NationStates Jolt Archive

Alright. So last night I put my computer on standby, leave it sit for the night, as usual. I wake up this morning, pack it in my bag and set off for the school I go to, as they are the only place I know that has wireless internet today (I'm in Italy right now, and commerce mostly stops on the weekends). I start it up, it initially works fine, and after I help someone with a printer jam I come back over to it and it has some weird error on the screen; I don't remember exactly what it was but I just hit okay. Then it changes a registry value, and my mouse isn't working right, so I decide to restart it.

Thats when things get bad.

Almost immediatly after getting out of Windows it BSODs, saying something about the kernel. I'm fairly accustomed to the BSODs on this particular computer as it usually does that if it's been running hard and hot for a long time, so I pull the power and the battery and then replace them, turning it back on. I then spend the next hour or so watching as it gets past the bios, then gets to a screen like what you get when you resume from hibernation, with one catch - there is no text but there is the progress bar. Initially it gets part of the way on that bar and then restarts. I wrestle it into finally completing the progress bar, and it gets to the XP startup screen, but takes forever to get past that. Finally I get the OS to start up, and run chkdsk, and get the kiss of death:

File record segment xxxx is unreadable.

It says this for three particular "series" of numbers - the 3000s, 7000s, and 12000s. Would this indicate more hardware damage or software damage, and in either case how can it get fixed?

Okay, I know not of any of the possible damage, but I can tell you one thing: you don't leave your computer on "standby" all night all the time. Standby just uses 60% or so of the normal amount of power, and is wasteful and potentially damaging over long periods of time. If you're not using your computer, shut it down completely. You not only help your computer prevent damage through overuse, but you save power and money. Trust me, I know from experience, as no doubt do many others here.

It's a hardware problem. Specifically, your HDD is dying. I'd suggest you pull your current HDD, put in a new, install XP on it, connect the dying HDD as a slave, copy over whatever's salvageable, and send the dying drive off to the manyfacturer/repair guys/scrapheap.

There's really nothing else you can do at this point. I strongly suggest you don't try to use the dying drive other than as mentioned. Chances are you're conna aggrivate the problem by using it, so you might just lose what's left before you have a chance to try saving it.

The good news is it shouldn't be able to fuck up the rest of your HW. The bad news, of course, is that it might be PSU or cooling related, in which case the rest of your HW's still in danger.

EDIT:

Okay, I know not of any of the possible damage, but I can tell you one thing: you don't leave your computer on "standby" all night all the time. Standby just uses 60% or so of the normal amount of power, and is wasteful and potentially damaging over long periods of time. If you're not using your computer, shut it down completely. You not only help your computer prevent damage through overuse, but you save power and money. Trust me, I know from experience, as no doubt do many others here.No computer should ever be put in standby mode. Laptops should be turned off when they aren't in use. It doesn't really matter with PCs, though they're technically better off if you keep them turned on permanently.

that reminds me that i really need to buy a new hdd for backup....

Your computer is attempting to communicate with you. It is trying to tell you that you need to learn more about computers. *nod*

No computer should ever be put in standby mode. Laptops should be turned off when they aren't in use. It doesn't really matter with PCs, though they're technically better off if you keep them turned on permanently.

That's what I said. And what exactly makes PCs better off if you leave them turned on permenantly?

It seems the problem is as bad as I had feared. Thank you all for the advice! It is a laptop, and it does have heating problems, so leaving it on all the time isn't feasible. This basically means I won't be doing much of anything til the summer... *sigh*

LG, I know a damn site more about computers than most people, so either put up and offer actual, helpful advice or keep your wiseacre comments to yourself.

LG, I know a damn site more about computers than most people, so either put up and offer actual, helpful advice or keep your wiseacre comments to yourself.

Is there an option C? :p

Your english is too good for you to be drunk, so I guess you're just always this irksome.

Your english is too good for you to be drunk, so I guess you're just always this irksome.

Yes. It's in my job descripton. If it's any consolation, I try to avoid giving unhelpful advice in threads like this until someone has already given helpful advice. Then I invade for comic relief. :)

Your english is too good for you to be drunk, so I guess you're just always this irksome.

Lunatic Goofballs is, well, goofy. He jokes constantly and adds a flair to humour everywhere around us. He's good at it and has been at it for quite some time, so my personal suggestion is for you to simply accept it as it is. He's certainly not going to stop on your part. (Note that this is friendly advice. Sometimes I seem to be unable to phrase things properly to imply that specific impression, so I must add these notes.)

Yes. It's in my job descripton. If it's any consolation, I try to avoid giving unhelpful advice in threads like this until someone has already given helpful advice. Then I invade for comic relief. :)

Keep up the good work.:)

Your english is too good for you to be drunk, so I guess you're just always this irksome.

Stop being so uptight.

That's what I said.It wasn't critique, just a clarification. And what exactly makes PCs better off if you leave them turned on permenantly?It is a laptop, and it does have heating problems, so leaving it on all the time isn't feasible.Laptops aren't designed for prolonged and/or resource intensive use. When you make shit that small and light, you sacrifice durability of the mechanical bits, as well as cooling. That's why they should be turned off, rather than kept on.

PCs have no such problems, thus it's theoretically better to keep them turned on, so the warm bits don't keep expanding and contracting. The actual wear is negligible, however, and extremely unlikely to be an issue within the lifetime of a normal PC.

Keep up the good work.:)

I have found my niche. :)

It wasn't critique, just a clarification.

PCs have no such problems, thus it's theoretically better to keep them turned on, so the warm bits don't keep expanding and contracting. The actual wear is negligible, however, and extremely unlikely to be an issue within the lifetime of a normal PC.

Aye, and I wasn't complaining. It was more of a reflex to say something like that. No harm done.

Of course, that would be why...it might explain something, too...but anyway, thank you for the information.

Okay, I know not of any of the possible damage, but I can tell you one thing: you don't leave your computer on "standby" all night all the time. Standby just uses 60% or so of the normal amount of power, and is wasteful and potentially damaging over long periods of time. If you're not using your computer, shut it down completely. You not only help your computer prevent damage through overuse, but you save power and money. Trust me, I know from experience, as no doubt do many others here.

For a PC (especially a laptop) this isn't the case, as all the power hungry components (CPU, graphics and disks) are actually powered down (and there's no reason not to turn off the monitor, too). Only the memory and things are kept powered, and whilst that'll use some electricity it won't be nearly 60%; it's designed to keep laptops running on batteries for days. Of course, if you're in a position to just shut it down then you might as well. Or there's always Hibernate.
Hibernate writes the contents of memory to disk and then shuts everything down, so there'll be no more power draw there than if you turned it off normally. 'Course, it seems to take longer than just booting from cold for me, and it's buggy, so I'd still just turn it off.

Actually, the only way to guarantee a modern ATX PC is drawing no power is to turn it off with the switch on the back of the PSU or at the wall plug.


And as for if the OP's HDD dilemma; it might be that some software went buggy and did nasty things to the disk, it might be that the disk is dying. Either way back up everything important from the disk ASAP.
If checkdisk fixes problems and then, after a wee while, they pop up again it's probably a duff disk. But are you really wanting to risk it? I'd just get a new one (after backing up the current one) if I were you.

Aye, and I wasn't complaining. It was more of a reflex to say something like that. No harm done.All's quiet on the western front then :p Of course, that would be why...it might explain something, tooI'm guessing here, but if that's your way of saying "Oh, he prolly kilt his HDD by leaving the laptop in standby mode all the time", then I'm inclined to agree, as he wouldn't be the first. It's too bad we don't make the technical limitations of our shit obvious to eachother.

If you had a mac/used linux none of this would have happened. I blame Bill Gates, personally.

If you had a mac/used linux none of this would have happened. I blame Bill Gates, personally.mac and linux prevent harddrive damage?

I'm sorry if I seem a little uptight, it's just that the possibility of losing my computer, overseas, halfway through a term has me a little on edge.

To the posters who would turn this into a Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux debate, please, don't. I have enough to worry about without dealing with fanboys.

What I don't understand is how standby will wear out the HD. I'm pretty sure the only thing under power when it's in standby mode is the RAM as everything else shuts down.

Current situation is that it is checking for errors - it's been finding a lot of stuff and giving the impression that things are being 'fixed' but of course one can never know with Window's error-checking programs.

mac and linux prevent harddrive damage?

Yeah, it's a well known fact that using a mac or linux protects you from 100% of computer problems. It's because they're all Bill Gates' fault, and if you're not using something made by him then you'll have no problems.

mac and linux prevent harddrive damage?

The also reduce visible wrinkles in women over 40

The also reduce visible wrinkles in women over 40

It's true. They'll cure what ails you.

It's true. They'll cure what ails you.

Linux geeks never age, sleep with the best chicks, own billion dollar companies, drive fancy cars and own the Internet!