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Computer hard drive problem?
I was playing a game on my computer about 32 days ago when it froze and in error popped up that said "fail to write", I had to turn off manually and when i restarted I could not even get it into safe mode, I reinstalled windows xp and it seemed to work fine, I was playing Diablo 3 when it froze again and it said "failed to write" but also another error code that said 'Ntoskral.exe", I tried to reinstall windows agian but this time it said "cannot reinstall as disc is damaged, or may be corrupted" I spoke with someone who knows more about computers than i do and he said that it is most likely the hard drive is damaged and to buy another hard drive and then consider installing windows 7. I have 4 gig of ram and am considering buying windows 7 , a new hard drive and more ram, but should I? I think I could install a hard drive although I am not computer savvy, I dont know, bummed at my computer- whaddya think?
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Cant say for sure although if it is a SeaGate hard disk I had two of those external SeaGate drives fail on me with a bunch of bad sectors without reason lost all data on them too.
Download the program called HD Tune, and run a scan if it doesn't all light up green run a check dsk repair bad sectors if that dont work easiest way swap out for a new one.
http://www.hdtune.com/
Could be a number of issues though.
The problem is I can only boot from my windows xp disc, if i hit F8 it will go to the load windows normally or safe mode, but when I click safe mode it just spits out some numbers and stops. I tried running the Repair mode from my windows xp and after a bit it said the disc maybe damaged and it could not repair. If i cannot boot from safe or last config or anything than how can i download a program? Or is there any way I can run a ckdisc scan?
This should help you get to the scan disk http://www.schrockinnovations.com/how-to-run-a-chkdsk-to-repair-your-damaged-hard-drive-2/EDIT: On second tought, Falcomith's instructions are better. I deleted my post /EDIT
so your running windows xp? Can i ask how long youve had your hard drive, most hard drive life span are about 5years. Obv thats not typical but if youve ever read a western digital manual that comes with harddrives youll see the recommend replacing your harddrive every 2 or so years. Weather your going to or not thats really up to each persons preferances, personally i have not bought other brands but i do have alot of friends who have bad luck with seagate and other off brands after about 3 years of use.
Sorry thats not much help but im just assuming if your hard drive is as long as i think because of the windows xp then your probably looking at buying a new one. Now if you do think of buying a new one you need to make sure that you get the right kind, your computer may only run IDE and that techs out of date and those hard drives can cost as much or more than the newer ones just because there not supplied so much anymore. If you need help picking out new compants. List your mother board model number and the other compents so we can help you faster
My hard drive is 4 years old so it may be time for a new one. My motherboard is a Asus P5G41C-M. I would hate to buy a hard drive though if my mother board is corrupt, however my motherboard is only 18 months old
More than likely a bad hard drive, especially if it's 4 years old. They tend to average about a 5 year lifespan (and that's just an average, some live longer, some die younger).
I wouldn't rule out bad cable or motherboard, but the most likely fault is the hard drive itself. It's free to try a different cable if you have one laying around though - good easy check, and I have seen cables break before (although it's not common).
I wouldn't stress about more RAM - for 98% of people 4G is plenty. Windows 7 is a nice upgrade, although you can get the Windows 8 Consumer Preview for free right now (at least until Windows 8 ships), so you could also make a case for setting up your computer with your current copy of XP, the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 (dual boot), and then purchase Windows 8 when it arrives and skip Vista/7 all together.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/consumer-preview
yea since the hard drive is 4 yrs old actually 4 yrs 7 months, I will replace that, prob go with Windows 7 home edition (i think it is about $169 ) and prob get another 4 gig of ram for a total of 8 gigs.
I was able to run a check disc as per your instructions-thanks- unfortunately it said "one or more unrecoverable errors are on this disc, unable to compete", so i guess that means bad HD , time to replaice