Win7 32bit + TC 8.01 - Copy problem to/from anywhere

[truthw]

Hi,

When copying huge entities of Mbytes, copied files become corrupt. This is independent from source and destination: network, internal drive, USB drive, same drive.

Copied file and the copy itself contain the same number of bytes, however in the copy some of them is zero instead of its original value.

The problem comes out if I copy several small (50MB) files and also when copying a single large file (1GB)

In case of small (50MB) files I can see the difference as well: some bytes in a bunch turns to 0 independently from their original content.

It is for sure that this is not some weird kind of hardware problem, as the symptom does not appear in Linux environment, and Windows Explorer copy does work.

I know that TC can be set to use Explorer's copy, however I would rather stay at TC's copy if it is possible.

The computer is a Dell D830 laptop. OS is Windows 7 Professional.

What setting should I change to get rid of this problem?
What details should I send you to be able to tell me more?

Thanks in advance,
Peter

[karlchen]

Hello, truthw.

As a matter of fact, I have never experienced such a problem, in particular not affecting all kind of copy targets. To me this suggests it may be worth running a complete memory check. One faulty memory chip may be sufficient to cause all kind of weird trouble.
Please, do not simply reject the idea, because under Linux and using Explorer copying seems to work fine.
I do wonder a bit which methods you have applied to make sure that it does work correctly.
Anyway, running a complete memtest does not hurt in any case. And should the result be that your computer's memory is all right, fine. One potential root cause ruled out.

About Total Commander copy settings:
In the recent Total Commander versions - this started with T.C. 7.x and definitely applies to T.C. 8.01 - I have always used the T.C. default method:

Configuration => Options => Operation => Copy/Delete => (*) Use standard copy method (recommended).

HTH,
Karl

[truthw]

Hello karlchen,

thank you very much for your response and for your time!

Actually you are right, I forget to mention that the reason why I exclude hardware problem is that I made thorough memory tests some weeks ago from some other reasons. All of the memory tests were passed sucessfully, multiple times, as it was running for multiple hours. I have utilized the memory test coming with Ubuntu 10.04 install DVD.

Do you have any better suggestion for testing memory? As memory is also suspicios for me, I would try another memtest program. Having multiple passed tests faulty memory theory is not proven yet...

Until now I used the standard copy method in TC. I changed to Windows Explorer copy mode only yesterday to test whether it works or not. It worked, standard one did not...

Thank you again,

Peter

[karlchen]

Hello, Peter.

As you have already ruled out bad memory bars as the root cause, I am afraid I cannot suggest any more thorough memory testing programme than the one that you used.

I am amazed that you experience copying problems although you have activated the T.C. default copying method, which is in fact a method which was onced called compatibility method.

Christian made this the default copying method in T.C. 7.x because more and more recent storage devices worked faster, better, more reliable, provided this copy method was used.

I admit I am a bit clueless now.

Karl

[truthw]

Hello Karl,

To tell you the truth I have solved plenty of IT problems during my life without writing to any forums but by only reading them. This is the first case when I am stucked that much that I try to get help from foreigners. So first of all I really thank you for your time and thoughts.

Some more hints however I do have. The laptop sometimes goes to Blue Screen of Death without any reason. The failure is completely un-repeatable. Every peripheral works perfectly. There are weeks without BSOD, however today there were already two of them. I think this is also a typical memory problem, that is the reason I have already run several memory tests already.

Yes, it could be temperature problem as well, however it is excluded also, because I monitor temperature and the system is not highly loaded.

BSOD may happen when I use the computer, and also when no one sits in front of it.

Firefox pretty frequently crashes without any reason: no user interaction is made. This failure is also not reproducible.

However this TC copy problem is fully repeatable.

The only thing in my mind is that there are no Win7 drivers for this laptop (DEll D830) and therefore I use Vista drivers for some peripherals (which are working perfectly as I mentioned...)

So shortly this is the story of my laptop. Does anything comes to mind?

Thank you in advance!

Peter

[MarcinW]

Hello Peter,

please try using fail-safe BIOS settings and check if this solves your problem.

I have a PCI SATA controller and changing some PCI BIOS settings caused rare HDD read errors - reading twice the same, large file, returned sometimes some bytes incorrectly (but without reporting any hardware failure). I found this problem, because some program, after feeding with the same data file, returned sometimes other results than expected.

Regards

[truthw]

Hi MarcinW,

thank you for the idea, I gave it a try now and unfortunately the buggy copy remained in case of TC standard copy.

Regards,
Peter

[karlchen]

Hello, Peter.

The laptop sometimes goes to Blue Screen of Death without any reason. The failure is completely un-repeatable.

Blue Screens of death have got a reason. The reason need not be defective hardware. It may just be some faulty driver.
Nir Sofer offers a very useful freeware named BlueScreenView. Unless you have configured Windows not to generate any kind of dump file whenever a BSOD occurs, BlueScreenView will be able to display the BSOD error message and usually it will also be able to name a suspicious piece of software which very likely caused the BSOD.
At minimum it is worth a try.

About general system instability:
Your post reads a bit as if quite a few software products which run in a perfectly stable way here on my plain vanilla, untuned hardware have a tendency of acting strange on your machine.
Could the reason be that you have "tweaked" your system, e.g. by overclocking the processor?

Kind regards,
Karl

[truthw]

Hi,

I have already investigated minidumps, however unfortunately the gained reason and error codes were not too published on the net, the few hit suggested also memory check...

A previous contributor also suggested me to load failsafe BIOS settings. Although I have never tweaked any of my hardwares I loaded default settings of my BIOS. It meant no step ahead, faulty copy remained.

The only possible reason remained is that the driver of a certain "sub-hardware" was not appropriate (as mentioned there are no explicit win7 drivers for Dell D830). Therefore beyond Linux I tried XP as well. It works perfectly (at least it seems to do), therefore I think this is the end of the story, with a high regret I revert to XP.

Thank you really much, guys trying to solve my problem, I really appreciate it.

Regards,
Peter

[ghisler(Author)]

It's either a hardware or device driver problem - TC uses a single Windows function (CopyfileEx) in default mode, and there are no known errors in this function which may be causing data corruption.

Some things you may check:
1. The HDD cable - it may be too long, or bend to a sharp angle
2. The harddisk health: Please use a tool like SpeedFan to check whether there are any warnings in the S.M.A.R.T. data.
3. It may still be a RAM problem - RAM checkers cannot check all possible bit combinations, that would take far too long. It's also possible that heat causes the memory to fail only after some time, especially when overclocking. Could you use Files - Compare by content to check how the damage looks like? Are there just a few bytes changed, or entire blocks?

[truthw]

Hi ghisler,

Thank you for your response! As I have already written I reverted back to XP, which seems to solve this copy problem. Therefore it seems that some Vista chipset driver was not appropriate to use in Win7. However I know the answer for some of the things you suggest me to check

1. This is a laptop, so I cannot check it
2. SpeedFan does not indicates any S.M.A.R.T related warning or error.
3. Yes, you are right, also memtest uses random patterns and it may happen that only for a certain pattern do the failure happen. Anyway I do not overclock the system at all, and even more: I have choosen the model with weaker video card in order to get rid of overheating problems...

The damage always affects only a few bytes changing from anything to zero.

Thank you for your time!

Peter

[EricB]

Peter,

I recently came across this piece of software, which analyzes faulty drivers rendering BSOD. It is called WhoCrashed BSOD Analyzer. The Home Edition is free, so it seems. Note that I am not in any way affiliated to this software or its makers, it just seemed a proper reference for your problem.
It's a pity you had to fall back to XP. However, in my experience most laptop hardware will also run with e.g. Intel generic drivers instead of the (mostly older) versions that are offered on the manufacturer's website. My older Asus laptop came with only Vista, and I managed to run it with both XP and Windows 7, after some driver searches.

Regards, EricB

[truthw]

Thank you EricB, I will try it in the future when support of XP will be definitely stopped and I have to leave XP as well. I'm afraid this time will arrive in the near future.

Peter