nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

HDD Corruption? - Windows XP workstation.

Illusionking

Never seen this issue before so I want to confirm that I am thinking of the right issue.

Background - Sometime between 11:15pm and 8:24am this XP system restarted by itself. Reviewed the logs and did not find throw any errors.

However, browsing the contents (c:\windows, system32, documents and settings, root) all have folders named:
__0x00FE, __0x01a0, __0x01a2 and so on (remember the same folders are not listed everywhere, this is just an example of what I'm seeing.) I've seen 14 folders and 4 files with this same naming scheme.

I have a strong hunch that the hard drive is going bad, just need confirmation.

Find more posts tagged with

SAVE $250 on Your Boot Camp — Use Code "EXAM26"

Exclusively for TechExams members for Infosec Boot Camps starting before April 30, 2026

View Boot Camps

Comments

sprkymrk

You should see either "disk" or "ntfs" errors in the event logs if you have a disk going bad. Do you have any **** files that might indicate bad memory?

Megadeth4168

First thing I would do is "right click" on "My Computer" and go to properties. Then click the advanced tab, then click Settings under "Startup and Recovery" and UN-check the Automatically restart box if it is checked... This usually will force the PC to crash to a Blue Screen and give you an error code instead of restarting right away.

Next i would boot up in recovery Console and run a chkdsk /P /R to see if this finds anything. Keep us posted.

Illusionking

No **** and no errors in the logs. The department manager want to know exactly why it went down, but I'm not finding anything.

Illusionking

Megadeth4168 wrote:

First thing I would do is "right click" on "My Computer" and go to properties. Then click the advanced tab, then click Settings under "Startup and Recovery"

Done, I'll let you know if I find anything.

Megadeth4168

Illusionking wrote:

Megadeth4168 wrote:

First thing I would do is "right click" on "My Computer" and go to properties. Then click the advanced tab, then click Settings under "Startup and Recovery"

Done, I'll let you know if I find anything.

The only downside, is now you have to wait for it to crash again....

In the meantime you could run the chkdsk and maybe test the memory using a program like memtest86.