What is ailing my PC?

[swee'pea99]

Thought the kind folk who responded to my please might be interested to hear an update, which is that for the first time since the OP my computer did one of its auto-updates, which always involves a reboot, and I came in just as it was running the chkdsk /r I'd set up to run next time it restarted. Well, it must have got through that ok, because when I came down this morning it was up & running and everything appears to be tickety boo. So, fingers crossed, that should be it. (I also reset the auto-update so that I'll no longer receive beta versions, but only tried & tested updates, so hopefully that's another vulnerability closed off.)

Incidentally, since

You shouldn't be getting messages about a RAID fail as you're not running one.

would it not make sense to disable any RAID-ery from the BIOS (probably left over from the previous owner)? Seems to me there's a mismatch in there at a deep level, which could arguably even be responsible for the original problem.

I googled how to do it, and got a 'step by step' from Wikihow, which seemed just the job until I got to the crucial bit, where I find:

I just love the way it refers airily to 'highlight to RAID configuration menu option', without telling you what that actually is. Judging by the pic, it's the 32 bit I/O: one - but it doesn't actually say so. Is that correct? And should I indeed simply go into the BIOS and 'disable' what I suspect in my case might be the 64 bit I/O: option? If I'm not actually running RAID, seems to me that might help keep things 'clean' - hence more stable.

 

[green1]

Out of interest had the computer been off for a while prior to the issues occurring? If it had I'd suggest changing the bios battery.

 

[swee'pea99]

Out of interest had the computer been off for a while prior to the issues occurring? If it had I'd suggest changing the bios battery.

No - it's never off! As well as being my computer it's also the 'kitchen computer' - everyone uses it constantly, so it never gets turned off. And I know the bios battery's ok because I changed it within living memory.

 

[Tigerbiten]

They are working from the wrong BIOS for you in that guide.
In your bios .........
Go Integrated peripherals -> Onboard SATA/PATA Device and SATA mode wants to be IDE not RAID.
But if you change from RAID back to IDE there is a risk of losing all your data.
If it is setup for RAID, press Ctrl-I when prompted during the boot process to enter the Intel Matrix Storage Manager option ROM utility.
From there you should see how it's setup and the risk of losing data.
If it's just the raid controller enabled and no disks raided then I think you should be reasonable safe to disabled the controller without data loss.
But I've never done this, so I'm not sure and it's at your own risk.
If a disk is raided then you will/may well lose all data on it when you disable the controller.

Luck ............

 

[swee'pea99]

They are working from the wrong BIOS for you in that guide.
In your bios .........
Go Integrated peripherals -> Onboard SATA/PATA Device and SATA mode wants to be IDE not RAID.
But if you change from RAID back to IDE there is a risk of losing all your data.
If it is setup for RAID, press Ctrl-I when prompted during the boot process to enter the Intel Matrix Storage Manager option ROM utility.
From there you should see how it's setup and the risk of losing data.
If it's just the raid controller enabled and no disks raided then I think you should be reasonable safe to disabled the controller without data loss.
But I've never done this, so I'm not sure and it's at your own risk.
If a disk is raided then you will/may well lose all data on it when you disable the controller.

Luck ............

Hmmm. Given that I'm all but certain to bugger it up completely in my blundering attempts to achieve a 'cleanness' that may or very well may not deliver any benefits whatsoever, maybe it would be best if I just left it alone and kept my fingers crossed.

Thanks though - I'll know these instructions will always be here if ever I need them. Much appreciated.