[zank]

The thing is I have nowhere to backup TO. If I had someplace I would and reinstall Win.

Thanks for UBCD4Win, the problem is that I don't have any blank CDs. No blank DVDs, nada. (Forget about floppies ). I've got a 200 Gig drive, FULL. I tried running scan disk, it quit midway (phase 2) complainging that it couldn't finish lol. Some help.

I'm hunting around for a blank CD in my room, bt I doubt I'll find one. Hell I'm thinking of just getting high on Vodka and suiciding (aka playing CS:S untill the Hard Drive Dies ).

I'm afraid to reboot though, because I know what happens when the drive goes bad, once you reboot win can't start and it's twice as hard to back up files. This isn't my first time going through a bad HD.

[zank]

I'm sooo lost I want to shoot my computer....

I downloaded seagate's "SeaTools", and scanned my drive, it says everything is A OK. Yet my driver periodically makes the grindy noise. Unless my Video card learned to speak... I'm confuzled.

[ni1s]

Are you sure it's the HDD that are noisy? and not a fan(the fan on the graphics chip)?

[zank]

That's what I'm starting to think. but I don't think it's my GPU fan, cause I'm playing CS:S atm, the GPU temp is at like 85C! so I whip out Rivatunner and edit the Fan speed rate to 100%, it get s a little noisy, but nothing like I was hearing before, which I'm no longer hearing...... I think I'm ognna have to open my comp up, but If it really is my HD.... :-/

[jr2]

You have 3-5 or more fans: CPU, GPU, possibly chipset fan (like my MSI), PSU (possibly two or three there), and maybe a few extras for the case.

[zank]

I know more about computers than most people know about their thumbs. Strangely the sound has stopped (thankfully), however I recognize the sound. I have plastic fans. There are some sounds that a plastic fan will never be able to make, even spinning at 10,000 RPM.... (they don't). A grindy metal sound is one of them. It was my Hard Drive, I'm sure of it.

FUBAR-BDHR, thanks for your post, it helped out a lot! Taking your advice and Kara's advice (to someone else on BTRL) I decided to unistall the game and install it in another directory. FS2 now runs flawlessly again! I guess I had a bad sector as well!

Now I have yet to shut down my computer in like 2 days (since I heard the noise), yesterday night I decided to run OpenGL Extensions Viewer, and GUESS WHAT? most of the errors have disapeared! Instead of saying 0/3 for 2.1, it now says 2/3 for 2.1 extensions..... So only a handful of errors remain. Do you want me to post them?

The Game works, and I'm happy. The only thing that I'm still worried about is my HD. Unless it was playing a late april fool's joke......there's something goind down with it. Neither SMART nor SeaTools see something wrong though...... hmmmm

--Zank

[jr2]

The only other thing with moving parts is your CD/DVD drives, and your floppy drives... those weren't operating, were they?  (Prolly not...)
BTW, I would get a new HD, install it as master, install XP on it, make a new directory called "backup of old HD", then run this from the cmd prompt:

Code: [Select]

xcopy d: "c:\backup of old HD" /e /h /i /c /k /v - If you don't want a screenful of filenames, add /q to that list of switches.  Alternatively (this would enable you to not shut down your computer), you could get an external USB hard disk (I got a normal 300Gig Hdisk, and an enclosure, for about ~130 total, that was almost a year ago).
Then, after the drivers install for the external hard disk, do the xcopy...
Anyways, what do you think?