Hard drive failure is usually not a spontaneous event but one which typically exhibits sporadic boot failures prior to giving up the ghost...the user should be queried as to the characteristics of the drive during the last several months...the formation of bad blocks during Scandisk will also forcast an eventual drive failure. Also, the user should also give information if any type of software used to "fix or restore" (including antivirus fixes) the drive prior to failure. This information will aid in the post-mortem troubleshooting...