I am haveing a real problem

[justleftlife]

So my computer works to a certain point.

This is what happens, I boot up and start doing somethings like I ran ASUS's PC Probe and then i tryed to install Doom3. well the hard drive starts to click and them the computer freezes and goes to the the blue screen. It says KERNAL_DATA_ something or another i cant really remember right now. but i know it has to do something with cache or shadowing. what that is i dont know. I really just want tthe computer to work right so any help will be great thanks!

[Slug Toy]

ok, first off i want to say im not great on the coding end of computers, i flunked out of first year comp-sci (how humbling). im good with other things though... honest!

the only reason im posting this is because as soon as i saw "kernel" it made me think operating system. i dont know if games like doom 3 have anything to do with kernels, but i do hear that a lot of operating systems. ive also never heard of games getting you to the blue screen unless you really run your computer into the ground on a regular basis.

so it might be worth a reinstall of whatever operating system you're running.

what we really need here is a software guy...

[opengswede]

So my computer works to a certain point.

This is what happens, I boot up and start doing somethings like I ran ASUS's PC Probe and then i tryed to install Doom3. well the hard drive starts to click and them the computer freezes and goes to the the blue screen. It says KERNAL_DATA_ something or another i cant really remember right now. but i know it has to do something with cache or shadowing. what that is i dont know. I really just want tthe computer to work right so any help will be great thanks!

did you manage to install Doom 3, or is it during installation that the computer died?
Can you boot now, as in, is the problem persistent?
I'm guessing you're using windows so, if you keep getting the same problem you'd also get an error code (EXXXXXXXXXXXX something). at microsoft's site you can search for that code, which may give you hints on what to do.

THat the hd is clicking doesn't necessarily mean anything. Or it could be that hd is a bit tired and needs to be changed (cranky calling of the hd in the middle of the night: "it's your turn to get up, honey").

somebody else might have better info on this though.

-.erik

[DaveW]

The HD clicking could be caused by the discs arm seeking really fast. The Kernel is pretty much the centre of the operating system, and sounds like it's completely screwed.

Try putting your windows CD in the drive, then booting from that. Then, go about instaling windows until you see the option to repair (not the first repair screen!) and set it up again.

Should that fail, then it might be worth formatting and doing a fresh install; should that also fail, then your HD must be damaged somehow.

That's my diagnoses...

-Dave

[justleftlife]

i did manage to install all of doom then after that i wanted to update FF XI and i about half through that and i got the blue screen i have writen down the codes that it gives me so i will look those up. I really hope it sheads some lite on whats going on.

[opengswede]

repeated failures at install I would guess is a harddrive problem, ie it's screwed. save what you can and get a new one. It might help to run a hd check program, norton utilities maybe?? and see if you can find specific areas that are corrupt and lock those for writing... that might save you for a while. but a new hd is probably what you need (cheaper than norton utilities anyway).

[justleftlife]

well i can bring it back to the place i got it from and they should replace it! but then again i dont know if they we will. i am going to call them when i get off in about 3 hours. they are really helpful. and so have all of you.

[opengswede]

if you got warranty left, use it. my personal experience with failing hardware is that they tend to wait until the warranty expires. had two matrox drives at work do that one week after the warranty expired. really annoying.

[sega01]

hmm... from experience i would say its the ram. the clicking from the harddrives might just be normal. before going out and getting a new harddrive try doing a memory test, most live cd linux distros have them, i know mepis has a really good memory test. most of the time BSOD's come from bad memory, or a buffer overflow in the kernel or an application.

[jdbnsn]

I have had this exact situation occur with my old motherboard, I had an ASUS A8N-SLI Premium (or deluxe, I forget exactly). It turned out to be a RAM problem just like sega01 mentioned. To get it running stable again I had to remove all but 1 stick of RAM and leave it in the default slot. You might give that a try, it couldn't hurt.

[justleftlife]

well... yesterday i changed the ram. today i took the HD back and got a new. so far so good... let me tell you in a day.... i havent let it get all sorts of hot and bothered but i have been able to install FF XI and i am in the process of updating. so if it works and i dont get any BSOD then its fixed!

[justleftlife]

So I got off work yesterday started to fiddle with my computer and got the problems again so this time i decided to run chkdsk and see if i had bad sectors on the harddrive. turns out i do. So i took the hard drive back to the shop and told them what happend. they said damn that sucks and gave me a new harddrive. but instead of giveing me an 82 gig they gave me a 160 gig and i havent had a problem yet. so since there have been no problems everything is working now to bench test! i will try to get pictures soon but my digi cam isnt all that good. i will post what i have when i can.

[opengswede]

Great news.
Always nice to hear that there are some customer service left in the world.

-.erik

[RangerDanger]

yea its prob the ram...and mot hd make a noise when ur downloading somthing....sort of a sign that its accepting the info.

[nil8]

I've only had one hard drive ever click and it was in a laptop. I've never had a 3.5" drive click from use until it was about to die. The companies that make the drives have programs to test the drives functionality. Try that.

[CanaBalistic]

when i took a WD120gb ide drive in to get checked they gave me a copy of the HD test program. Only prob was that my floppy drive didnt work so i tossed it out. check your manufacturer to see if they have a program like that. Im also pretty sure the program is brand specific.

My HDD clicks often, about once a day.

[jdbnsn]

Those test programs are posted on Maxtor and Western D's websites for free. I only mention these two because I have used them both. I have found that a few of the utilities are nonspecific, but most of them are manufacturer specific. They work great though.

[pyromaniac_yeti]

clicking drive to me means bad sectors. do a scandisk on it, then re install windows....should sort you out, my 20gig just did it...still is doing it actually but not as often...gotta get a new drive

[DaveW]

20gig? Holy hell. That's the size of my music collection!

-Dave

[xmastree]

For a good selection of diagnostic tools, try this (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/).
It has programs from the major disk manufacturers, along with plenty of motherboard diagnostic and memory test utilities.

[Rankenphile]

If you want a really good - and I mean really good - hard drive diagnostic, repair and recovery program, you can't do better than SpinRite (http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm). It's affordable ($89 for a license) and works better than anything else on the market, in my opinion.