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Possible HDD failure

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This goes well above my level of knowledge. So I need some help if you can.

My PC at home is acting up. It has started a problem with freezing up really bad. It started just over a week ago. It lost IE and my D drive once it unfroze. The only way I could get those back was I had to run my system restore disc and start from scratch.

So throughout last week I had been trying to get my software put back on. And you know how some software makes you reboot after installing, well my PC would do any 1 of 3 things. Either it would not make it oast the initial windows XP screen before it would freeze, or it would go as far as loading my wallpaper but none of my icons would show up and I couldn’t get to my start button to shut it down correctly, or everything would come up after about 10 minutes but when I would try to access a program it might be another 20 minutes before it would open if it didn’t cause it to freeze again. With the first 2 problems,a soft shut down was impossible. I couldn’t shutdown with the start button nor the control+Alt+Del wouldn’t work.

I ran a check using “Fix-It Utilities” and it came beck with a problem on my hard drive and told me to run CHKDSK/F. I did but it didn’t help anything. Is it possible my HD is shot?Or do you think it could be another issue??

The stats on my PC are….

E-Machine T-2862
768MB RAM
60GB HDD
Celeron D 330

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Reply To: Possible HDD failure

In reply to Possible HDD failure

Its possible changing the HD would work, give it a try.

However, I had a very similar eMachine problem a while back. It turned out that the 512 M memory chip was faulty. Try each memory chip individually and see if the problem corrects itself with one of the memory chips removed. If so, replace the chip.

Reply To: Possible HDD failure

In reply to Possible HDD failure

Try removing the hdd from the bay, and stand it on one of its sides. See if it boots better. I have seen this problem several times in the last 2 yrs.
My suggestion, if this works or not, recover data and get a new drive.

Reply To: Possible HDD failure

In reply to Possible HDD failure

First thing is to go to the HDD makers Web Site and download the testing Utilities for their HDD and test the Drive/s to see if they are actually working correctly.

You’ll know far more after running the proper test than attempting to muck around in the dark without knowing what’s wrong.

If you still are having problems after that and the drives show up as OK then you can download [b]The Ultimate Boot CD[/b] from

http://tinyurl.com/3jnpy

Boot from the CD and then run some Diagnostics on the actual computer. Also if you have some form of Monitoring Utility that shows the system Temp and Voltages you should run this and pay close attention to the 5 V DC Supply if it’s low this can cause the HDD to play up and appear not to work properly.

Col

Reply To: Possible HDD failure

In reply to Possible HDD failure

Try downloading the program “HDD Health” from http://www.panterasoft.com/ and see what that says about your drive.

It could be a range of other hardware or software problems, including but not limited to a virus.

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