Windows getting corrupted regularly.

[Astefy]

Hello guys!
I've been having I problem I can't seem to fix for about a week now. After a power failure my windows got corrupted. I used the windows 10 auto repair and all seemed to work well.
Two days later due to the system being very slow and a cpu usage being above 20% at idle I decided to do a clean windows install on a completely clean C drive.
Everything looked good for about two days when windows got suddenly stuck in a repair loop where I couldn't even boot in safe mode again. I reset windows using windows 10 tool and did a few tests on my hdd (chkdsk /f /r, WD utility) and RAM (memtest86 5 passes, windows memory test) who all came back with no errors.

So I'm kinda lost to where might the problem might be, I was wondering about the psu but I don't know how to test it or if it could be the culprit.

Here are my specs:
i5 6600k
Z170 pro gamer
Hyper x fury 2*8Gb ddr4
Rm750 PSU
Gtx 1070 asus strix OC
Wd 500 gb black 7200
Seagate 2tb 7200

Help me tom's hardware, you're my only hope!

 

[rhoban]

I say your boot drive is dying. Have you tried Hard Drive Sentinel?

 

[Astefy]

Gonna try that, doing a test right now.

 

[Astefy]

It'saying the hdd is healthy and a short test came back clean too.

 

[stdragon]

If your boot drive is the WD, go ahead and run the 'Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows'. Run the long/extended test (can take hours to complete). Also, the WD test will check for extended SMART attributes that a generic drive test utility might not identify or ignore.

https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=3

If you suspect a corrupted boot record or partition, also consider performing a low level format (write zeros) on the drive. If you prefer just clearing out all partitions on the drive instead prior to reinstalling Windows, then run the DISKPART command.

1. Unplug all non-boot HDDs from your system (both internal and external) so you don't accidentally format them. For example - removing just the SATA connector from the other 2TB drive would suffice so long as that's not going to be your boot drive.

2. Boot from the Windows 10 USB install media.

3. Choose recovery and select command prompt. Now execute the following command:

DISKPART

LIST DISK

SELECT DISK 0 (if that's your primary boot drive, be sure to not get this wrong)

LIST DISK (to ensure * is next to the DRIVE 0)

CLEAN

4. By now, all partitions are cleared from the drive. Now reboot the system and reinstall Window. It will create new partitions for you.

 

[Astefy]

Ok lifeguard came back clean, i'm trying a clean install with your method (let's hope third time will be the charm), by any chance, could the psu have been damaged by the power outage and might lead to the corruption of windows?

 

[rhoban]

Highly doubt it. Never heard of a bad PSU causing corruption of files.

Power outages may cause corruption, though that's also highly unlikely.
There are power outages in my area at least once a day. They are supposedly revamping the system.
Anyway, I haven't had any corrupt files after a power drop.

 

[stdragon]

Usually an unexpected power outage will result in a "dirty shutdown" of the OS. The means that any pending write-back operations still in RAM haven't yet been committed to disk. This leaves the file system in somewhat of an indeterminate state. Good news however, most of the problems can be identified with a scandisk (chkdsk command) as all modern file systems such as NTFS are 'Journaling'.

While a chkdsk wont recover lost data from a dirty shutdown, it at least will repair the underlying file system so as to not risk further corruption of data later.

TLDR: Purchase a UPS (battery backup) for your PC. You don't need a large unit unless you're pulling lots of watts from gaming. Also, you don't need excessive runtime either. Just enough to buffer the brown-outs. If power is lost from a storm, it will at least provide you enough time to gracefully shutdown the computer in Windows until the utility company restores power later.

 

[ianken51]

Well I keep trying Windows 10 and each time I think it’s settled down and running fine, it starts telling me ALL of my drives need checking. Then my boot starts to fail and I can’t load any Windows system. My only solutions are:

1. Completely re-install a fresh W10 and all of my system files (seems to stuff up back ups 1st).
2. Re-install Windows 7 and say to heck with windows 10.
3. Migrate to Linux and use Lutrix, Wine, etc to run my Windows games.
4. Install MacOS Mojave and run a Hackintosh system.

Six months left to make a complete change. I sincerely doubt Windows 10 will ever be any good.