harddrive question

Do disk block errors in the Event Viewer mean my harddrives going out? Or is there any way to fix this? Thanks,

 

Yes, your drive may be going out, then again, it may not be. Visit your hard drive maker's web site and download and run their diagnostic tool. Use the advanced tests. If problems are found, many of these diagnostic tools will try to repair the faulty drive sectors or clusters. If you're not sure on who made your hard drive, check the Device Manager. Click the plus sign next to Disk Drives. You'll see a model number. If it starts with HT or IC it's a Hitachi, ST is Seagate WD is Western Digital and so on. If you still can't tell who made it, type the model number into your favorite internet search engine and you'll find out who made it. All the main drive makers have these free diagnostic tools for download. You may want to run chkdsk also. Here's how: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265/en-us
Good luck!
and Happy Holidays! :wine

 

Okay, it's Toshiba. I ran its diagnostics, and it said everything is fine. So should I do the chkdsk, then? And see how things run after that?

 

Yup. Boot to the Recovery Console from your XP CD and type chkdsk /r and press Enter. Running a full chkdsk can take some time, so go grab a pizza and some beers while it runs. You should think about backing up any important data and performing a low level format on the drive. A low level format also takes alot of time as it writes zeroes across the entire drive, but it 'repairs' many drive problems that aren't physical or mechanical in nature.

NOTE: there's a space between "chkdsk" and the "/r" in the command above; but you already knew that, right?

 

Okay, yeah. I think it's done the chkdsk thing on its own once, I had turned the computer on one day and it went to a blue screen that said that and started listing millions of files, and it took all day. Anywhos, I can't grab the beer since I'm too young for that, hah.

Also, I have another question... Is it possible a virus or a hacker could cause problems like that on my hard drive? I was telling a "friend" that my computer keeps freezing, and he knew just what to look for, which I find odd...

Anywho Happy Holidays! Thanks for your help

 

Theoretically, it is possible for a virus or hack attack to cause that kind of problem, but it's highly unlikely. Most viruses are written to multiply, and to keep the PC running so the virus can spread. If the virus crashes your PC on purpose, that would be counter-productive. On the other hand, if a hacker got in there, and really wanted to cause problems, he could. But this is VERY rarely done to regular home users. Unless you have a "friend" out there that wanted to cause you some personal headaches, most hacker types don't have the time or interest to go after "small time" folks like us. If they were going to break into a system to crash a hard drive, they'd do it do the IRS or the school district or something, not you (probably )

and have a very Merry XMas!