I have 2 hard drives in my computer. One 120GB where I keep my system, software and other stuff; the 2nd 160GB is dedicated for media files storage (video and audio, for video editing and music recording).

Earlier today I powered on my PC expecting a normal windows start up screen, chimes, desktop, icons and all... instead.... I got a blue screen with a Windows icon in the upper right hand corner and CHKDSK started checking my L: drive (which is one of three partitions I have in my 160GB, there's K:, L: and M for consistency. My L: is a 60GB partition out of the total 160GB and still has about 19GB free on it.

So I let CHKDSK check the drive and waited for my desktop to load up. Then I restarted my computer to see if whatever problems where identified in my L: drive had been fixed. This time windows started up fine, desktop came up, no CHKDSK... BUT... opening my My Computer icon, I saw that the whole dedicated hard drive (all partitions K:, L: and M was not there. only my C: drive was there.

Frowning, I turned my computer off, opened up the side panel again, made sure all connections where in place and switched the power back on.

This time CHKDSK came on again, and once more set about checking the L: partition. Just to make things more interesting... THIS time... when it got to the part where it says: "verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)" the checking progress started at "completing 0 percent", then rather slowly advanced to "completing 1 percent" and stopped there. Only after a good 20 minutes did it finally reach 2 percent. I waited for another half hour, saw that it was still stuck on 2 percent and switched the pc off.

Turned it on again. By this time my frown had turned into a blank expression of total apathy and numbness. The result of my rebooting remained the same. CHKDSK checks L: and then gets unbearably sluggish at stage 4 - verifying file data. tried once more to restart - but no good.

Googling keywords and finding similar problems, I followed instructions to download a file called Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics. I ran it's Quick Test and Extended Test. Results were ZERO ERRORS for both.

I was then instructed to boot into the recovery console and run chkdsk r. I tried following instructions but didn't quite manage to do that.

Anyway, I tried restarting again to see if the Western Digital utility helped jolt something into place. This I did about half an hour ago. I got the Checking file system on L:. It got to stage 4 pretty quickly and then lagged once again, but a bit less, I must admit. As of this moment (about half an hour after chkdsk started doing it's stuff) it has 13 percent completed. I'm gonna let it keep running unless meanwhile someone advises me against it.

Is any of this making sense? Does anyone think they might recognize the problem I'm experiencing and have suggestions as to what I should do to fix it? Is my hard drive dying?

If it helps any, here are the specs of my miserable machine:

Intel P4 2.4 800 processor
Intel D865PERL motherboard
HEC 300W power supply
Matrox Millennium G550 32MB video card
M-Audio Audiophile 2496 sound card
Hynex 2x256MB DDR 400 memory
WD 120GB 7200 RPM 8MB cache drive (one partition - C - this is where i store windows and software)
WD 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB cache drive (three partitions - K, L & M - dedicated for storing media files)

all are a bit over 2 years old, except for sound card (1.5 years), 160GB hard drive (a bit under 2 years)

... sigh... thanks.