Hello,

Does anybody know of any tools (available for Vista x64) that can test
the stability of a hard drive or drive controller?

I'm trying to determine the cause of some blue screens, and I've
already run dozens of memory tests, Prime95, rthdribl, FurMark, etc., so
I don't think it's the memory or CPU or video, or the sound (tried
switching that). And I've noticed that just before the blue screen
there's usually a flurry of disk activity, and sometimes the disks take
a while to spin up after the subsequent reboot. Finally, one time I got
the same bugcheck but it also mentioned ataport.sys, which again would
lead me to believe it's a disk issue, but I don't think it's a driver
issue because I switched from the generic Microsoft drivers to the Intel
Matrix Storage drivers and still got the same errors. So I believe it's
related to one of the drives or the controller - although none of those
parts are new and SMART isn't giving any errors.

I've tried doing sector scans with scandisk and HD tune and neither
turned up anything interesting. What I'm looking for is some sort of
stress test that would fail if there's a problem with the hardware, like
the other tests above do. Of course I'd also happily entertain any
other suggestions anyone might have in order to get to the bottom of
this. The only thing I'm not prepared to do is start swapping drives
out with replacements - there are 4 large drives in there, so the cost
and time of that approach would be prohibitive.

So, in summary - is there a way to test whether or not I have
reliability problems with a hard drive or controller, other than
replacing the hardware outright?

Thanks in advance,
Aaron


--
DigiNut

Before you do anything back up your hard drive.
Most hard drive manufacturers have utilities on their web site that will
tell if your drive is failing, which I strongly suspect is the case.

When you machine crashes, Windows writes a crash dump file to the partition
with your pagefile. This might be what is being written that you are
noticing.

You can disable the automatic restart after a blue screen by following the
instructions he

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/window...startvista.htm

The blue screen itself will have information about what went wrong to cause
the system to crash. Additionally, the crash file generated will have
information about what happened - if you send me an email [tidavis at
microsoft dot com] - I can take a look at your crash file.


"DigiNut" wrote in message
...

Hello,

Does anybody know of any tools (available for Vista x64) that can test
the stability of a hard drive or drive controller?

I'm trying to determine the cause of some blue screens, and I've
already run dozens of memory tests, Prime95, rthdribl, FurMark, etc., so
I don't think it's the memory or CPU or video, or the sound (tried
switching that). And I've noticed that just before the blue screen
there's usually a flurry of disk activity, and sometimes the disks take
a while to spin up after the subsequent reboot. Finally, one time I got
the same bugcheck but it also mentioned ataport.sys, which again would
lead me to believe it's a disk issue, but I don't think it's a driver
issue because I switched from the generic Microsoft drivers to the Intel
Matrix Storage drivers and still got the same errors. So I believe it's
related to one of the drives or the controller - although none of those
parts are new and SMART isn't giving any errors.

I've tried doing sector scans with scandisk and HD tune and neither
turned up anything interesting. What I'm looking for is some sort of
stress test that would fail if there's a problem with the hardware, like
the other tests above do. Of course I'd also happily entertain any
other suggestions anyone might have in order to get to the bottom of
this. The only thing I'm not prepared to do is start swapping drives
out with replacements - there are 4 large drives in there, so the cost
and time of that approach would be prohibitive.

So, in summary - is there a way to test whether or not I have
reliability problems with a hard drive or controller, other than
replacing the hardware outright?

Thanks in advance,
Aaron


--
DigiNut

What capacity power supply do you have in that machine? Your mention of
slow spinup, the number of drives, and the thorough testing you're done
raises a question to me about a possible power issue. (Regardless of the
rated spec of the PSU, it could be developing a problem.)
--

"DigiNut" wrote in message
...

Hello,

Does anybody know of any tools (available for Vista x64) that can test
the stability of a hard drive or drive controller?

I'm trying to determine the cause of some blue screens, and I've
already run dozens of memory tests, Prime95, rthdribl, FurMark, etc., so
I don't think it's the memory or CPU or video, or the sound (tried
switching that). And I've noticed that just before the blue screen
there's usually a flurry of disk activity, and sometimes the disks take
a while to spin up after the subsequent reboot. Finally, one time I got
the same bugcheck but it also mentioned ataport.sys, which again would
lead me to believe it's a disk issue, but I don't think it's a driver
issue because I switched from the generic Microsoft drivers to the Intel
Matrix Storage drivers and still got the same errors. So I believe it's
related to one of the drives or the controller - although none of those
parts are new and SMART isn't giving any errors.

I've tried doing sector scans with scandisk and HD tune and neither
turned up anything interesting. What I'm looking for is some sort of
stress test that would fail if there's a problem with the hardware, like
the other tests above do. Of course I'd also happily entertain any
other suggestions anyone might have in order to get to the bottom of
this. The only thing I'm not prepared to do is start swapping drives
out with replacements - there are 4 large drives in there, so the cost
and time of that approach would be prohibitive.

So, in summary - is there a way to test whether or not I have
reliability problems with a hard drive or controller, other than
replacing the hardware outright?

Thanks in advance,
Aaron


--
DigiNut

Here are Diagnostics Tool Diskette Creator for Windows

http://minpin.ath.cx/PUB/ware/Tools/Seagate/

SeaToolsForWindowsSetup.exe 3.72 MB This the new one for MATROX or
Seagate
MATROX.exe 2.75 MB

http://minpin.ath.cx/PUB/ware/Tools/...esterndigital/

DlgDiagv504c.exe 1.78 MB This For Western Digital

We need to know the name of your Hard Drive would have help.



"DigiNut" wrote in message
...

Hello,

Does anybody know of any tools (available for Vista x64) that can test
the stability of a hard drive or drive controller?

I'm trying to determine the cause of some blue screens, and I've
already run dozens of memory tests, Prime95, rthdribl, FurMark, etc., so
I don't think it's the memory or CPU or video, or the sound (tried
switching that). And I've noticed that just before the blue screen
there's usually a flurry of disk activity, and sometimes the disks take
a while to spin up after the subsequent reboot. Finally, one time I got
the same bugcheck but it also mentioned ataport.sys, which again would
lead me to believe it's a disk issue, but I don't think it's a driver
issue because I switched from the generic Microsoft drivers to the Intel
Matrix Storage drivers and still got the same errors. So I believe it's
related to one of the drives or the controller - although none of those
parts are new and SMART isn't giving any errors.

I've tried doing sector scans with scandisk and HD tune and neither
turned up anything interesting. What I'm looking for is some sort of
stress test that would fail if there's a problem with the hardware, like
the other tests above do. Of course I'd also happily entertain any
other suggestions anyone might have in order to get to the bottom of
this. The only thing I'm not prepared to do is start swapping drives
out with replacements - there are 4 large drives in there, so the cost
and time of that approach would be prohibitive.

So, in summary - is there a way to test whether or not I have
reliability problems with a hard drive or controller, other than
replacing the hardware outright?

Thanks in advance,
Aaron


--
DigiNut