Friday, January 15, 2016

When a bad sector error is not a drive problem

When I was working on my book for NRI Schools I was having a lot of bad sector errors and cross linked sector errors on my computer.  Stuff like that.  Every day.

I even continued to get these after I upgraded my hard drive so I began to smell a rat.  My 32MB of RAM tested good so it wasn't that.  If the processor cache RAM was bad this should also cause the main RAM test to fail, unless the algorithm for the memory test is too naive.  I decided to replace the cache RAM chips on my motherboard anyways.  I think this was 128K of chips in eight sockets on my motherboard.  I don't remember how much this was, but I don't think it was very expensive.

I'm sure I got the RAM chips from Metrowest Computers in Framingham, Massachusetts because that's where I bought the computer from.  I tore the machine down.  I was very careful not to static out anything.  Inserting those little DIP chips with their little legs requires some care or they get bent!

Got it all back together and crossed my fingers as I booted it up successfully.  :-)

I never got another sector error.  Mission accomplished.

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