SOLVED To reinstall or not?

[catilley1092]

I've had some problems recently, namely Windows Explorer not working, and a system restore makes matters worse. I've ran disk checks (chkdsk /r) tried "sfc /spannow", it comes on and goes out in a flash, even ran as admin.

The restore point left some programs that I uninstalled back on, with no way to uninstall, neither CCleaner, Revo or the default Windows uninstaller doesn't even see the programs, yet I can click onto them.

Looks like it's time for a fresh install. Fortunately, when I did the last install, I done a backup with Acronis True Image, with no optional programs installed, except I already applied my Anytime Upgrade to Pro. Other than that, it's a fresh backup.

Would it be best to revert to this, or a total clean recovery install? Too, I have Mint on separate partitions, this is my issue: Would it be best to put that on a drive by itself, and have Windows 7 on it's own drive? Mint can be run by USB connection.

Also, I'd like to know how to create a data partition, to separate my files from my OS. I know how to do it with Linux, but not Windows.

One other concern, I've already activated all 3 of my ESET NOD32 installs, one of which was on this install, as well as one Windows Virtual PC (XP Media Center). Can I reinstall it using my original key?

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cat

 

[Mychael]

One other concern, I've already activated all 3 of my ESET NOD32 installs, one of which was on this install, as well as one Windows Virtual PC (XP Media Center). Can I reinstall it using my original key?
Cat

Cat, Before I purchased my copy of ESET I emailed the Australian retailer to ask if my one license purchase would allow installation on my two operating systems. They told me that was ok on a single user purchase so I'm guessing you should not have issues re-installing it on your system. As long as your the sole/single user it sounds to me as if they don't have an issue.

Mike

 

[yodap]

To me the logical order would be to try the images first.(It's quicker) and either way you have to install the programs.

 

[catilley1092]

I probably will try the image first. What I'm still trying to do is determine the cause, so that whatever is, hopefully I can prevent it.

What's happening is that Windows Explorer is freezing upon launching certain apps, such as Glary Utilities (I was only using the disk analysis, looking for unneeded virtual disks that didn't remove upon deletion of the VM), so that I could delete them. Upon running the program, the files would display, then freeze. It reported that Windows Explorer had stopped working. Sometimes it happens with ImgBurn, too. It'll freeze for a few seconds, then do it's job. And the last couple of days, I couldn't get flash & backup drives to safely remove w/o shutting down first. It reported that a program was still accessing them, although 5 minutes had passed after using them.

I used a recent restore point to fix the drive release issue, however I had to fix some things afterwards. There were a couple of programs that I had removed, and although they were there, and I could use them, I could not remove them again. So I reinstalled them, then removed them, and that worked.

There's also another issue at hand. When I did the restore point this morning, I jumped into the shower, and when I came back, it had rebooted, into Linux Mint, and it was doing a very long disk check, after 3 hours of waiting for it to finish, I finally hit the "C" key to abort it. This is not the first time that it checked the disk, it done a short one mid last week (about 4 days ago). That's an entirely different OS, on it's own partitions, it's main (/), my home (/home) and swap (4GB, equal to the installed RAM. Linux users know how this partitioning setup works.

Now, with this in mind, could it be a weird coincidence, or am I developing drive issues? The S.M.A.R.T. data is fine. Acronis Drive Monitor reports a "minor" error, "volsnap", event ID 16. The only revelant info that I can find is here:

The link didn't work.


I'm thinking of backing up what I have, then swapping HDD's. I have that 1TB Caviar Black that WD sent me after I RMA'd the 750GB one that I bought from Newegg. I've been using it as a backup drive. What I can do, is use my OEM drive (a 320GB Caviar Blue) to do the backup, wipe the Caviar Black, then reinstall the backup onto it. Then use the 1TB Samsung (that I'm using now) as the backup, I would like to return it, but there's no bad S.M.A.R.T. data to report, it's quiet, in fact quieter than the Caviar Black, which is why I'm using it. The Samsung can be the backup drive.

I don't want to clone, as if there are any issues with the drive, I don't want to carry them to the other.

And honestly, I don't really know what to do. But I need to do something, computer issues (just as auto ones), don't heal on it's own. If it does, it'll be a first. But 2 different OS's of different brands throwing a fit necessitates action.

Cat

 

[etalmar]

Cat,

Perhaps the freezing issues have something to do with the recent installation of SP1? There could be some incompatibility issues. If so, I doubt that a rollback to a previous restore point would alleviate all of the errors, as I've noticed that restore points are nothing like the old Win98 days, whereby the rollback was more complete, not a basic restoration of certain files. That is one of the very few annoyances that I've encountered with Win7.

Since you've observed that the same freezing problem is occurring with two different OS, I would suggest swapping the HDD, as it is most likely having some issues. Could be defective or may have been hit by malware.

Good luck and I hope you resolve the problem soon.

 

[catilley1092]

Thanks, etalmar, It's weird, I've had SP1 since early January w/o any negative issues to report, except for the install time. The thing is, the signs are showing more now, on both OS's. There are either file system errors, however chkdsk /r showed it to be clean. Windows 7 has been scanned with numerous products to detect malware (in the last 2 days), and NOD32 is my AV. No infections at all.

Mint, which has no association with 7, is performing disk checks, the last time that a Linux OS started doing this, BAM! My HDD was shot within a matter of days, as my drive began to "lose" files. But this HDD was purchased last Sept. Right now, I'm doing the last test on the drive that I can think of, a surface test, using MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition, which is in the Free Software Database on this forum. It's 44% complete, with no errors, but this is just a "read error" test. I'm just trying to determine a cause.

If by chance it's the drive, it won't be the first time that a new drive failed me. I bought that Caviar Black last spring, only to RMA it a few months later.

Personally, I believe that these huge HDD's are more for storage than for daily use. MS even released an update for HDD's that are 2TB in size, to address reliability issues. They're getting too large, too fast, and are extremely cheap per GB of space at the higher capacities. I paid $59.99 for it at Newegg. A small 100GB IDE HDD for my notebook costs more than that.

Plus my defrag program (Perfect Disk Pro) has to run non-stop just to keep it defragged. It's set to auto defrag, as recommended. But it has over 460GB to keep in line.

If things don't go right with the Caviar Black, I'll just put my stock drive (a 320GB Caviar Blue) back in. I've spent a lot of cash on HDD's that are just giving problems, only to be designated as backup drives.

Cat

 

[etalmar]

I agree about the external HDD quality in general. Speaking of that, I am getting ready to purchase a 1TB LaCie or Iomega Prestige to use for backup system images only. I chose both of those models because they come with an on-off switch, which I prefer, as I will just shut it off when I'm not using it, instead of having to constantly pull out the USB plug with a WD or other similar model. All external HDDs should come with an on-off switch and I cannot believe how lax hardware manufacturers have become by omitting such a simple but very important product feature (IMHO).

I have no intention of using the external HDD on a daily basis, only for weekly or maybe even bi-weekly backups, as I usually do not download too many new programs or make frequent system changes. I learned the hard way from tweaking my Win98 desktop too often that you eventually pay the price of a major system crash when you tweak too much.

Yes, I understand that Mint is a Linux OS, but I was just commenting about SP1 in general. I am going to put off downloading SP1 until I am forced to do so, as I do not see the need for it just yet. I have never been one to rush to quickly install any SP. I'll wait until it has been out for awhile and the bug and glitch reports have been posted.

 

[catilley1092]

My backup drive has a power switch on it, too. What I done was bought a drive, then a case to mount it in. You can find many 1TB HDD's on sale for $60-70, and a case for $25 or so. It has it's own PSU, so it's not draining my computer's resources.

However, even with a power switch, I was taught to use the Safe Removal option, I may be in the wrong on that, but I was told that can cause data loss, and is hard on parts. I may have misunderstood, but as I was learned, that power switch is only to be used after successfully selecting Safe Removal.

As far as SP1 goes, it's been good by me, but others have reported issues, and I cannot discount their views, I suppose it depends on the computer in question. What may work for me may trash another's OS, and vice versa. A single solution isn't for everyone, if it were, we'd all be doing it, with no issues.

So if anyone were to ask me if installing SP1 is right for them, I'd have to say "How would I know?" I'm neutral in that regard. I run what I want on my computers, and others can run what they want. The only thing that I can report is my experience, it may not produce the same for another.

I hope that your choice of HDD's turns out better than mine did.

Cat

 

[etalmar]

Not intentionally trying to hijack this thread into an external HDD discussion, but I too have read that you should treat an external drive as you would a flash drive and always use the safe removal procedure to properly disconnect it from your system. Then you can turn off the external drive, If you do not follow that procedure you will definitely risk data loss.

Conversely, I also read that you should always turn on the external HDD before you power up your desktop or laptop.
http://www.techieask.com/2010/09/shut-down-your-external-hard-drive-when-not-in-use/

I also agree that a power adapter is the way to go. That and the on-off switch were the two main prerequisites for my HDD decision. I do not want any device pulling on my system that hard, especially through a USB port, as I frequently use flash drives to move files from my desktop to laptop and do not want data transfer slowing down any more than it already does. My desktop still has the older USB 2.0 ports, not the newer 3.0 standard.

I've been reading so much about external HDDs and have come to the conclusion that they all have potential reliability issues to varying degrees, so I'll just pick one from the NewEgg site and see how it works out.

I hope that you sort out your HDD freeze issues and find the source of the problem.

 

[catilley1092]

Well, the surface test that I ran reported no issues, that was good. However, there's more to the HDD than it's surface. It's getting late, I'll backup, and come up with a plan of action in the morning.

Still I wonder if I should be dualbooting with Mint, and how well do these TB sized drives holdup as your daily drive. I suppose I'll soon know the answer to that, as I'm jumping from one TB drive to another.

Cat

 

[Nibiru2012]

Regardless of the size of the HDD, you can run them 24/7 with no problems, I have had no issues at all doing it this way.

IDE HDD are more expensive now because no one is making them anymore! Very old technology. Also you must remember that 2.5" HDD for laptops are more expensive for the same size versus 3.5" HDD. It's always been that way, probably because a lot more 3.5" HDD are sold versus 2.5" HDD.

Regarding defragging a hard drive. For storage drives, you really only need to defrag them on a monthly or bi-weekly basis. To do it more often is really not necessary. Defragging OS hard drives really only need to be done on a weekly basis. Anymore than that just places unnecessary strain on the hard drive.

Of ALL the hard drives I have owned over the past 11 years I have only had two go south on me. One was the IBM Deskstar drive of the infamous release IBM did in 2002 where there were over 60% failure rates of the drives due to the way IBM had configured the way the sectors were laid out on the platters. The other was a generic white label I used for miscellaneous purposes, it lasted 7 months! It was a 40GB, but only cost $15.00.

 

[catilley1092]

So can I turn off Perfect Disk's auto mode, and still be good? It auto defrags (as you probably already know) whenever the system is idle, or you can also choose screen saver mode. I don't use a screen saver, unless we have guests, to prevent anyone from using the computer while grilling, etc. Once monthly, I do the boot time option, to defrag the page & system files.

As far as solving my issue is going, I'm wiping the Caviar Black (w/only 1 sweep), once it completes, I'm going to install that fresh backup to it. I should have thought to do this last night, as it's taking a lot of time. It will use about half of the drive (around 460GB). When I done the original install, with my recovery discs, which gives you no option as to configure your HDD space, that's as far as it would shrink. Being that I have to reinstall my programs anyway, I figured that would be the best way to go, as yodap suggested.

Once this is done, can I create a data partition on the free space of the drive, or does that have to be done during the install of the OS? I'm leaving Linux on the drive that it's already on, and will just delete the Windows 7 partition, format it, and use it as extra backup space. Linux runs fine on USB, as long as one has a fast drive.

As to why I want to create a data partition, I figure that if my files (especially my VM's) could be on another partition, then my OS would probably perform better, and not need to defragged much at all. Having VM's installed makes it harder to defrag properly. They each have their own defrag tool installed (Auslogics), I keep them defragged as I use them. But my "C" partition (which now contains them) is difficult to keep in line, I suppose due to the VM's installed on it.

Thanks Nibs, for the info about the IDE drive. They are old fashioned, yet still there are many in service (from pre-Vista days, mostly). I'm glad that the SATA drives were invented.

Cat

 

[catilley1092]

OK, I've finally got the backup that I took with Acronis installed to the Caviar Black, and so far, so good.

However, it scared the crap out of me at first. The non genuine warning appeared, it displayed in the lower right of my screen even after I updated, which took some time. Then I used the Genuine Advantage tool that I have stored on a flash drive, a package was installed, then all was OK. This was the first time that happened to me, perhaps it was due to the backup being 4 months old.

But that was a better way to go than inserting those 3 recovery discs that I made all over again.

After I removed MSE, I installed ESET, so I'm good there.

I'm now installing SP1, this time from Windows Update. I have the SP's for both 32 & 64 bit on a flash drive, but after seeing that it's only a 87.2MB download, I decided to go that way.

I'm wondering why SP1 from Windows Update is so much smaller than the ones that have on my flash drive? Anyone else notice this besides me?

And finally, my desktop is starting & running like new again. I must have had too much junk installed on my prior install, which I'm saving "just in case". I believe that those VM's had to do with it, as I could never, after installing them, even using Perfect Disk, get my drive defragged to acceptable levels. So I'm going to run a minimum amount of software for a bit, and whenever I add something, see how it acts.

Thanks to all who has contrubited to this thread.

Cat