Hard Drive Logging

[OOZ662]

My laptop seems to crash when moving high volumes of data, such as for a backup or system-wide virus scan. It's a hard crash, either being a being a blue screen (with nothing valuable buy a massive hex line, of course) or system restart. As I don't feel like sitting around for 8 hours staring at a SMART monitor, is there a program that will write to file any issues that crop up from the hard disk before a crash? The fact that my copying program is able to write (to a network drive) that it's having I/O problems gives me hope that a HD logger could write what the issue is before the lockup. The point being that I'm trying to determine whether this is a failure of my horrid OS factory install or a bad disk.

[Bizman]

Google for minidump reader, there's both the Microsoft way and third party programs for less geeky people.

By experience I'd also check for possible overheating problems. Laptops tend to suck dust and debris like a vacuum cleaner and it is not unusual to find a thick felt between the fan and the cooler fins. Hopefully your laptop has an easily detachable hatch over the fan and cooler. If so, detach the fan and remove all debris. Some laptops require removing the keyboard and some disassembling the whole case for cooler maintenance. If the task seems to be too difficult, just blow compressed air in short bursts into the output grill of the cooler and use a needle or tweezers to pick debris out from the intake grill. You can also use a vacuum cleaner for the intake. After cleaning, you can check the result by looking into the output grill to see, if you can see the light coming through the intake.

Naturally, before doing any maintenance, shut down, unplug from the mains and remove the battery.

[OOZ662]

I disassemble and clean the internals every couple months. The drive could be overheating, but like I said, it's not until a few hours into a transfer that it crashes and I don't feel like watching it like a hawk to see what makes it go. It'll run under standard or gaming conditions for days straight, but if I start a dedicated hard job on the disk it'll eventually dump. I've always had it set to do full memdumps, so hopefully there's something useful in them...this last one mentioned ntfs.sys, so yay.

[Bizman]

Glad to see someone who's taking serious care of his laptop. I have seen too many of them filled with dust just because the owner didn't mind reading the advice about using it on a hard and flat surface.

I now remember the name of the dump reader: WhoCrashed by Resplendence. For heating up your laptop try Heavy Load. During running it you might want to monitor your Core Temperature. Speed Fan is capable of showing you also the temperature of the system and hard drive.

Hope this helps.

[OOZ662]

I even repurposed this weird particleboard thing you were supposed to rubberband to the arms of a chair for a writing surface for a "desk" when I use it on my bed. To be a geek...

I haven't had a chance to dig deeper since my last post. But thanks for that link; seems the one thing my "uber boot CD" is missing is a dump analyzer.