Is my hard drive fried?

[Drunk Skunk]

I woke up this morning and to my surprise, there was a message on my monitor about not being able to find the boot device, or something along those lines. My first thought is that my hard drive is toast. I turned everything off and just left it sit for awhile.

After a couple of hours, I checked to make sure everything was secure on the inside and booted up again. It came on just fine, but after about 15 minutes, I get the blue screen of death. I decided not to screw with it anymore and went to work.

When I got home, I tried it and it booted up okay, but I got the BSOD after about 5 minutes this time .... waited a few minutes and the same thing happened again. I get the blue screen with a kernal inpage error.

Does this mean my hard drive is toast? I have been hearing my hard drive make a whining noise for awhile, and the occasional clicking noise. It's about, at least 5 years old, probably 6 or 7. Also, if my HDD is done, would it be a good time to get a new motherboard too?

[Vulcan]

My thoughts.
I don't know about your hard drive but if your MB is also 5 years old, I'd suggest getting a new computer rather than upgrading the MB. You'd also have to upgrade your memory and maybe your power supply and video card as well.
Having said that, hard drives are pretty cheap now, so I'd just replace that unless you want a new computer.

[Resolute 14]

A kernel stack inpage error occurs when the system cannot read data from the paging file into RAM. That often does indicate a failing hard drive. Especially if you got a no boot device error as well.

I'd agree with Vulcan. If you are looking to upgrade the motherboard, you are really looking at an entirely new computer. IDE hard drives are cheap though, if that is all you are looking to replace. A popular store here in Calgary sells 160GB IDE hard drives for c$60.

[Swayze11]

Clicking sounds on a HD are never a good thing. Do you move your computer when its turned on?

[Madman]

Originally Posted by Swayze11

Clicking sounds on a HD are never a good thing. Do you move your computer when its turned on?

Only a little.

[I_H8_Crawford]

Yeah it probably is the HDD - one thing to try however is when is the last time you cleaned out the interior of your computer?

Buy some compressed air and blow out all the crap inside, esp. near all the fans and vents - could be overheating issues due to buildup of crap - give that a try first maybe help prevent you from having to buy a new comp soon...

[Drunk Skunk]

I actually clean out my computer once a week now, it's pretty spotless in there. I never move it when I have it running, it just stays next to my desk.

I upgraded my video card last year, and just put in a new power supply a month or two ago. My cousin has a nice duo core motherboard just sitting around in his house that I could get for a good price. So I'd only be on the hook for RAM and a HDD.

I noticed a reputable online dealer had 500gb hdd, Western Digital, on sale this weekend for $70. Seems like a decent deal to me .... only an 8mb cache though.

[Ironhorse]

I picked up a couple of 500 Gig Barracudas /w 32mb cache for $87 CAD a few weeks ago. Granted they were SATA, and not IDE.

[Titan]

Originally Posted by Madman

Only a little.

Varry Nice!!