Event ID 51

Hi guys,

I have been using my computer for nearly two years.

My computer suddenly started to work very very slowly so I decided to reformat it and made the all the updates and the necessary installation.

But Xp takes nearly 2 or 3 minutes to start up and responds very very slow so I checked "Event viewer" and found the following error.

"An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation". I could find dozens of the same error.

Any help would be appreciated

I'd be immediately doing a backup in preparation for replacing the hard drive.

You are saying to change my hard drive or is there any solution before doing that ???

Unless you can decipher the exact event log error and determine it's not due to a drive failure, then yes I'd say change out your hard drive, or at least make sure your backups are up to date.

I agree with Doug here, we had paging errors on our server, causing
slow response and even a couple of crashes, we changed the RAID
controller and HD's, and now its working perfectly.

It might be something else, but where do you start looking whats causing
the page error?

Its a bit of a mission, but a new harddrive is always good news

The problem lies I can not be sure whether it is really HDD issue or something else. I searched, searched and could not find anything helpful related to this problem. I cant remember exactly what says EVENT ID 51 right now but will share and get your opinion as well NF

What more do you need to know besides "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation"

This message means the hardware controller reported an error condition, and since it's about a hard drive it's 99% that it's a drive failure and 1% that it's a controller or some other hardware. The slowness is another strong indication of a failing drive. Drive controllers will make quite a number of retries before deciding a sector is bad, then will attempt to replace the failing sector with the drive bad block table, then will attempt to recover the data. All this takes a long time. And when it fails to do a successful bad block replacement, you get a reported error condition from the hardware.

I know if I had anything on that drive that was important, I'd have it backed up now, not later. With good backups a failed hard drive becomes only an annoyance, not a serious problem.

Thanx Doug for your advice,

I only wanted to be sure %100 and you gave me more info than I have found on the net.

I already backed up my harddrive and the rest is to change the disk with the new one.

Event ID: 51, Source: Disk

There are a few things to try before scrubbing that hard drive. This event can just as easily be the result of a software issue.

1. Try reinstalling your drivers. (IDE, SATA, whatever) Corrupt drivers are a common culprit.
2. Open the Registry Editor and navigate to:
   HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters
   and set the EnablePrefetcher value to 1

If you would like an exact diagnosis, I'll need the exact error message. You can open the Event Viewer and select the error. Then click the button that looks like two sheets of paper to copy the details to the clipboard. Past it into this thread. It should look something like this.

Event ID: 51
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Disk
Description: An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk3\DR3 during a paging operation.
Data:
0000: 04 00 22 00 01 00 72 00
0008: 00 00 00 00 33 00 04 80
0010: 2d 01 00 00 00 00 00 00
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0020: 00 52 ea 04 15 00 00 00
0028: 01 00 00 00 04 00 00 00
0030: 03 00 00 00 2a 00 00 00
0038: 02 84 00 00 00 29 06 00
0040: 2a 60 0a 82 75 29 00 00
0048: 80 00

Without the binary data, I can't decode the exact error.

Each to his own. If it were my computer I'd replace the drive and then if the problem persists I'd spend time trying to analyze all the cryptic errors. With the price of drives what they are, once you spend 30 minutes or so trying to analyze the error, it's no longer a cost-effective troubleshooting methodology. It's cheaper and faster to simply replace the drive, which will 99.99% of the time fix your problem.

I completely agree with the 30 min rule, Doug. With the cost of hardware on the fall, it's absolutely true--with exception of hard drives.

A hard drive replacement requires 4-8 hours minimum to get your system back to "normal". I'd sooner spend 30 minutes troubleshooting and 10 minutes fixing.

Take this thread as an example. I can tell you what the EXACT problem is with one line of that binary data in under a minute. If a replacement is not needed, none of the other possibilities require longer than 5-10 minutes to fix.

Of course, I have a lot of experience doing it and know where to look. Lord, knows I've wasted a lot of time acquiring that knowledge.

Now that I've been blabbing on, 90% of the time I'd go with you, but when you have an error code, it's almost never cheaper to replace and move on. As you said, to each his own. I've had a lot of efforts in futility that I'd love to have done the other way.