Crazy Crashes

[WarmMachineME]

My comp is giving me some interesting problems lately.

Crash #1
Sometimes right when I boot up and everything has (presumably) loaded, I would get two "encountered an error" boxes back to back. One for windows explorer, and another for Dr. Watson. When I closed them, if I tried to do or run anything else, it immediately gave me the errors again. My only fix thus far is to keep restarting until I get lucky and it doesn't happen, like a slot machine or somesuch. Call me impulsive, but I also tried removing the files associated with Dr. Watson just to see what would happen. I didn't get the errors for it anymore, but the explorer ones still happen on bad days.

Crash #2
I've recently discovered that I can't defrag my hard drive. I get a lovely "Disk Defragmenter NTFS Module has encountered blah blah blah..."
I really hate that, since I really need a defrag. It happens whether I run it from the standard windows gui or if I enter the command in the command prompt.

I'm at a loss. I run several different spy-, ad-, and malware scans regularly along with my normal virus scanning. Ideas?

[Cricket]

You might want to run a memory tester like Memtest86+.

Cricket

[jayb1234]

It could be system file/s that got messed up.

What version of windows are you using?

If XP try running the system file checker.

From the run box on the start menu enter sfc /scannow and if it prompts you for the xp disk, put it in and hit exit when the screen with the options opens.

It will repair any bad files and just close by itself when it is finished.

When it is done reboot and see if the problem is fixed.

[WarmMachineME]

Well, here's the update.

Memtest86+ found no errors. System file checker did ask for the CD, and apparently restored some dll. Upon restart, the computer would not boot at all. Black screen. A couple tries and a little waiting produced a blue screen saying that something was wonky with my display drivers. So I went into safe mode, uninstalled them, and the machine started ok. Then I reinstalled the display drivers - was due for an update anyhow, I suppose.

Oh, and disk defragmenter still crashes.

[Cricket]

Have you tried running the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility yet?

Have you tried replacing the hard drive data cable yet?

Cricket

[WarmMachineME]

The Maxtor diagnostic scan turned up no errors. Defrag still crashed afterwards.

However, after I switched out the cable, I was able to run defrag without it crashing, finally. Looks like that might have been the problem. Meanwhile, the defrag ran, but it didn't work very well. It "finished" way too soon, imo, and there's still lots of red on the analysis. Guess I need to go find a 3rd party program to do it.

Anyhow, thanks for all the suggestions. Even the ones that didn't quite work this time will be good to remember next time something goes wrong. Hopefully, the wierd errors are over for awhile.

[glc]

How much free space is on the hard drive? If it's close to full, no defragger is going to do a good job.

[WarmMachineME]

13%

And I've got new problems now. Well, firstly, I experience another crash, but not any of the ones that have been happening. Some "management module" or what have you.

Also, ever since I changed the data cable, whenever I boot something called the Intel Boot Agent FE sits and waits for a minute or two. Seems to be waiting on some DHCP thing before moving on.

At this point, I'd just wipe the hard drive, reinstall, and start fresh. Unfortunately, God only knows what I've done with the code for my copy of XP...

[macko72]

My friend had almost identical problem and the only thing that realy helped him was using recovery console and using FIXMBR or was it FIXBOOT or both but his comp was working fine afterwards!!!
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a communications protocol that lets network administrators manage and automate the assignment of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in an organization's network. DHCP allows devices to connect to a network and be automatically assigned an IP address.
http://www.intel.com/support/network/sb/cs-008018.htm

[glc]

13%? You need to do a major cleanup or get a bigger hard drive.

[WarmMachineME]

Well, I've since removed some items (that I know I'll end up installing again in the future, but c'est la vie) and I'm up to 20gb of free space, that's 25%. Defrag isn't doing any better of a job. I run it again and again, but the files never get any less fragmented, according to the analysis.

But that's just an offshoot of a larger issue here, I believe, which is I need to cut my losses and start planning on wiping the thing, yeah?

[glc]

Download CCleaner and do a full cleanup.

[WarmMachineME]

I had done that before creating the topic. I hate useless junk sitting I'm not using cluttering up my computer.

It's a great program. Does a better job than some "cleaning" programs for sale out there.