stumped?

miniboss

Electoral Member
Jan 4, 2007
108
1
18
BINGO, you hit it right on the head. I disabled all plugnins and extensions, and tried it, no issues. Now I have to systematically enable each add on, to see which was the culprit. Thank you so much for your effort, I bow with great humility to the master. I'm not kidding, this one was bugging me for a week. Now did you happen to notice my question in regards to my problem with not being able to burn my iso files with my dvd burner? I get so far and then the buffer just drops to zero, and eventually gives me a device i/o error. Ideas would be helpfull. Thanks a million.
 

cdn_bc_ca

Electoral Member
May 5, 2005
389
1
18
Vancouver
Glad I could help. Can you tell us what addon it was that was causing your problem? That way other people checking this thread out will know what to look for when they encounter the same problem.

I'll check out that other post with the burner problem.
 

cdn_bc_ca

Electoral Member
May 5, 2005
389
1
18
Vancouver
In regards to your dvd burning problems, can you give me information on the following:
1. Type of DVD (brand, max burning speed. Should say on the dvd itself).
2. What kind of error messages imgburn displays
3. When burning your DVD, the DVD drive should have some blinking lights to indicate that it's operating. When the problem occurs, what happens to the lights?
4. Does this problem happen with every ISO file you encounter?

Thanks.
 

miniboss

Electoral Member
Jan 4, 2007
108
1
18
Hello, I'm back. I have a screenshot of the error, and the log. I use Memorex brand dvd -r 's, don't cringe, I've been using them successfully up until a few weeks ago. I have an experimental linux box I've been playing with, and used to same dvd -r blank, using my old Plextor drive, and burning the same image file that's been giving me greef, with success. They're rated at 16x. This is a recent development. The burner I'm using is an LG GSA-H55L, with firmware updated. It's maybe a year old. I don't think that just defragging the HD will fix the issue, even though I've been in the process of doing that, I use "my defrag" works good, but takes forever. It took 16 hours to defrag and optimize my 75 gig boot drive, it must gave been bad. I even tried to increase the buffer size from the default 40mb to 80mb, no help. When it's writing to disc, the lights blink, just like they're supposed to, it starts to write, then the buffer drops to zero. Then it just gives up. I had this issue once before, and it was a rootkit, I cleaned it out, then did a repair install and was good for awhile, then it started up again. I ran various virus, malware and rootkit scans, and found squat. Pardon me, it did find some stuff, but nothing that was related to the issue I'm having. Tried to uninstall the IDE controller, change the DMA settings, nothing.

I'm trying it with another iso file, the buffer still drops to zero right away, but recovers fast enough, to keep writing to disc, the write slows down starting at 83%, but it's still writing, and does finish the burn successfully. I just get the "waiting for buffers to recover", and "waiting for HD activity to reach threshhold level" messages. "Device Buffer", goes crazy. I'm also including a sreenshot of the log from that burn, you can't see the whole thing, but I think you'll get the jist of it.

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/1499/uglytruthlog.jpg

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2151/imgburndeviceioerror.jpg

I'm trying to be thorough, thanks again.
 

DurkaDurka

Internet Lawyer
Mar 15, 2006
10,385
129
63
Toronto
I would run a chkdsk on C:\, the fact that your 75gb drive takes 16 hours to defrag and the errors in the app logs indicate a possible hardware issue. Nero probably caches temp data to C:\ and if C:\ had some messed up sectors etc it could definitely cause the problems you are seeing.

Do you have SMART enabled in the BIOS?
 

cdn_bc_ca

Electoral Member
May 5, 2005
389
1
18
Vancouver
miniboss, first of all, when you post your screenshots, you should at least blur out the stuff you are trying to burn. This stuff could get you banned from the site.... all you need to do when you save the image is open it up in MS Paint and paint over the filename.

Second, like DukaDurka said, do a chkdisk on C: and see if you get any errors.

Third, try playing the movie on your computer from beginning to end and see if it completes. If the burning software has a problem reading the file at a certain point, the movie should have trouble playing at that same point. If you don't know what software to use to play ISO files, you could probably try "VLC" (Video Lan Client) I think it can play iso files directly.

Fourth, and how much free space do you have on your 75gb drive?

Fifth, have you tried burning other files to your cd's? Try writing some random files... or better yet, some files that you probably want backed up. After that is complete, try taking those files from the disc and putting it back to the computer (into a temp drive which you can delete later). If it completes with no problem... then you can rule out a problem with the cd/dvd drive.

Thanks.
 

miniboss

Electoral Member
Jan 4, 2007
108
1
18
Hey, to: DurkaDurka, yes, I do believe SMART is enabled in the BIOS. I did run chkdsk on c:, and it did say windows found some issue and "fixed" it.

To cdn_bc_ca: I have about 1.42gb left. on c:. The iso file is on a different drive, but the burning program I use is installed to c:. As far as the screenshots go, my bad, I'll rub out the "unmentionable stuff", from now on. Thanks for the heads up. After I ran the chkdsk, and "fixed", whatever it fixed, I tried to burn it again, with the same result, the first one is still giving me greef, It may be defective, the other tester I used still dropped to zero on occasion, but it finished the burn. Will doing a repair install have an effect to the issue I'm having? thanks.
 

DurkaDurka

Internet Lawyer
Mar 15, 2006
10,385
129
63
Toronto
Ok, to be honest here, the hard drive is probably ****ed. Doing a repair/format/partition deletion will not give you better stability.

You would be better off to garbage this drive and spend $50 for a new 500GB, 7200RPM system drive. reason being, those check disk errors will probably come back and are indicative of a serious HD problem.

I would back up my files now before the drive dies completely.
 

cdn_bc_ca

Electoral Member
May 5, 2005
389
1
18
Vancouver
I agree. You can confirm the problem with the HDD by playing the iso on the computer. It should stutter or fail to play at some point because of a bad sector or something.
 

Francis2004

Subjective Poster
Nov 18, 2008
2,846
34
48
Lower Mainland, BC
Hey, I have a screenshot of the "chkdsk" on my c:, that I ran today.

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/4164/chkdsk.jpg

I had already ran it a day or two ago, with the "\f" extension, to "fix" whatever problem it found. Now it's finding it again. Is this the beginning of the end for my hard drive? Thanks.

Why are you missing the type of File System ( Mine is NTFS ) it should show as checking in at the very top ?
 

miniboss

Electoral Member
Jan 4, 2007
108
1
18
ok, lets try this again. Another screenshot.

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/5375/chkdsk2.jpg

I just ran the chkdsk with the "/f", and it said it would be run at next boot, so I rebooted, it did whatever it did, it rebooted from there, then I ran chkdsk again, and I still get the same error. What gives. Give it to me straight, I can take it :). Thanks again.
 

Francis2004

Subjective Poster
Nov 18, 2008
2,846
34
48
Lower Mainland, BC
OK miniboss do you have Windows XP installed on this HDD and it won't boot up at all showing bad sectors even when you repair them all the time ?

Also did you have issues with the boot up sequence of the hard drive at all ?

What type of drive is this ( make )..

I had a similar drive issue about 4 / 5 years ago and eventually had to format my hard drive with a formatter ( zero / one ) cleaner as a virus had infected the boot sector of the drive.. I did this twice from a Windows Clean Boot disk / Zero Cleaner Drive from the manufacturer before I got rid of the damn thing and save the HDD..

I am not saying this is what you have but it certainly was what I had.. I did a lot of research on it prior to FDisk ing the damn thing.. Fortunately I always run multiple hard drives on my PC and am never without a clean HDD..

Most Manufacturers of Hard drives have on their web sites free analysis software you can download to check the drive. I highly recommend you check to see if your does as well..
 

miniboss

Electoral Member
Jan 4, 2007
108
1
18
Xp is installed on my c: drive., and no I don't have any issues with it when booting. It behaves rather well, actually, but sometimes I try to run a program, and the whole thing just bogs right down, to the point where I have to just kill the power and reboot. I believe the drive is made by maxtor, it's an ide drive,about 80gigs. I'll run a diagnostic on the drive, and I'll post the results. Thanks
 

Francis2004

Subjective Poster
Nov 18, 2008
2,846
34
48
Lower Mainland, BC
Xp is installed on my c: drive., and no I don't have any issues with it when booting. It behaves rather well, actually, but sometimes I try to run a program, and the whole thing just bogs right down, to the point where I have to just kill the power and reboot. I believe the drive is made by maxtor, it's an ide drive,about 80gigs. I'll run a diagnostic on the drive, and I'll post the results. Thanks

OK First Maxtor is now Seagate..

Downloads: Hard Drive Installation & Computer/PC Diagnostic Software | Seagate

If it was a DiamonMax product they still show them on the Seagate site no issues.. Older products I may have the software here but Seeing what you wrote I am not sure anymore if that is your problem.. However having this software is never a bad thing..

Wow, if that was the main problem I had with Windows XP I certainly would not be starting with the hard drive.. I would be looking at the registry and how long it's been since I did a good clean of it..

Hard drives typically will give you issues on boot up, shut downs and code saving. If there are major sectors that have bad ones you can have issues with the drive storing information there.. But 99% of the time you get the blue screen of death on this type of issue during the running of windows..

Bog down issues usually relates to low memory or virtual memory problems that can be either from the computer or video card.. Then again It can also be just a defrag issue on the drive.. Have you done all these prior to looking at other issues ?

Man if I had a well booting Windows XP drive I would not be looking at complicating my life from that side yet..