Computer problem: 190:qttask.exe - No Disk

[ShirleyM]

Today my computer could not find either the CD or DVD drive. I rebooted, still no CD or DVD drive. I did a complete shut down, restarted, then it booted up to Win XP desktop and gave me this message:

190:qttask.exe - No Disk
There is no disk in the drive. Plese insert a disk in the drive \Device\Harddisk1\DR3.

Cancel Try Again Continue


Well, I freaked! I couldn't find anything in "My Computer" so couldn't quickly back up new files to my external drive... I could open anything else on the desktop... but nothing was in "My Computer" except a searching flashlight. I finally hit "Continue" or "Try Again" I forget which, and My Computer filled up w/the usual icons and the CD and DVD drive were there, as were everything else, so I backed up some important data.

What is going on? How worried should I be? What does that message mean?

Yes, I run Norton 24/7 with updates etc.

Thank you in advance...

Shirley

[Twitterbait]

How old is the computer? Over time motherboards will die, when that starts they will stop seeing some things.

[ShirleyM]

I've had systems last a lot longer than this one... it's only 3 or 4 yrs old... P-IV Sony VAIO

[ShirleyM]

Couple things I noticed:

My external HD is FAT32.

My two internal drives are files system NTFS. I thought they were FAT32. Shouldn't they be? And how could they "change"?

Also, I discovered I had less than 150MB free space on EACH internal drive... so I did a major cleanup, dumped a bunch of stuff... could this be why it had trouble finding itself?

I'm wondering why now it's listing itself as NTFS for my C and D internal HD's... maybe they were always that way??

Thanks,
Shirley

EDIT: just rebooted successfully (had not done that 'til the big cleanup) and also read THIS about FAT32 and NTFS, etc, so evidently I'm ok there after all....

[wharyat]

Yep you want NTFS with a 32 bit OS like Windows XP. Do you have S.M.A.R.T. detection on your hard drives? It should say "S.M.A.R.T. enabled", or "S.M.A.R.T. capable but disabled" when you start up; if it is enabled this could be showing you a possible hard drive failure to come. HD's usually have a life of 3-8 years.

To answer the question about changing file systems, you have to format the HD's; but you don't want to do this.

[wharyat]

I just caught something, the qttask.exe is from Quicktime movie player; preloads it during startup.

If you have the know-how, or know someone to do so; I recommend backing up all your important documents, files, bookmarks, etc., and reinstalling windows. Over time programs usually start working oddly and a fresh install is needed. I reformat every 6-8 months just to keep registry and my HD's clean.

If you reinstall and still notice an error, then a new hard drive might be your best bet.

[ShirleyM]

In msconfig, qttask.exe -atboottime is disabled in startup. Should it be enabled? I probably did that a few weeks ago when I was trying to turn unnecessary things off and speed things up. This system used to run so fast, and it's getting slower and slower. I use it for intense Photoshop work daily, working with 20-60MB tif files, sometimes larger.

Thank you so much!
Shirley

EDIT: After reading this, I believe I must have disabled it for a good reason: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/star....exe-4313.html

[wharyat]

Any more problems popping up?

[ShirleyM]

No, it's been running fine since I cleaned out some room.

I spoke to the local Computer Geek store guy today... he said going from 512 ram to a gig and a larger HD for more room for swap files, etc would help a lot, and that a format reload might be in order.

~ Shirley

[AHBrit]

if you're going to buy a hard drive, i strongly recommend getting 2 SATA drives and stripe them (RAID). Your performance will increase dramatically as this is usually the slowest part of the system. I have striped now for the last 2 years. This is by far not the cheapest option though.
The speed increases are at a point where you can burn DVD's and use photoshop all at the same time without any noticable performance loss.

[ShirleyM]

OK -- what do you mean by "stripe them"? Internal drives? daisy chain?

Why two? Thank you!

[AHBrit]

Run 2 drives in sync using a raid controller.
half the data is saved onto each drive. Data extraction can then potentially max out at 1gb per sec (not achievable with today's drive speeds).
so really, you're going to double the data extraction because of the read speeds of the 2 drives.
it's like 2 trucks pulling the weight that 1 truck is normal towing. You're gonna go faster.

i tested my eide drive against the raid setup:
eide extracted at 45mbps
Raid extracted at 120mbps

SATA is also a lot faster than ide drives anyway.imo

[ShirleyM]

So these are external or internal?

So it's a controller, and two RAID hard drives?
SATA -- is that a brand?

[ShirleyM]

Found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

and this: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,108231,00.asp

[AHBrit]

Mine are both internal.
My controller is actually built into the motherboard. it controls 6 SATA drives (Serial ATA). This motherboard wasn't cheap though. Most newer motherboards can control 2 at least. If the motherboard doesn't have it you can buy a PCI controller for abround $50. prob cheaper on ebay.
my drives are both 160GB SATA drives. it gives me 320GB of space, and the computer only recognizes them as one drive.
See attachment for a visual