Is my hard disk screwed?

[chupichulo]

Hi, I know you all like to know the system specs, so here goes.

Acer Travelmate 4650
Pentium M 1,73GHz
504 MB RAM
windows XP
NOD 32 antivirus Anything else?

Few days ago, on switching on, I got that message that says it needs to run tests on the hard drive 'cos it wasn't switched off properly last time or something. So I let it run and it took about an hour, where normally it's much quicker.
Now when I watch streaming videos, listen to the radio or play tunes in Windows media, the audio playback is all kinda stuttery and the picture is jerky. It seems to sort itself out after a while but I want it to work well from the word go... of course.
So today I took it to a guy in a shop who is supposed to know about these things. He fiddled about for a bit and showed me that the problem occurs when the computer is trying to do too many things at once.
His conclusion was that my hard disk is..... well.... knackered, and it's going to be a back to the factory job.
That ain't such a big problem, especially if it's still under warranty. I just wondered if any of you real experts out there had any comments.
Is he right in his diagnosis, and why is my hard disk knackered after little more than a year?

yours
chupi

P.S. my apologies to photolady for not coming back on my last post. I realised what I'd done and actually forgotten I'd posted.

[LethalRevenge]

When someone uses the word "knackered" it does not raise confidance.

Hopefully the person you trusted did no damage, he may have told you it needed to go back to the factory because he broke something.

Before you jump to any conclusions.

Open the programs menu
Select accesories
Select system tools
Select disk cleanup
Select C:
It will scan the disk
Check all of the boxes except for compress old files.
Select ok

Open my computer.
Right click on C: drive
Select properties
Select the tools tab
Select check now under error checking
When the pop up apears
Check both boxes, fix file system errors, recover bad sectors
Select start
When the prompt asks if you would like to run on next reboot
Select yes

Reboot

Let it run, it could take more than an hour

It may run a second time after reboot

When windows starts

Open the C: drive properties, tools tab again
Select Defragment now

When the defragmentor starts
Select the defragment button

If you have not been defragmenting weekly run it 3 or 4 times

Reboot

Check and see if things are better now

[Train]

Run chkdsk /R

see if that settles things down.

To do this:

Step One: Click Start, select Run

Step Two: In the box, type cmd

Step Three: Click Ok

Step Four: Run the chkdsk utility by typing in the following command:

chkdsk c: /r

When prompted, select yes
reboot and chkdsk will run during bootup.

[Steve R Jones]

I doubt it's the hard drive. They tend to either work or don't work.

I would try to reinstalled the drivers for the video and sound cards.

[lgbpop]

Few days ago, on switching on, I got that message that says it needs to run tests on the hard drive 'cos it wasn't switched off properly last time or something. So I let it run and it took about an hour, where normally it's much quicker.

You imply that this has happened several times. How often does this happen?

[SuperSparks]

You shouldn't need to send a laptop back to the factory to replace a hard drive on a laptop, they are usually fairly easy to replace. You can download a diagnostic utility from the hard drive makers website which you can run from floppy. See what that has to say. Here are the most common utilities:

Seagate Seatools

IBM / Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

Maxtor Maxblast 3

Maxtor PowerMax

Western Digital Software & Drivers

Fujitsu Utilities

Samsung Drive Utilities

If you aren't sure which make of hard drive is installed, then this nice utility will tell you:

PC Wizard

If you don't have a floppy drive, the you can download this and burn it to CD, it has all those utilities plus many more besides:

Ultimate Boot CD

[chupichulo]

Thanks for your replies. I've done the disk check today as per Train's instructions. Again it took forever to complete and I'm sorry to say, nothing has changed. I'll look into the other suggestions when I have time.

You imply that this has happened several times. How often does this happen?

It doesn't happen very often but I have seen it several times before on this and other computers. Sometimes switching off by holding down the on/off switch is the only option and then it does a disk check when you switch on again. What? Why is everyone throwing their hands up in horror?

[lgbpop]

Malware is a possible cause of your problems, not just a toasted hard drive. A clean system rarely (if ever) requires a dirty shutdown. If you want to make sure your system is clean before replacing the drive, follow the instructions here and we can take a look for you.

[fink]

I think he means here...

http://discussions.virtualdr.com/sho...d.php?t=167915

[lgbpop]

Yeah, that's it. I thought I put that link in, thanks fink!

[chupichulo]

Took computer back to the shop where I bought it. My man there was convinced it was some kind of malware. He recommended pandasoftware.com
which offers a free scan. Got back home and did the scan.
Sure enough there were some 200 spyware files lurking somewhere and a handful of hacker tools. Paid 12 euros for the software to disinfect the system from aforementioned pandasoftware.

All files eliminated except this one:

Potentially unwanted tool:application/winantivirus2006



First investigation to see if my problem with streaming video etc has disappeared reveals that it is better but not perfect.

Get back on the case tomorrow but right now I'm going to bed.
zzzzzzzzz

[Train]

winantivirus2006

Look in Add/Remove, it should be there and yes, that is where you uninstall it.

[chupichulo]

On switching on this morning, the poor quality of the windows jingle is the giveaway that the problem persists. Supposedly, this panda programme has removed all the malicious stuff. So...... now what?

[chupichulo]

Following the link in the post above, I see it says i should do at least 2 scans, so now I'm doing another one.

[chupichulo]

I have NOD 32 antivirus installed. Is this useless or what?