Hard Drive Failure?

[Phils747]

Hello, kast night this message popped up on my screen: "The system had detected a problem with one or more installed IDE/SATA Hard Disks. It is recommended that you restart the system." I ran a virus scan and it didn't find anything wrong, but this messages keeps coming up. It seems that other than the constant messages, my computer is running okay, just a tad slower than normal. Does anyone know of any way I can troubleshoot it? Please let me know if you do. Thank you very much.

[bostonwayno]

Its prob a failing hard drive and not a virus/spyware....

Step #1: IMMEDIATELY back up anything on your computer than you would be upset if lost - burn to a CD or copy to flash drive ASAP!!!

Step #2: (After backup has been taken) - Click START - RUN - type CMD - press ENTER key. In the black box that opens type: chkdsk /F and then press ENTER key.

This will prompt you to reboot the system and it will run a checkdisk and look for errors and attempt to fix them. If any errors are found Windows will attempt to repair them. If it cannot Windows will attempt to move the data to a new area of the drive.

Although in my experience once drives begin to fail they typically will get progressively worse with time. Honestly you should replace the drive outright. Call the vendor too - you may have a valid warranty where they will replace the drive for no cost - Dell is real good about this ... not so with HP.

Good luck bud ..

[Phils747]

I tried the chkdsk/f and it said I do not have sufficient privileges to do that and I have to invoke this utility in elevated mode. I'm not sure what that means?

[bostonwayno]

I tried the chkdsk/f and it said I do not have sufficient privileges to do that and I have to invoke this utility in elevated mode. I'm not sure what that means?

It means you are running Windows 7 and UAC is blocking command prompt from running under the context of an administrator account. Try it again - this time after you type CMD you will see the application appear at the top of the search ... from here right click the icon and choose "Run as administrator"

Follow the rest of the steps from before - you are now 'elevated' and won't see that message.

Remember - make your backup first!!!!!

For more info google the following: 'Run check disk in windows 7'

[Kahnadah]

Hello, kast night this message popped up on my screen: "The system had detected a problem with one or more installed IDE/SATA Hard Disks. It is recommended that you restart the system." I ran a virus scan and it didn't find anything wrong, but this messages keeps coming up. It seems that other than the constant messages, my computer is running okay, just a tad slower than normal. Does anyone know of any way I can troubleshoot it? Please let me know if you do. Thank you very much.

It sounds like it's Adware. I think it's for a program called Windows Fix Disk or WindowsFixDisk, and it pops up with fake alerts to get you to buy their "solutions". I'd need a bit more info, but that's my best bet. There are some links below about this.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/viru...windowsfixdisk

http://about-threats.trendmicro.com/...TROJ_FAKEAL.CG (This link isn't the problem you have, but is close.)

Can you take a screen grab of the error message it gives you?

James

[Phils747]

Ok, I'll try to do Run as Administrator and see if that works. I'll see if I can take a screen grab of it. Thank you both very mch for your help.

[Phils747]

I tried to Run as Administrator and it said: "The type of file system is NTFS. Cannot lock current drive." and then it said: "Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts, Yes or No." Should I pick one of those then?

[bostonwayno]

I tried to Run as Administrator and it said: "The type of file system is NTFS. Cannot lock current drive." and then it said: "Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts, Yes or No." Should I pick one of those then?

You should pick YES and the PC will reboot and run check disk (pre-windows login). You should back up your data FIRST before running check disk.

To Kahnadah's point there are lots of malware that throw up bogus alerts - a screencap of the exact message you are seeing would help to pin it down. Good scanners to run are: "Malwarebytes" and "ComboFix"

Anything with the word Symantec or Norton is garbage.

[CYmarlins]

I think its just a failing drive. The smart thing to do is just create a backup of all your data.

How long have u had ur hard drive for? What manufacturer?

[Phils747]

I ran the chkdsk/f and it scanned through my files and found nothing wrong, but the message still pops up. I tried to take a screenshot of it and the program won't let me do that. CYmarlins- I bought my computer in December 2009 and it's an HP. Kahnadah- I'll try one of the links then and see if I can get it cleared. Is there anything anyone else knows to try?