Computer Hard Locking: Drive Error?

[Ben Dills]

Alright, so for a while my computer has been hard locking, you know - image on screen freezes and the sound infinitely loops the last 0.001 seconds resulting in a whine from the speakers. I originally assumed it was a temperature problem, so I got a bigger case with more airflow. Didn't see the problem for a while. Then it started happening again over the last two weeks. Checked Windows Event Viewer, a lot of errors just like this:

"The IO operation at logical block address 0x5e2418 for Disk 1 (PDO name: \Device\00000033) was retried."

Is the drive failing? If so, can the data be copied to a new drive safely?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, Ben Dills!

This definitely sounds pretty unfortunate, however I'd recommend you to run a diagnostics test on the drive first before assuming it is the root of the issue. Check your HDD manufacturer's website for such a tool, it will let you know what is the drive's health and SMART status. Here's a thread with some third-party suggestions as well: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility
I'd definitely perform a backup of the data on the drive somewhere else beforehand! Better safe than sorry!

Another thing I'd suggest is running some anti-virus software as well.

Keep me posted with the results!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[qazzi]

well for starters run diagnostics on your drive...download a software specific for your drive (ie.. WD=Western Digital Data Lifeguard, Seagate=Seatools and so on)
wd= http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=612&sid=3
seagate = http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/

 

[Ben Dills]

I may have found a solution. I'll update if I know more.

 

[Ben Dills]

Okay so according to the Hitachi/ HGST tool, my drive's fine. However, other people are saying that they're getting the error because of "out of date Intel drivers". So I go to their website to grab the latest Intel drivers, and they have a handy tool for getting them. I download it and it tells me it can't find any drivers for "Windows 8.1 with Media Center", so I try looking manually. No option to select operating system. So... It seems like it doesn't like my Media Center? The only other place I had the necessary drivers was my motherboard's CD (I probably should've used this CD when I first installed the OS, but with how long it took me to get Windows 8.1 to stop screwing with me I wasn't in the mood for more installing, I digress - that's another story) , so I grabbed that out of my closet and installed the Intel SMART Storage and Engine Management stuff, hoping that was it. I haven't hard locked since, but I'm still getting similar errors in Event Viewer, so I'm not sure how long that's gonna last. An educated guess as to why all of this is a problem is that the 1TB drive in question is rather old and more than likely has some issues with Windows 8.1 in general, leading to my predicament. This is based on speculation and information gathered from what little I could find on the error.