Derek I don't think it is the disk, if it is then four of my disks are bad, I have tried running a pagefile on all of them and as soon as I set the pagefile the computer won't shut down and when I look after switching back on I have to run chdsk to correct all the errors.

Hi Christine, if this is happening on all four discs, then something is corrupting your pagefile on each - I think I would be looking at software corruption. I think I might rescue all the files I needed and then do a complete system reinstall with initialization of all disks. Sorry but I might also be handing it over to the shop if possible for them to sort. Especially for important data recovery.

Andy I have just done a repair to Xp rather then reload and still the same problem. I am just about to disable all hard disks one by one and see if one of those is the culprit. I know it only take one to have problems and it can muck up the rest.

Hi Christine, been dredging my brain box - start again- If you have problems with pagefile that is a Virtual Memory - RAM function- you therefore have a faulty RAM chip, one installed wrong OR an incompatible chip? Hard drive bad sectors: are you able to check drive SMART status? If not, then for XP or Vista you need to ensure drives are ALL formatted for NTFS. As a physical check - try checking component dates - remember that most drives have a five year guarantee ( they should be dated) - to see if shop gave you all new parts or tried to palm you off. Power supply is unlikely to be source of the pagefile errors, but a blown/incompatible RAM chip is very likely to be your problem.

I have gone through all my hard disks and found one that it wouldn't defrag or format. When I opened the case to disable it I found the main sata lead had worked out slightly, probably from when I took it in to get the new memory. To check it out I disabled the drive booted up and tried a normal shutdown, everything worked as it should. I knew then that it was that drive that is causing the problems.

I then plugged the drive back in and made sure the lead was fully home and had another go at reformatting it, it formatted no problem and with no errors and my machine now still shuts down and restarts.

I won't use the drive for anything important for the moment just see if I start to get bad shutdowns again and corrupted pagefiles if I don't then its possible that it was just the ribbon cable not fully in position.


Why are computers so frustrating.:(

Well done Christine - loose leads throw us all the time - hope the problems are over.

Why are PC's so frustrating ?

Lets not tar all computers with the same brush :D ;)

Trust you Stephen! - I have been very good and not mentioned Apple Mac all the way through and you have to go and spoil it!!!!!

LOL! I wish I could have afforded apple Mac they a great graphics machines.

:D LOL :D

No mention of Apple in my post, Andy. ;)

Now, back to Christine's PC problem.