Windows XP crashes during file access, can I fix it?

February 18, 2006 2:04 PM

Windows XP crashes whenever it accesses a specific file. The problem: I don't know what file it is. What would cause such a serious error and how do I fix it?

I know it's a file located under D:\mp3s\ . I first had the problem when backing up the directory to an external hard drive, in the middle of the copying it crashes the computer. I get a short glimpse of a blue screen of death and then intant reboot. I attempted again and it crashed about the same time into the copying.

I ran scandisk on the drive to hopefully fix the corrupt file, but it crashes when accessing that part as well. I ran a virus scan, once again the computer crashes anytime any program tries to access that file.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to track down what file it is and how to remove it? (Short of accessing files one at a time to find the culprit.)

posted by monsta coty scott to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Sounds like your disk is crapping out. Run a SMART diagnostic. I dunno where there's a windows copy, but there's one on the Knoppix CD.
posted by orthogonality at 2:07 PM on February 18, 2006

Have you turned off automatic reboot after system failure? If not, go to control panel > system > Advanced tab > Startup and Recovery settings button > uncheck "Automatically restart" in the system failure section. That way you can see what the bsod says.
posted by puke & cry at 2:11 PM on February 18, 2006

The Event Viewer may also give some clues (Administrative Tools).
posted by kcm at 2:18 PM on February 18, 2006

The crappy manual way to do it is to move/backup/whatever half the files. If it crashes, split that batch in half and copy again. If it doesn't, split the other batch in half a copy again. Repeat until you narrow it down. Let's search the logarithmic way!
posted by awesomebrad at 2:34 PM on February 18, 2006

Shouldn't you be able to tell based on which files got copied?
posted by srboisvert at 3:36 PM on February 18, 2006

Best answer: go to a command prompt (start->run... "cmd.exe") and try this:

copy /s /y * d:\mp3s c:\some_backup_location > c:\files_copied.txt

This will add the filename to c:\files_copied.txt before it tries to copy it. So the last one after it reboots will be the one that's broken.
posted by aubilenon at 5:37 PM on February 18, 2006

Allright, aubilenon has told you how to find it the file in question. What are you going to do now? I thought you also wanted to know how to fix the problem?
posted by Dunwitty at 11:34 PM on February 18, 2006

Response by poster: Sorry, I should have done a follow up sooner. For anyone else who finds this thread this is what I did...

I used the copy command to copy the files over to a different directory. When the computer rebooted I checked the log file and saw the file right before the one that crashed. Whenever I clicked on or tried to drag the file to the recycle bin it would crash again. So I just went down one folder, and deleted the entire folder (I didn't mind losing the other files within that folder). It erased it from the drive and it has worked perfectly since that time.

Thanks for all of the suggestions!
posted by monsta coty scott at 11:02 AM on February 26, 2006