Hi everyone! I figured I'd let everyone know some of my computer issues may be solved. Awhile back I posted my windows explorer bar had a magnifying glass over certain folders, the computer shut down when using handbrake and hung when using vlc. startup repair never worked, did the chkdisk thing, antivirus antispyware,etc, things there were fine. My comp recently started to hang at startup or freeze at odd times. I brought it back to microcenter (local comp store) and they found dust, and ran it overnight w/out issue. they then gave it a stress test and the hard drive failed!
They're setting me up with a new hard drive and OS and stuff as it was shipped. Hope this works because the warranty ends in a couple of months!

I've had HDD's fail on me... Sucks. Hope you had backups... I learned my lesson... I have so many spare HDD's these days with the same data!!!

Glad your getting it sorted out Nick.

I didn't know it was failing, but have learned from past experiences to back up important data. My Iomega has made it easy to do this. (7gb tranferred in less than 1hour). I used burn dvds which would take me several hours!
How long do hard drives usually last? I am unsure if I pushed it too hard (not enough ventilation, dust, converting dvd files and the like).
Hope to get to the store today to pick it up, and see if it truly works.

startreksuite wrote:I didn't know it was failing, but have learned from past experiences to back up important data. My Iomega has made it easy to do this. (7gb tranferred in less than 1hour). I used burn dvds which would take me several hours!
How long do hard drives usually last? I am unsure if I pushed it too hard (not enough ventilation, dust, converting dvd files and the like).
Hope to get to the store today to pick it up, and see if it truly works.

Hi
Things like dust & a lack of adequate ventilation will contribute to a HDD life (or lack of one).
I have just about the biggest tower, with 7 case fans.
Never have a problem with ventilation.
Still have to clean air filters which collect virtually all my dust problems on a monthly basis.
The conventional HDD will usually give hints before it dies totally.
Similar to your 1st post.
Have been able to hear drive producing more noise (even clicking) in the past too.
Unlike SSD which either works or doesn't.

Got my comp back Saturday. Got a serious head cold so was loopy yesterday and today. I was confused when the guy gave me my old hard drive back (best buy probably throws it away). I think they owed me a 7200, not a 5400rpm. {It sure didn't look broken}.That's okay though, it's working well. Had fun playing with Rainmeter last night and today. Will take screenshots later. Got coretemp running and a battery monitor on it so I know when to address some issues. I'm copying some files right now, will go to bed soon so I won't be too exhausted in the morning.