Hoster help needed, computer crashes

[barrp]

First I want to say I love the program, but I'm not comfortable with using it for any shows yet. I did do a test show a couple of weeks ago with library and players close at hand and it ran flawlessly.

The system is a p 4 with 1gig of memory and a 200 gig hard drive.

My first crash was so bad that it appeared the hard drive format was even gone. My daughter and a friend were singing and in the middle of a song it crashed.

After reformatting the drive and loading everything back on the hard drive it ran for a couple of weeks at home and crashed again. This time I was able to do a windows repair to get it too boot. After getting it to boot up Hoster would not run and I noticed about 1000 songs were missing. I tried to rebuild the database and it tells me 0 songs rebuilt, when I have 17,000 songs on the hard drive. I reloaded Windows xp Pro and it did not help.

I downloaded the 3.110 upgrade in hopes it would get hoster up and running again, but now I get a message that my registration does not match.

I'm going too pull the covers on my PC and try to reseat memory, cards and all plugs.

I'm looking for any help in finding out why I'm experiencing these crashes.

Thanks,
Jim Barr

[Beavis]

i hope you backed up all your kma's


did you do a full windows update before you installed hoster? also manufacturer's update for your video card ?

[mindonstrike]

I'm not a computer expert by any means but from what you describe I would tend to suspect the HD is going bad (you do have all your KMA's backed up right?) running scandisk might offer some clues.

Sam

[barrp]

[quote=mindonstrike]I'm not a computer expert by any means but from what you describe I would tend to suspect the HD is going bad (you do have all your KMA's backed up right?) running scandisk might offer some clues.

I considered the hard drive the first time it crashed and downloaded the hddlife program and it said health 86% and the performance number I can't recall, but it read excellent right behind this number.

Yes I do have one back up on an external hd, but I'm not comfortable with only one copy of the files.

A couple of questions:

I've read here that ' in the song names can cause the database to crash. Can it also cause the system to crash?

Does the amp put out a magnetic field? Could the system be to close to the amp?

I pulled the covers off and reseated memory, cards and all plug ins. I also pulled out a video capture card I was hoping to use to capture my lasers. I'll try scan disk but I'm about ready to reformat and try again.

Thanks,
Jim Barr

[mindonstrike]

The fact that a 1000 songs disapeared is what made me think you've got bad sector(s) on your HD

Once upon a time quotes like Nat "King" Cole would cause a crash but even those no longer cause me problems. I don't know if thats an issue with some and not others or what.

Anything with electricity running through it creates a magnetic field, now whether an amp would create one strong enough to corrupt HD files I do not know. Maybe if your PC sits right on it, but I doubt it.

Be aware that at this point MTU may believe you have Hoster on two computers. If you reinstall windows again you may have to ask MTU to reset your registration.

What happened when you crashed. Did Hoster stop responding or did the PC freeze up or shut down, did you get any error messages?

Did you check event viewer to see if it recorded any problems?
Any programs running in the background like Nortons or Mcaffee that might be creating conflicts?

Sam

[Beavis]

why dont you make a back up copy on DVD. it would take maybe 20 dvd-r's

or get another external hard drive and drag and drop them.

[barrp]

>

Originally Posted by mindonstrike

What happened when you crashed. Did Hoster stop responding or did the PC freeze up or shut down, did you get any error messages?

Did you check event viewer to see if it recorded any problems?
Any programs running in the background like Nortons or Mcaffee that might be creating conflicts?

Sam

When my daughter was singing on the first crash she said the monitor just went black in the middle of a song and I could not get it too boot. I tried to repair the windows installation and could not. When I tried to load windows it told me the disk was not formatted. I did have Norton anti virus and firewall running on the first crash.

So I reformatted and started over. The second time it crashed I just tried to boot the system "It was shut down" Again it would not boot, except this time I was able to do the windows repair but had the problems I mentioned in the first message. There were no error messages that I'm aware of on either crash. I did not load Norton the second time and had turned off all automatic updates and made sure MS firewall and anti virus we turned off. This caused some annoying messages, about not being protected, but I dealt with it.

Please clue me in on event viewer in case this happens again. I will check the disk for bad sectors and soon as my songs are back on the system. I did go ahead and reformat the drive and I am in the process of loading everything back on the system.

One other thing I did do was to add Hoster too the Start up folder, so it would open when I booted since this was all this system was intended to run. Surely this would not cause a crash???

If MTU can reset whatever needs to be done it would be appreciated.

Thanks again,
Jim

[barrp]

Originally Posted by Beavis

why dont you make a back up copy on DVD. it would take maybe 20 dvd-r's

or get another external hard drive and drag and drop them.

The DVD idea might work. I have 2 external drives but my library has out grown one of them

Thanks
Jim

[barrp]

Ok I found event viewer and the system has some problems. I have bad sectors errors on the hard drive and the cd rom, don't know how that's possible. I'm also getting paging errors. It looks like this may be too complicated to give advice on but I'll take any help I can get.

I did make 2 partitions this time, figured I'd keep my music separate from the operating system.

Thanks
Jim

[kadidle]

One problem I've seen is the HDD cable going south (particularly new systems, or systems that have had the hard drive swapped out...) This can cause all kinds of flakey errors. Also, the controller can fail (drive controller), pretty rare, but still a posibility. We do hosting in our "other" life, and those two fall right behind a failed hard drive in these types of situations.

If you've replaced the hard drive, toss the cable, I never reuse them, particularly the 80 pin ATA 66+ cables. Maybe it's just me, but my data is worth more then the $5 the cable costs... :D

What makes me wonder is that the CD-Rom is showing a failure. The IDE controller on the master drive can cause issues, but it usually either works or doesn't.

Just some random thoughts on the problem.

[barrp]

Thanks to all that answered my call for help. This is a Maxtor drive and after downloading their Diagnostic software and running every test it had, it told me the drive was failing. Fortunately it's still under warranty and I'm currently waiting for the RMA from Maxtor.

This doesn't say much for the hddlife software that said the health was at 86%.

Thanks again,
Jim Barr

[ddouglass]

Health of a Hard Drive should be 100%. If it is anything less then you have bad sectors.

Best way to set up your system would be to have 2 drives, one smaller 10 - 40 GB to load windows and programs on, and one large drive 200 - 300GB to keep your KMA files on. That way system crashes won't wipe out your files.