For no reason that I can work out, XP suddenly stopped booting. When I got in
via Recovery Console I found that boot.ini, hal.dll and a few other key files
were missing, along with all of My Documents.

I've now reinstalled XP, but CHKDSK automatically runs about 1 boot in 5
during startup, and always finds a number of errors.

I've run SeaTools to test my disk, and it finds no errors (although it won't run under Windows for some reason, as "scrrun.dll is not a valid Windows image"). Is there any
other way of seeing if my hard-drive is dying? Any way of working out what
chkdsk is finding problems with?

Thanks in advance.

Why can't I put a question in my signature?

What brand HDD? You can create a boot CD with the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test and try testing with it. I scan different brands in both Quick and Advanced modes and it has been reliable in detecting when a drive is failing. A general rule is that when you start getting drive errors it is time to replace the drive before it quits completely.

Richard

Start with setting bios to the slowest settings. Usually you have a fail safe or default as a good place to start. Be sure you have the best quality IDE or other drive cables. Consider resetting all components (use ESD prevention). Consider a test suite, (such as the above mentioned) or start with any memtest for some 10 hours or so.

I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.

Thanks for the lightning responses

@rrlyon: It's a Seagate and I've run Seatools (twice) through a boot CD and had no errors reported. I'm hoping that means the drive's okay, but I have some corruption somewhere in the data. Not sure how it lasted through a format and reinstall though.

@jefro: My SATA cable should be pretty good (came with the motherboard, which is a decent Abit AG8). When you say "slowest settings", does that mean there are settings that affect how quickly my drive responds? I'll try running on fail-safe for a while and see whether the errors keep popping up. Doesn't memtest just check my RAM?

Why can't I put a question in my signature?

What you see is data errors. You do not know why just yet (or I have not read that you proved it to be.) You assume it is the hard drive, I do not. I don't even assume it is a known working CD. Any part of the system is suspect still.

Bios settings could be set in some cases so that errors could occur. I suggest the slowest to start to avoid 2 and 3 or more issues at the same time.

I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.

When the SEATOOLS was run did you have an extended or advanced test mode? That is why I use the Hitachi test for part of my diagnostics, it has been reliable in verifying whether or not there are bad sectors or other errors.

Richard

Okay, I'm back having tried everything I could think of based on what you all recommended, but still the same problem. Essentially, whenever I reboot I can run chkdsk and get a range of (different each time) errors. If I don't fix them, then after a few boots chkdsk runs automatically during start-up. Here's what I've tried ...

. Running with fail-safe BIOS settings
. Emptying drive, rewriting with zeros to every sector (via SeaTools CD), then reinstalling Windows
. Memtest (no errors after 3 passes, but will run overnight tonight for more rigorous test)
. SeaTools (via SeaTools CD) - extended test, no errors in 2 passes
. Reseated CPU and cooler (Arctic Silver 5 on CPU, Arctic Freezer 7 Pro cooler), RAM (moved the 2 sticks to the alternative 2 slots), PCI-E card (X800GTO), TV Card (Videomate Compro PVR-FM) and removed/re-plugged all cables to drives and motherboard

I did have an intermittent problem with my CPU which occassionally required me to gently put pressure on the cooler before the PC would boot. This has been around for a while, but hopefully reseating the CPU/cooler will have fixed it. That's the only quirky thing that I can think might be responsible for the problems. I won't be able to tell until I've booted from cold a few times having reseated the CPU.

Any other ideas, anyone? I've bought another drive so will try installing Windows on that one and see if it sorts out the problem. All the same, I'd be very pleased for any advice on how to sort this issue out as otherwise I'll have to bin a 120Gb drive for fear of losing precious data further down the line.

Thanks again.