About a week ago now, my computer started having HDD problems. Each time I would boot up, it would tell me I may have infected clusters, and I need to ScanDisk. I did skip through this once or twice, because I didn't necessarilly have the time to wait (and I didn't want to). Before I went to bed, I started an update for my McAfee Virus Scan (The D/L time seemed to be long, and since I have a 56k modem, I just let these sort of things run overnight). The next morning it was all finished. It asked to install the new update, and once it was finished, it needed to restart my comp. After rebooting, I recieved the Scandisk message/error once again. I decided to let it run through, and do something else for awhile. After a few hours of surface scanning, etc., it was finished. After this, I believe it gave a registry error, and said it needed to update. I'm pretty sure this is what happened next, I don't think it booted up windows. After it would update, it would need to restart. Then, the Scandisk error came again, then the Registry error. After going through this once or twice, I knew something was wrong. Scandisk was reporting that my HDD was going bad, and that I needed to backup files (A message something like this, after the scandisk finished). Finally I recieved the Smart message, telling me "Failure may be imminent". Having RAM problems in the past, I tried using another stick I had. Still, the problems remained. I even tried formatting the HDD, but it paused partway through. I finally decided my HDD was going to die, and replaced it with a 2gb HDD I had laying around. I thought my problems were fixed... but they weren't. All was well, but after a few hours of usage, I started getting Scandisk errors! I went through the Scandisk process again. Near the end, it would pause for about 10 minutes, then a fix it screen would pop up. It would take awhile to fix, but would pause again, moving only a few clusters, and asking to fix again. I never finished it when it was like this. I did do a "/scandisk /autofix /nosummary" once, but when I came back, it was at the command prompt. Not sure if it skipped the end summary, because of /nosummary, or something else. Anyway, the errors did not disappear. Right now, I am afraid to use the computer, in fear that something else might happen, or the drive will die completely. Oh yeah, I tried installing the original HDD on another comp, as a slave, but upon booting up, it would freeze up with the "auto-detecting" words. So, I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions, and any ideas on what's going on. Is it possible for a virus to be inside the motherboard? If so, what should I do, and is there anyway to detect if my hardware is infected? Sorry if the post wasn't complete, I'm just trying to remember exactly what happened. Thanks! Ryan

FDISK IT. BOOT UP TO A DOS PROMPT AND TYPE IN FDISK /MBR, THEN DO A REGULAR FDISK AND CREATE YOUR PARTITIONS AND RELOAD THE OPERATING SYSTEM

Check Your Settings i the BIOS. If You have enabled virus-checking in BIOS, You might experience that kind of error-mess.

Virus doesn't technically infect your hardware, (I take that back) but it souds like you have a BIOS enabled Boot Sector virus,it hides itself in the BIOS and activates it everytime you reboot. My suggestions: 1) Use a startup disk and run the command FindRamd for the hell of it, it always fixed problems with boot sectors for some reason ;-) 2) Flash your bios-- try to upgrade your bios, hope its flashable. 3) Replace motherboard and/or memory, sorry to say, when viruses get thier time to do their damage, some of it may become permanent with no other way out.

Thank you for all the suggestions! I tried the FindRamD command, and everything seems to be fine now. I think I will try out the original HDD again, and see if I can get it working again. Hopefully the errors won't come back :p. Ryan

A very good solution to this problem is a low level format in case any of the above things dnt work try this ..... for more info sure check this site http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/low_level_ata.html#What+does+low