Avoid corrupting your HD data when overclocking

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Yeah this happens to me with my raid setup. I was constantly messing with overclocking and then one day when I turned on my pc it says it can't boot to windows due to some files that are missing. I thought my hd was broken but it was a corrupt so I did reinstall again. But thankfully no important files that went went missing just the os and games.
 
Even if you do not OC - HAVE A BACKUP!!!!!!

Even if it's only to a few CDRs or something, hard disks die, and if you can't afford to loose the data have a backup...
 
Hey thanks guys. You guys are great. That's why I love THG. A lot of great info here and friendly people, for the most part.

I had a flashback this afternoon about a HD that was lying in a draw, an old IDE HD, I think a Seagate. I need to double check that. Maybe I will just install that if it's big enough, and use it as a backup source for now. No real usage, just like you said, for dupes. That Folder Matching idea is FANTASTIC! I've been looking for something like that. You're a machine!

Thanks again guys. Much appreciated.

FishBoi, over and out! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

PS. See you on FEAR tonight!
 
PS. My Thermalright Ultra 120 is on the way. I'l be back here soon for some OC'ing advice. This whole thing has been quite a journey for me!

CHAT SOON!
 
When I got my C2D recently I got some flaky memory - so when I was copying from my old HDD to my new one some of the files got corrupted. I suspect that any data that passes through the memory/CPU is liable to get corrupted. If it the corrupted data doesn't get written then a re-boot will fix, but if it gets written then you've got permanent corruption. Prime candidates are things like the registry, and any large data files that you might be working on. I RMA'd the memory, formatted the HDDs, and reinstalled Windows.
 
Be careful with backups - because if you continually discard/overwrite old ones you could get stuck if it takes a while to work out that you've got a corrupt file. If you're concerned about data, then either be paranoid about backing up with historicals as well as recent - and don't OC to the limit.
 
As others have noted, overclocking corrupts the OS install and does not destroy the HD.

The easiest and least expensive route would be to partition your drive. One partition for the OS, one partition for the Programs and one partition for your Data. True, you often have to re-install your Programs when you re-install your OS, but you still get to keep your saved games. You can even keep the OS partition small, say about 7.5GBs (or smaller) and use TweakUI to re-locate all your Documents and Settings (My Documents, Desktop, etc...) folder to the Data partition. This make backup even easier as all you need to do is back up the Data and/or the Programs partition.

If the OS partition gets corrupted due to overclocking, you just re-install it. The other partitions remain intact.
 
Overclocking can and will corrupt your hard drive in specific instances, and it has nothing to do with your OS or shutting down improperly. If the bus that supplies your SATA/IDE controller runs out of spec you can most certainly have data corruption. I've specifically had this happen to me, and your best chances are if your motherboard is crappy and doesn't have a PCI or PCIe lock.
 
Wusy, I'm new to building so bare with me. PCI locked? 33Mhz? I've currently got everything set to default or auto in my BIOS. I read your guide, and I think I recall you saying you need to set them to 100 Mhz (not sure). Isnt that way over the stable level to avoid corruption, as you say.

Thanks. Appreciate it.
 
I found that HD that I was talking about yesterday. It's an old IDE drive, but 120 gigs! Wooohooo. I wanna connect this baby up the weekend. I assume I just plug the IDE cable onto the mobo.

With respect to your comments Wusy, do I need to set this up in any special config (adding a drive etc). I just want to have it as another drive, no RAID etc.

Does this affect your recommendations in any way (will have just 1 SATA and 1 IDE drive now).

THANKS!
 
Thanks for the reminder. I think I have a seperate IDE cable for this one, that goes strait onto the mobo (dont need to put it on the CD ROM one).
 
It has been my experience that if you want to avoid corrupting your hard drive when overclocking,overclock the processor first,then install your os.if windows has an issue,it won't let you install as you'll get the blue screen of death(BSOD).Otherwise your machine should run just fine once you have installed the os.Just a recommendation,that's how i fixed the issues i had.well most of them anyways.I did have to replace a 512 stick of CORSAIR EXTREME OC memory on one occasion.My fault really,I BOUGHT USED.lol.Don't mind me,I've just had bad luck buying second hand hardware,including 3 amd processors.My early years of building comps.Learned a lot since.this forum being of good help the last two years.(that's how long it took me to hear about this place)lol.Anyways,try as i've suggested,it may work for you.Goodluck.

Dahak

AMD X2-4400+@2.4 S-939
EVGA NF4 SLI MB
2X7800GT IN SLI
2X1GIG DDR IN DC MODE
WD300GIG HD
EXTREME 19IN.MONITOR 1280X1024
ACE 520WATT PSU
 
I'll bite.

EDIT: Whoops, my bad. I've had a few beers and didn't notive POOWAD's rather weak attempt at self satisfaction.

I apologize for the interuption. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

/bump
 
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