I am running windows 98 and the computer was powered off with something still open. Now it's frozen at start up and scan disk won't go past 0 %. I get a message "data error reading FAT file on drive C" after a short wait on the scan disk sitting at at 0 %. I ran my 2 Compaq Quick Restore CD's to reformat everything hoping it would solve my problem but to no avail. At one point during the reformating I got this message; " Error #45 CRC error in data. Looked it up and saw where this is some sort of 'cyclic redundantcy check'. Anyone know where I go from here or is my HD toast? Thanks in advance for any help.

bootup with a startup disk in a: then,at the a: prompt type scandisk c: press enter. see what this does. if you need a win98 startup disk get a self extracting image at http://dos.li5.org/

all major hd companies have a similor diagnostic tool. identify your hd, go to its web site and download the checking utility. it will always run from a floppy, and usually has 3 optoins: quick test (never detects anything), through test detects problems much better then scandisk), and low level format (which will take about an year to complete).