Doogie2K
12-10-2010, 11:57 PM
Flash back to last week. I'm using ConvertXtoDVD to make some discs for my family (we missed a lot of TV shows due to my mom being in Ontario for seven weeks), and trying to start up WMC to watch movies on the Xbox. Now, Convert had been done for some time, so I closed it while WMC was opening. Convert freezes. I try to close, blue screen. I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, and all hell breaks loose.
Neither Convert or WMC will open, citing busted DLLs. I ultimately learn that DirectX is fucked, so I try reinstalling. Won't go; says files are corrupt. Try doing a Restore to three or four days earlier. Won't go; says files are corrupt. Try doing a hard drive scan. Rebuilds the file system. Rad. Try Restore again. Won't go; says files are corrupt. Run a deep scan with WD and Seagate drive tools overnight. Nothing. What the fuck.
So I restore the hard drive image I made a few weeks back. Bingo, everything works again. Except, when I boot, I have one of three scenarios:
1) Everything works fine.
2) It detects the hard drives fine, hangs for a while, then tries and fails to load Windows (I sit on the Loading Windows screen without any shiny coloured lights morphing into the Windows logo).
3) It won't even fucking detect my hard drives.
The typical scenario seems to be 3-2-1, in that order, though sometimes I'll get 2-1, 3-2-3-1, and other combinations thereof (one time, it detected Channel 0 but not Channel 1, so my external and DVD didn't load), and when I try to shut down, it will randomly hang on shutdown, much like it did on my old computer, which I later established to be incompatible with Windows 7. Now, clearly, there's nothing wrong with Windows 7 on my computer, because it's worked fine for about a year now. But I am beginning to wonder if there's a problem with my hard drive controller. It seems like a clear hard-drive-related problem (oh, and I also sometimes get random hard-drive activity well beyond normal Windows operation), but there's nothing wrong with the discs, so the controller seems to be the next logical option. Is there anything else you can think of that would cause this?
Oh, and also, when I ran the Steam update on my AMD drivers, I now randomly experience flickering in the screen. It'll just flick to something else for maybe a tenth of a second at random intervals every few minutes while in Windows. Nothing in games, though. Dunno if that's just a problem with the Steam AMD drivers or indicative of a larger motherboard problem, since the video card is fresh from the manufacturer. Or if I'm just being imaginative.
Neither Convert or WMC will open, citing busted DLLs. I ultimately learn that DirectX is fucked, so I try reinstalling. Won't go; says files are corrupt. Try doing a Restore to three or four days earlier. Won't go; says files are corrupt. Try doing a hard drive scan. Rebuilds the file system. Rad. Try Restore again. Won't go; says files are corrupt. Run a deep scan with WD and Seagate drive tools overnight. Nothing. What the fuck.
So I restore the hard drive image I made a few weeks back. Bingo, everything works again. Except, when I boot, I have one of three scenarios:
1) Everything works fine.
2) It detects the hard drives fine, hangs for a while, then tries and fails to load Windows (I sit on the Loading Windows screen without any shiny coloured lights morphing into the Windows logo).
3) It won't even fucking detect my hard drives.
The typical scenario seems to be 3-2-1, in that order, though sometimes I'll get 2-1, 3-2-3-1, and other combinations thereof (one time, it detected Channel 0 but not Channel 1, so my external and DVD didn't load), and when I try to shut down, it will randomly hang on shutdown, much like it did on my old computer, which I later established to be incompatible with Windows 7. Now, clearly, there's nothing wrong with Windows 7 on my computer, because it's worked fine for about a year now. But I am beginning to wonder if there's a problem with my hard drive controller. It seems like a clear hard-drive-related problem (oh, and I also sometimes get random hard-drive activity well beyond normal Windows operation), but there's nothing wrong with the discs, so the controller seems to be the next logical option. Is there anything else you can think of that would cause this?
Oh, and also, when I ran the Steam update on my AMD drivers, I now randomly experience flickering in the screen. It'll just flick to something else for maybe a tenth of a second at random intervals every few minutes while in Windows. Nothing in games, though. Dunno if that's just a problem with the Steam AMD drivers or indicative of a larger motherboard problem, since the video card is fresh from the manufacturer. Or if I'm just being imaginative.