disk integrity

[Big_Dave]

You won't necessarily get any satisfaction from a new hard drive unless you are sure the old one is knackered (or about to go). Your problems could just be software related so a reload of Windows could help.

I tend to find using Scandisk (set to repair bad sectors) and Defrag to tidy things up, helps a bit. Together with Windows XP firewall, good anti virus and a good spyware checker.

In my opinion you are most likely to kill your hard drive by installing dodgy virus infested software or downloads. Or your hard drive will die of its own accord (physical failure).

The latter nothing can be done about unless you pay lots to get a thrid party company to open the drive and recover your data.

And i'm afraid a new hard drive could be just like your old one. By that I mean you should assume your hard drive could fail at the next boot up. Therefore do all your critical backups each time you shut down.

Just my humble opinion.

[pinbrook]

my plan is to re-format and re-install and take it from there. The laptop is rebooting ok today and I'm using it. (Although more critical stuff is now on PC ie actinic design stuff - not that I've done any today)

I don't need to worry about data loss as it is all backed up.

obviously anti virus spyware is all up to date too.

Only thing i haven't done is scan disk.

[wjcampbe]

Yes you have Jo - Scandisk is just fancy dressing for a subset of chkdsk, by running chkdsk you have achieved all that scandisk could do for you and more.

[gabrielcrowe]

post warning: tech speak.


<mytwopence>
First of all, i'v just skimmed this post, so I might have missed something.

1 - Check your hardware.
RAM is the main culprit for a lot of hardware fails. get This tool to check the ram in your laptop. it boots from the cd (burned from the iso in this file) and you should leave it running overnight (or enough time to complete a single pass of ram testing.)

2 - Boot to a linux liveCD and see if you're still crashy.
i use DSL (damnsmalllinux) From here. Does your laptop run fine? remember, that liveCD's dont interact with your hard drive.

3 - Stop using XP
Find yourself a copy of windows 2000 Pro. There is a reason why its got the word 'pro' at the end of its title. If you can, even better, would be a copy of 2003, its essentially XP with lots of issues fixed. XP itself and its cobbled together updates system is your problem here. A round of recent updates to xp machines did not apply correctly on some configurations, and as a result, trashed the boot sequency to the point where ntldr (the windows bootloader) failed to load. specifically, XP's 'hibernate' and 'suspend' features, make elaborate use of hard drive sotred ram and such to speed up the booting and loading of systems.

Facts:

- I run 2000 pro, on my 5(!) year old hp pavilion.
- I have a router, not a modem.
- I'v had only Zone Alarm and 'AVG Anti-Virus' to guard me.
- Recently, I'v been using Sandboxie, Ad-Aware and Privoxy.
- I use Firefox and IE6 with Sandboxie.
- I'v *never* re-installed.
- I'v *never* had a virus.
- I frequently prance around areas of the web that are 'earmarked' as dangerous, but nothing gets past sandboxie, and never will.

4 - Put your laptop to the limit of its hardware, and see if it can take it. If it can survive this, then it can run pansy ass Windows XP.
StressLinux.

If you do go for XP again, then i suggest you try to keep yourself safe with some tools from thses people. most of the cases I'v come across, its an XP issue. Fresh install will have fixed it, no doubt Ms Pinbrook, you've fixed all the issues here anyhow.

</mytwopence>

[pinbrook]

Cheers Guys, all useful stuff for me to work with.

The laptop seems ok to me, it reboots fine i've done it several times today.

everything seemed ok after the chkdsk last night.

But to be sure, I've reinstalled XP (because its one of those pre-installed laptops I can't reformat the disk.)

I'm sticking virus apps, spyware etc on first

then a few other apps, then we are all going to the Docs tomorrow afternoon to get the disk and memory checked

then I'll stick on the rest of the apps.

[pinbrook]

Yes you have Jo

i thought about that, and wondered if indeed there was any difference between scan disk and checkdisk