Help! Data partition messed up!

[pianoman1948]

I'm at my wits' end about a strange problem, and I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas I haven't thought of.

It seems that something about the file/folder structure on a large hard drive partition is screwed up. My entire machine locks up occasionally; I have no choice but to turn it off and reboot. I believe it's when Windows is trying to access certain files/areas on the partition.

My system is Windows XP Pro, Pentium 4, 1.6 gHz

I will try to reconstruct the long string of events that got me to where I am:

I keep OS and data in separate partitions on the same hard drive. I recently bought a new hdd, like I do every year or two, and partitioned and formatted it same as the old one: with Windows installed in one small partition and all my data in the remaining large partition.

I then moved what used to be the primary hard drive to a secondary position and booted to the new installation of Windows XP on the new drive. I did occasionally hook up the old drive so I could grab some data off its data partition.

My first sign of trouble was Windows startup insisting on doing a consistency check on the old data partition on every bootup. The process made it just about all the way through and then froze. I could do nothing to free it except hit the power switch.

I was able to boot into Windows (either old or new) by bypassing the consistency check. It worked mostly ok, but eventually, I'd click the wrong file or application and the machine would freeze and I'd have to hit the power switch.

I disconnected the old hdd, and kept only the new one hooked up, and for weeks everything was fine, as long as I kept that old partition on the old drive out of the way. I guessed that there's some weird file structure problem on the old drive.

Then a few days ago I was doing some wholesale copying of data from the (suspect) data partition on the old drive to the (previously uncorrupted) data partition on the new drive, and the *new* operating system locked up when accessing data on the *new* hard drive partition, displaying the same behavior as the old one (grr).

It appears that whatever was causing the problem on the old drive was contagious and has now been spread to the new hard drive. My best guess is a file structure problem, but nothing I've run seems to be able to fix it. Everything just freezes.

It's an old computer so I considered hardware failure, but I've run full manufacturers' diagnostics on both hard drives and they appear to be fine. A RAM diagnostic says the memory is fine too.

I googled and made a list of things to check:
The partition doesn't need to be defragged.
I have run chkdsk and it freezes.
I doubt if it's malware, although when I run virus scans it freezes 19% in. I have Comodo firewall with Defense+ and Avast antivirus.
I couldn't find any folder/file names that might be too long.
If I boot to Partition Magic floppies, the partition looks fine.

I'm guessing I'll just have to reformat the partition, which would not be the end of the world. That *should* make the problem go away. I'm just afraid to then try to salvage data, because it seems to be data that is causing the corruption.

Does anyone know of a program or technique that can further diagnose and/or fix this?

Thanks,
Ted

[mjc]

Don't discount malware...especially since what you are currently using doesn't complete a scan. Yes, you are probably correct in that it is a problem with the data, itself.

Both drives have the problem now, right? The data you copied over has caused the new drive to start acting up...right?

I would look at using something outside of Windows to do the scan of the data...even going so far as to run chkdsk on it from outside of Windows.

The easiest way to do all of that will be to build a UCBD4Win (http://www.ubcd4win.com/), with updated AV definitions before the actual build is done.

[pianoman1948]

Thanks very much for responding.Don't discount malware...especially since what you are currently using doesn't complete a scan.Hmm, wonder how I can do a virus or spyware scan from DOS?

Both drives have the problem now, right? The data you copied over has caused the new drive to start acting up...right? Yes and yes.

I would look at using something outside of Windows to do the scan of the data...even going so far as to run chkdsk on it from outside of Windows.I have done exactly that, run chkdsk from an old dos boot floppy. When the repair option was off (/r), it said everything was fine. When I added /r, it froze.

The easiest way to do all of that will be to build a UCBD4Win (http://www.ubcd4win.com/), with updated AV definitions before the actual build is done.Hmm, I have what I think is something similar, an Ultimate Boot CD. I'll have to look into that link.

Thanks again.

[mjc]

UBCD4Win is the UCBD on steroids...full gui based on a Bart'sPE build. More tools, up to date AV...it's much better than the plain vanilla UCBD.

[pianoman1948]

Ok, thanks, I'll check out UBCD4Win, sounds cool.

I did run chkdsk from my XP CD and got the same result, freezing at about 69%.

Sounds like that partition is hosed (or at least one or more spots on it - at the moment it seems to be working ok). I can understand why shutting the computer off while chkdsk is repairing (updating) a file structure might be disastrous. But I wish I knew the original cause, what caused chkdsk to freeze in the first place.

Oh, one more strange thing: the old hdd has gotten so fouled up that the drive letters don't even show up anymore in Windows Explorer. I suppose interrupting chkdsk might cause this too. Or maybe that one's honestly a hardware failure.

Anyway, thank very much for your input.

Ted