My harddrive is dying :( [maybe not, but now it's something worse]

[Great Rumbler]

And I just reinstalled Windows a few months ago because of a virus. 

computers

[Robo]

                                           

011011000110111101101100001000000110010001110101011011010110001 000100000011001100110000101100111

                    /
  

[Brehvolution]

 

Sorry about your loss. 

[Madrun Badrun]

 

[Great Rumbler]

Picked up a new 500GB Seagate to replace my old, busted 150GB Western Digital. Got Windows installed with no problems, now I just gotta get everything else installed, which will take a few hours at least.

Luckily, I had most of my games [including Steam games] stored on my secondary harddrive.

[tehjaybo]

If it's dying, but isn't dead, just ghost the fucker over.  That way everything is safe.

[Great Rumbler]

Well, apparently there's some other, far worse, issue going on here. I've got a brand new harddrive and a brand new Windows Vista installation, but the problem has arisen again.

My computer worked fine for several days, everything ran smoothly and didn't have any problems at all. Then, today, it's back again as bad as it ever was. And I'm pretty much clueless here.

The only thing I can figure out is that the problem is, somehow, related to the download of large files. Yesterday, I downloaded ACE Online and Anarchy Online. When I tried to install ACE Online, the file was corrupted and it wouldn't do anything. When I tried to install Anarchy Online, the installer froze up and I had to reset. After that, every time I tried to install Anarchy Online, my computer would freeze up and it would have to reset Windows Explorer to begin working again. Anytime I tried to access or delete the file or folder, it would do the same thing. But, as long as I didn't mess with it, my computer ran just fine.

Today, I redownloaded the ACE Online installation file. It downloaded, or seemed to have, but anytime I try to access it, Windows Explorer crashes and has to be rest. Also, anytime I'm at my desktop, it randomly slows down or freezes up.

When my other harddrive flipped out, I was doing the same thing: downloading large files.

I'm close to just tearing my hair out.

[demi]

RAM

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, I asked somebody who knows more about computer than I do and that's what he thought at well.

I've got four sticks of 1GB, so I'll try yanking one and then restarting until the busted stick is excised.

[Great Rumbler]

Hmm...I'm having some trouble here. I can't figure out which of the sticks isn't working. I know that at least two are working, because the computer has started up and basic programs have run okay. But I think at least two AREN'T working, because each time I've run across the same problems when trying to execute those two big installation files.

But, that could be because the files got corrupted because of this issue and anything I do with them is just going to cause the computer to freak out. I'm just not sure.

[demi]

memtest

[Pringo]

While on the topic of hard drives I have a question for the computer-savvy users here.

I recently bought a 500 GB hard drive to add to my PC as my older 250 GB drive was running out of room pretty quickly. I was originally going to just stick the new drive in and use it for extra storage space but I found out after I got it in that it didn't come with its own SATA cable and I didn't have any spares, so I ended up just swapping the drives and installing Windows on the new one. I have an extra cable now so I can plug in both drives but I'm thinking I'd like to use my 250 GB drive for backup instead. What's the best way of going about doing this? Can I just stick in the old drive and format it within Windows or do I need anything else?

[Great Rumbler]

I used memtest and it came across some errors, but apparently it won't actually tell you where the errors are located.