[DennConn]

I have a Dell 8400 with XP Pro sp2, Pentium 4 cpu 3.60ghz, with 2gb memory. I had a head crash on the C drive a few months after I bought the system, and had it replaced and reloaded everything. that was 6 months ago. the C Drive is a Maxtor 250gb, I also have a SEagate 300gb drive I use for back up, and an external WD 120gb drive.

On Two occassions in the last week while system was on but not used, a blue screen came up and said Error detected and need to reboot, if this is the first time you have seen this, reboot, if it happens again check attached hardware. I rebooted and system ok except that i heard a "Tick Tick Tick Tick on the hard drive, and the cooling fan went crazy, So I turned it off......This happened twice. a couple days apart. It got so bad, I did a restore of Windows XP to a few days earlier.

I ran chkdsk and it found an error on the C: Drive....I ran System Mechanic Professional and it fixed some problems but could not fix a hard drive problem on my "C: " Drive. periodically the window i am in freezes up and takes a while to continue running, or goes blank and then continues. this is not often but makes me think I have a problem in the making.

What can I do to avoid head crash or total failure....?????? Help....I sense It won't be long till this system dies......Last time I had a head crash...It took over 25 Calls to Dell, a $200 dollar fee, and the tech wiped out my back up, which i had to have a professional company recover.........Ideas are most welcome ...

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Im afraid that if its on its way to the grave then there is little you can do, i wouldnt use a drive dell gave me they dont use good drives they get the cheapest they can and often thats the shipments with higher numbers of defective drives that and you have to rely on dell techs and any fool that can use a screwdriver can replace a HDD.

It sounds like its on its way out, if its a maxtor they make a disk diagnostic utility you can use to check the drives health. If you are still in warranty just get dell to send you a new drive which is the normal procedure and you fit it yourself and use the seagate drive as your primary or the new one whatever you want.

I usually dont reccomend dell for anything over than sub 500 systems and laptops otherwise you are better with a different company or building yourself.

[warriorscot]

Im afraid that if its on its way to the grave then there is little you can do, i wouldnt use a drive dell gave me they dont use good drives they get the cheapest they can and often thats the shipments with higher numbers of defective drives that and you have to rely on dell techs and any fool that can use a screwdriver can replace a HDD.

It sounds like its on its way out, if its a maxtor they make a disk diagnostic utility you can use to check the drives health. If you are still in warranty just get dell to send you a new drive which is the normal procedure and you fit it yourself and use the seagate drive as your primary or the new one whatever you want.

I usually dont reccomend dell for anything over than sub 500 systems and laptops otherwise you are better with a different company or building yourself.

[Sparkman]

I suggest you get the Maxtor One Touch III and back everything up on it. Then get a recovery disk and go through to fans test and have it check the fans. This will also tell you if there are any other problems with your computer that wya you can navigate through and fix them and possibly get more time/life out of your computer.

M

[warriorscot]

I can =honestly say that makes less than no sense.

[Sparkman]

I guess you have to know what your talking about... and how to type.

[warriorscot]

Well having Dell as your OS you must know much more than me.

[james_8970]

sry to butt in here but.......

[bmwboy]

Seriously, what you said makes absolutely no sense, and, just curious, what version of DellOS are you running?

--bmwboy

[racinmason001]

ohhh that is too funny. Hey warriorscot if you dont know what your talking about whats with the hardware warrior tag.

[racinmason001]

dell's makin O.S. now? look out mr gates!

[happyrock]

aah.... a little humor to start the day...
back to the problem...first backup anything you can't live without....you should have at least 2 copies....then run Chkdsk...you may just be ordering a new drive....

to keep this from happening again...dont leave your compter on when you aren't using it...unless its like in the 300MHz processor range...leave that on on and pray for lightning so could be put out of its misery..

Edited by happyrck, 14 October 2006 - 07:44 AM.

[DennConn]

Thanks for your suggestions and ideas. It has been two days since the Tick Tick Tick, and the fan has not gone crazy. I actually thought i would see sparks from this thing the fan was going so fast.

I have backed up all of my critical files to my External Hard Drive WD 120GB. Also Copied numerous files to my Internal 300GB Segate. I also used Acronis True Image to do an image of my Operating partition and also of my Data Partition. I also archived my Email in a PST file on External drive.

I have my C: Drive partitioned to a "C: for operating system and programs", and "E: for Data" .
My Segate300GB Internal Drive is partitioned as "D: for Operating system back up", "F: For Data Back Up", and "G: for Misc Back up of Data Files etc."

I did find a "MSMPENG.EXE " running last night taking up to 80 percent of my CPU and slowing me down, So I deleted Microsoft's Spy Software, and it is now gone.

Question:
How Do I create a Recovery Disk???
How does it check the fan or disk for errors. I have already ran Checkdisk and System Mechanic Pro to check for errors, and SMP indicates an error on the C: drive that they can't fix.
I just ran chkdsk and it had no errors. (Go Figure??)
What is the best way to switch out Hard Drives for a Partitioned Op System...? If I replace it totally will have to reload everything OS/Programs( I got a lot) and Data???
Could I partition my segate for a Operating system and run from there if I crash?
What is the best Quality Internal Drive in your experience.

As you can tell I am not all the technical....I am sure I can put a new drive in, as I installed the Segate and also Partitioned both drives...So I can do somethings....

Thanks for your help....

Denny

[happyrock]

get everest home...we will see your voltages and temps..

http://www.filehippo...d_everest_home/

check the attacment for where to find the info