damaged hard drive or corrupt file?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by nailem, May 4, 2008.

  1. nailem

    nailem Private E-2

    i have windows xp system. running on a gateway lap top. at first i thought i had a virus or Trojan.

    this is what i have done. i was running a scan on the pc with avg and it froze. i have run avg, adaware, spybtsearch and destroy and all freeze when they get to the a particular picture file from 2005 of my kids. i also have run chkdsk and it freezes at 72% of the first step. I narrowed it down to the picture file but i cant delete, open, or move it. i can rename it.

    i tried moveonboot and it let me put it into the file to delete on next reboot and pc freezes on start up. i had to reboot to a previous working configuration and i finally got a restart but file is still there and bad.

    i tried to restore to a previous date but it says no action can be taken.

    tried defraggler and it freezes.

    i also tried recovery options and did the full factory restore and it froze on reformatting hard drive for 30min.. lucky for me i powered down and it did restart with no problems.

    i have scanned the rest of the drive with several scanners and they all come back clean. what do you think. any help would be appreciated
     
  2. joelsz

    joelsz First Sergeant

    Have you tried to delete it using DOS?

    Start>RUN>cmd>cd (folder location)>del (file name)
     
  3. thesmokingun

    thesmokingun MajorGeek

    do you know what kind of hard drive it is? once you find out, you can download the manufacturers hard drive diagnostic disk (it's bootable) and figure out if there's something wrong.. Sounds like it to me tho.
     
  4. nailem

    nailem Private E-2

    thanks for the suggestions. i have not tried to delete in DOS. im at work right now but will try when i get home. if that does not work i will look up the drive info and try the diagnostic disk. i will post my results
     
  5. nailem

    nailem Private E-2

    sorry for my ignorance but im not real familiar with dos prompts
    i went to start/run/cmd it brings up c:\documents and settings\owner.nailem>

    the file i am tring to delete is in "my documents/pics" and the file name is "zzzbad"

    i tried
    c:\documents and settings\owner.nailem>cd>mydocuments>del>zzzbad
    and it did not work
    c:\documents and settings\owner.nailem>cd>mydocuments>pics>del>zzzbad
    did not work
    what am i doing wrong

    also how do i tell what type/brand hard drive i have? sorry if these are simple questions but im no expert
     
  6. joelsz

    joelsz First Sergeant

    after the "c:\documents and settings\owner.nailem"
    type "cd my documents\pics"
    (make sure there is a space between "my" and "documents"
    also make sure the subdiretory is "pics" and not the more usual "my pictures") then hit your enter key
    It should now read
    "c:\documents and settings\owner.nailem\my documents\pics"
    type "del zzzbad" (without the quotation marks) then hit enter

    Are you sure that the file name is "zzzbad"?
    Most picture files have a name like "zzzbad.jpg" or "zzzbad.bmp".
     
  7. nailem

    nailem Private E-2

    joelsz, thanks but still no good. i did what you said, dos asked if i was sure i wanted to delete, i type y for yes and it froze.

    unless you have any other suggestions i guess my next option is to pull the cover off the drive to see what type it is and try the diagnostic disk.
     
  8. joelsz

    joelsz First Sergeant

    I fear that you are correct.
    There is obviously something about that file that your system really doesn't like. :(
     
  9. thesmokingun

    thesmokingun MajorGeek


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