mysterious hd problem

[gg_wong]

yesterday, my computer was running fine when all of a sudden it froze up, restarted, and asked me to insert a proper boot progem. Confused, i just let me computer shut down to rest. Then i turned it back on later but i noticed that the problem persisted within an hour or 2 and my harddrive was making loud "clicking" sounds.

This morning was diffrent. The moment my computer just finished loading the windows loading bar page, it immediatly began to ask for a disk scan check. After that, laoding the password user page, my computer didnt load my original desktop! Windows told me that it was havin a problem loading my profile items, so it loaded defaultly witht he windows xp grass background with "SOME" programs. The confusing part is that i can still acess my old programs throguh my harddrive going to my user and desktop...

my question: how do i get back my old desk top? other than just transfering everything to my n ew desktop

[ajimenez3]

Your Hard Drive is in the process of dying. The clicking noise and loss of data are the symptoms of mechanical failure.
Time to get another drive and re-install your OS and then hook up your original and transfer what data you can before it dies completely.
After this if it is under warranty you can submit an RMA and get a replacement from the manufacture. Just go to the Manufactures website and you can check if it is under warranty.

[Incinerate_IV]

Agreed, better back up now before you lose everything!

[gg_wong]

now i have something funny to report
i bought a new hd, and set it as master and other as slave....
and booted computer assuming windows needed to be reinstalled.... well i was wrong.
so, i unplugged the slave and left the new hd and while loading past the specs screen, it asked me for a boot media disk! and the dvd drive had a windows xp cd inside...
im confused now

[Oldgamer]

This is actually quite an opportunity. Everyone thinks that the speed of a computer is driven by the CPU ... and of course, they're right, to a degree. But when you get a new harddrive, one that's 4-6 times faster in access speed than your old one, and has 280 gigs of space instead of 40 gigs, your computer will come alive.

I run M2TW with all of the options turned to full on a 1.6 ghz Pentium 4 (no hyperthreading), an nVidia 7600GT, and the very best harddrive I could buy, with 280 gigs of space. This computer doesn't even blink at M2TW. The only game I can't run maximum specs on is Flight Simulator X, and then I get most of the good stuff, and a 3d cockpit, to boot.

Harddrives aren't too expensive. Get a good one!

EDIT: I saw your last post. You're going to need a good technician to get this baby operating. They're not too expensive, either. Look for a guy who's trying to build a business, and it might only cost you $20.