HDD problem, please help (Permanent blue screen of death?)

About a week ago I noticed that my hard drive had started to decline in performance.. I was thinking "okay maybe it just needs to be defragged or something" I never get the chance to because well.. The next time I turned on my computer I got a blue screen of death.. It said something like "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" so I restarted, my computer would go through the usuall loadup just fine until it tried to log in to windows, then I would get another blue screen of death. I tried to reformat the hard drive but it errors during either actuall reformating or during windows installation. I recently purchased a new processor (I don't know if that would have anything to do with it) Could someone please help? x_X;

 

Did it start after your processor was installed,list details of your system. It may be your processor is not seated properly or the heastsink is not,cpu may be getting to hot.

 

I was thinking that, how would I make absolutely sure that it is seated propery though?

specs:

SOYO dragon motherboard
NVDIA Geforce FX video card
40 gig Western Digital Hard drive
30 gig Western Digital Hard drive
512 megabytes of RAM
Pentium 4 3.0 HT Processor
Antec True blue 480 watt PSU
Coolermaster jet turbine Heatsink thingy
CDRW drive
CD drive
Creative sound card
Microsoft wireless network adapter

hm.. I hope I didn't forget anything..

 

http://www.gruntville.com/reviews/heatsinks/cm_jet7/page3.php
GruntvillE.com Case Modding, Overclocking, Reviews & Games Here is an install guide i think this is the heatsink you have. What kind of thermal compound did you use? You will have to remove the heatsink clean it off and the processor with at least 91% isopropyl alcohol and a lint free cloth. Anytime you are working inside the case make sure you ground your self( side of case,power supply,anything metal to discharge static electricity) and unplug the computer from the power supply. Use only a small amount of compound and spread it over processor.

 

http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/res...top/proc_dsk_p4/technical_reference/99345.htm
Integration of Boxed Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor in the 775-Land Package (ATX) Read on down the page!!

 

I was using the thermal compound that came with the heatsink and fan, thank you for all your help I'll be sure to try this ^^

 

I found out what te problem was, the RAM slot that I had my RAM in was skrewy. Thank you all very much though.