Bad sector increases on start up

Download a diagnostic software from hard drive manufacture website and run the extended test. If the tool found problems start to back up tour files immediately. You know the real meaning of peace only if you have been through the war.

Since your computer still loads windows ok, you can download Seatools for Windows, install it and run a diagnostic, the long generic one. If your hard disk passes, then it is probably fine. I would uninstall the trial version of that software before it drives you crazy thinking imminent danger is always around the corner. http://www.seagate.com/support/down...

Agreed, it is possible that the trial software is designed to convince you that you cannot live without the paid full version of their software and that you need to constantly need to watch your drive for problems. As above, test your hard drive the right way using the hard drive manufacture's utility or Seatools since it is relatively universal. If your drive shows up as fine, dump the download. If the drive is showing problems there, it may be time to back up everything and consider replacing the drive. Either way, free and trial versions of software that are not highly recommended (like software you will find recommended here and by other reliable sources), should be treated as suspect until they prove otherwise. I would recommend actually removing the software before testing it just to make sure that the 'monitoring' part of it does not interfere with the test. Also know that occasionally, bad memory can give you a false bad hard drive test so consider testing the memory with Mermtest to confirm. You have to be a little bit crazy to keep you from going insane.