I got into the dreaded BSOD boot loop with a "Critical Process Died" until the repair options came up. I tried a system restore and it still wouldn't boot. I tried booting into safe mode and it still wouldn't boot. Next I tried a Reset but it wouldn't even start. It was late and I wanted to go to bed but crap like this keeps me awake so I reinstalled Windows from my original media (1803). It worked and I was able to boot. I had installation keep Windows.old so I could move over any files. After installing a few drivers, everything seems fine. However, I ran a check disk on my NVMe drive and it found errors relating to cross-linked files. The only thing I installed recently was an MSI 3080-12G video card and I haven't seen any issues other than Chrome wanting to freeze if I opened multiple instances. Shortly after I installed the 3080, I check the windows logs and found that there was a message for bad sectors on my NVme. I ran check disk followed by SFC /scannow and the error never re-occurred.

Crytal Disk is showing the NVme at 79% and Samsung's Magician doesn't support diagnostics even though the drive in only 3 years old. I ordered a new Samsung 980 pro 2TB and I'm going to go ahead and swap out the drive. I just don't understand what happened. My previous issue was Bad Ram last year. Since I replaced it, I haven't had any issues until last night.

Motherboard - MSI MPG Z390 Gaming pro Carbon
CPU - Intel I7 9700K
RAM - Corsair Vengence 2 x 16GB 3200 DDR4
Cooler - Corsiar H100i Pro
M.2 - Samsung 970 EVO 1TB
MSI RTX 3080 VENTUS 3X PLUS 12G OC LHR
2 x 4GB Western Digital spinners (1 Black and 1 Gold)
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Re: Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Possible it just needs to be forced to swap out some bad cells, but better safe than sorry.
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Re: Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

Post by Err »

I replaced it today. So far so good with the new drive.

What would I use to force the old drive to swap out the cells? I may use it as a secondary drive at some point.
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Re: Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

Post by FlyingPenguin »

With an M.2 you can't run Spinrite on it - yet. If it was a SATA drive you could run a Spinrite level 2 on it.

An alternative is anything that forces every single sector on the drive to be read (if an error is detected during the read, the drive's internal controller will force a swap out of the bad cells):

One option I've used is an imaging program that has the option to copy every single sector during an image backup. In Macrium Reflect Free this is under the Advanced Option in the Image Copy section. Select "Make an exact copy of the partition(s)". The image file is going to be at least half the size of the drive. You're going to just delete it when you're done, but you need enough room for it.

I've seen StableBit Scanner recommended a lot on tech forums for exercising drives, but never tried it. As one of it's features it does a monthly Surface Scan (full read of every sector of the drive), but you can also initiate a scan manually. They have a free 30 day trial: https://stablebit.com/Scanner/Download

StableBit Scanner User Manual, Disk Scanning: https://stablebit.com/Support/Scanner/2 ... 20Scanning

I just downloaded it to try it out on my bench PC. Just so happens I have an old Crucial MX500 250GB SSD that I just pulled out of one of my Media Center PCs. It was giving me problems so swapped out the drive and restored the last good image. I'll try it out on that.
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Re: Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

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Quick followup on StableBit Scanner:

I installed it on my bench PC. An ancient Dell Small Form Factor Core 2 Quad Q8200 running Windows 7. It's offline and I only use it for hard drive and file data recovery and repair. I have a bunch of tools installed on it dedicated to that, and I also use it to run SpinRite on drives. I have extended SATA cables coming out the back of the PC for working on drives.

I installed StableBit Scanner on it. It does require NET Framework 4.51, so I had to install that first. It also requires a license either for the trial or the paid version. However, to their credit, they realize people may be using this on offline PCs so if it can't reach their server, it gives you a text file and a web page you go to where you can copy/paste the license request text into a box, and it gives you a license text that you can paste into the app to activate the license. I just did the 30 day trial for now.

Ran it on that 250GB SSD and it took about 14 minutes.

Going to run it on some other drives I have here, including some known bad spinners that are waiting to be destroyed.

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Re: Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

Post by Executioner »

I think we're all going to die by the time Steve Gibson releases his new version of SpinRite.
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Re: Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

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Yah. He says he's close to releasing 6.1, but that will still run under DOS and won't support M.2 drives, and minimal support for USB drives. Version 7 will abandon DOS and boot fully under UEFI. I'm afraid HE might die before he finishes it.


Okay, the 250GB SSD passed with flying colors. I suspect the problem with that Media Center PC was dirty SATA contacts. I cleaned them real good when I swapped out drives.

The next drive I connected was a very worn Mushkin Reactor 1TB SSD from my old gaming system. I suspected it was getting long in the tooth. Still worked fine, but I swapped it out for a 2TB Samsung SSD when I built a new gaming PC last year.

As soon as I booted the bench PC with that drive connected, StableBit Scanner popped up a window warning me that the drive's SMART data indicated it may be showing early signs of failure. Clicked on the SMART info and it highlighted four parameters having to do with several Sector Re-allocations and three uncorrectable sectors.

Running a full scan on it now. Pretty much had already relegated this drive for use only in non critical situations.

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Re: Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

Post by Err »

Thanks for the Suggestion FP. So far the 980 Pro seems fine. One day I'll reformat the 970 EVO and check it.

The only issue I'veseen is that Chrome will still occasionally freeze up when multiple windows are open. Mine froze when I had Twitch and G-Mail open. I'll just use Firfox instead. I'm guessing it's has something to do with the Hardware Acceleration in Chrome. I've had no issues booting into windows. My system log is only reporting the DistributedCOM errors that I see on every Windows 10 installation.

I forgot to mention that I made a bootable USB when I installed the new drive. It's astounding how much faster it is to install from a 3.0 USB over a DVD.
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Re: Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

Post by Executioner »

Have you tried using Brave browser instead of Chrome? I hardly ever use Chrome. It's always FF or Brave.
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Re: Odd PC Issue - Possible Hard Drive failing

Post by FlyingPenguin »

First thing I do with any browser, is disable hardware acceleration. It causes nothing but problems, and modern hardware (unless you're running some low power Celeron or ARM chip) doesn`t need it.
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