[Steven]

Hi:
I am a newbie on the computer forum and to computers in general. I have been running defrag on a weekly basis, but notice that it stops because a message said I have errors on my hard drive. So I run scandisk to fix the errors automatically. There are no bad sectors on my hard drive, but errors were found and fixed. Had a SirCam virus attack my computer, but I was able to eliminate it with the SirCam virus fix.

What are errors? Scandisk is finding them weekly when I run scandisk.
What causes the errors, so maybe I can prevent them in the future?
Thanks for your responses and help.
Steven
Computer is original HP configuration except network card for AT&T cable modem, 2 gig slave hard drive, scanner and palm pilot

HP Pavilion 4440
AMD 333mhz
256 Mb Ram
Win 98 Version 2
AT&T cable modem
4.3 gig hard drive
McAfee virus scan updated weekly, if possible.
Only original HP softwares and my company softwares placed by company IT techs.

 

[thedeuce75]

Are you running defrag in safe mode with the screen saver and power conserv. off. Alot of times if you have something going in the background this can make defrag stop. Also, your os or file structure could be damaged from when you had a virus, sometimes even after you remove a virus there can be problems, think about when you take cancer out of a person. You may want to try a safe recovery, this will let you repair any damged system files with out having to restore everything.

 

[Doonz]

can you re-install the OS ...see if that helps


do you know who makes your hard drive Western Digital, Seagat, maxtor all have great diags tools...go to the appropiate site and download what you need under support...run it

www.ontrack.com has genric test suite that does a decent job

try it out!!

 

[Steven]

Thanks thedeuce75 & doonz

thedeuce75 and doonz:
Thanks for our responses.
I do not know what type of hard drive I have, but it can originally in the HP Pavilion 4440.

Being a newbie, how do you run safe recovery?
Also I will check out the ontrack.com site.
Thanks again.
Steven.

 

[thedeuce75]

that model of HP has been to known to have HD that go bad. Sorry, if that turns out to be what happend to you. To run a safe recovery if you want to try it. Can de done by booting to the floppy or cdrom the typing setup at the C:. It will look and feel like you are installing windows on a blank HD but really your just putting it over top itself. Like redoing a potholed road surface.


Good Luck....hope your HD is not jacked up

 

[Steven]

thedeuce75

Thedeuce75:
I ran a new thread with the following information. Your advice is needed on either this thread or the new one.
I have a:
HP Pavilion 4440
4.3 gig hard drive (unknown make and model)
1.0 gig slave hard drive (unknown make and model)
win 98 version 2
256 Mb ram
AT&T cable modem
I want to combine both hard drives into one 20 gig hard drive. I can't get rid of my 4.3 gig because is has all of the company's software and data.
Need your advice on:
Which brand to purchase?
After formatting my new 20 gig hard drive, do I place the new hard drive in the slave position, then image copy all of the information from the 4.3 gig to the new hard drive? Then remove the 4.3 gig (master) then place the new 20 gig hard drive into the master position? Am I correct? or going about it all wrong?
I am not sure if I can install my new 20 gig hard drive, then use the HP recovery CD because, it has win98 version 1 and my company IT upgraded my win98 to version 2 on my 4.3 gig hard drive, as it is needed to run the company's software.
Thanks for your response.
Steven, a computer newbie

 

[thedeuce75]

I recomend seagate HD. I dont think your PC supports ATA/100 so you can get a slower ATA/66 HD which will be cheaper. If you use the HD set up software that comes wtih the drive the slave master thing is not that important untill after the small HD is ghosted to the big one. You will not need the HP restore disk has the ghosting sw should make a perfect copy of the 4.3 to the 20. You will just boot to the 20 and it will all be the same except with 20 gigs of space.

 

[Steven]

thanks thedeuce75

thanks thedeuce75 for your response.
Steven.

 

[Doonz]

Steve I belive I replied in your other Post....

How did you make out with the failing drive....

when you boot the system watch the start up screen...it shoudl tell you what drive you have

Duce usally I have you back..... but as being a HP warranty provider...the cheap HP's have HD problems...you get what you pay for but Vectra and Kayaks are decent machines...worth the price although alot more then a Brio and a Pavillion....lets hope the compaq merger doesnt ruin it all

 

[Steven]

doonz

Doonz:
Thanks for your response, but it is strange, I have ran scandisk 4 times in the past 10 days and no errors. Everything seems to have fixed itself. (Wishful thinking). But I am still going to get a new hard drive in the meantime.
Thanks for your response.
Steven.

 

[ThEgReAtOnE]

Re: doonz

but as being a HP warranty provider...the cheap HP's have HD problems...you get what you pay for but Vectra and Kayaks are decent machines...worth the price although alot more then a Brio and a Pavillion....lets hope the compaq merger doesnt ruin it all

O Crap does that mean that I have a POS? I have a HP Pavillion 7850 that has a Pentium 3 933 MHz and a 40 Gig HD. I bought it almost a year ago.

 

[Doonz]

How do I put this ............YUP!!

In all fairness.....chances are it decent since you made it a year....its just cheaper parts go into your system then a Kayak or Vectra