Since I've seen other fellow Obnarians rescued here before...can anyone try and help me out with the following problem I'm having? I'll try to keep this simple.

This evening I tried running my Norton/Symantec Disk Defragmenter program but the program froze before it could finish. This never happened before and I defrag my hard drive often. An attempt to do the same thing with the Windows Disk Defragmenter didn't work either. Next, I tried to run my updated Norton Anti-Virus program but it too froze before it could complete the scanning. So then I rebooted and found an error that read, One or more of your data clusters may have developed bad sectors...there was an error running Scandisk.EXE, or it was cancelled. Run Scandisk for Windows, as you may still have errors on your disk. So I tried to run >COMMAND >SCANDISK> and selected the thorough data scan option but it too froze partway through the data scan...repeated attempts to run Scandisk in Safe Mode have gotten me the same result. I'm running Windows98SE on my PC and had this Maxtor 80GB hard drive installed from CompUSA a little more than two years ago. (A sign on the box that I still have says, "3-year warranty")

What should I do?

Question 1: Is there any other way I can try to get the computer to fix the bad sectors?

Question 2: Worse comes to worse do I just need to have my hard drive replaced with a newer and hopefully better one? Or am I screwed and need to get a whole new computer now...

I really don't want to buy another computer yet, especially if this can be fixed fairly cheaply while upgrading my storage capabilities at the same time. For now, everything on my PC works but I'm afraid that over a matter of time the C drive will become more and more defragmented to the point that it won't even function. Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Q1: If Scandisk isn't working in safe mode, that's going to be quite difficult. Try cleaning out your registry and see if that makes any difference.

Q2: From the sounds of it, the worst case scenario would be a new hard drive. You might be able to do a straight copy from one drive to the other without too much of a problem, but it's not a guarantee at this point. I'd suggest backing up any data files (music, personal info, big downloads) and keeping all of your software install discs handy.

You may also want to check the HD manufacturer's website for utils. Most Hard drive companies offer bootable floppies or CDs with diagnostic utilities, etc.

When shit like this happens to me, I reformat my hard drive. If you get the same errors after reformatting, you know its time for a new hard drive. Plus, your computer runs a million times better after a reformat (until you fill it back up with spyware and porn again).

I agree with Sketch that you're going to have trouble doing much if you can't get scandisk to work in safe mode. Scandisk is ordinarily able (if you run "surface scan" mode) to ferret out and mark bad sectors so that the computer doesn't try to read/write them anymore. But if you can't mark them, you'll continue to have these problems.

Honestly, there are probably a million things that I would do before formatting or buying a new drive, but half of them probably never do any good and most of them I won't be able to remember right now. One thing you might try is to run system file checker. I don't know exactly where it is, but if you search Help for it, you should be able to locate the executable. It will scan your system files and if any are corrupt, replace them from your original install CD.

If nothing works, I would take Nacho's advice and reformat, then I'd run a surface scan while Windows is barebones and see if it finishes then. If that doesn't work, upgrade.

I agree that there's all kinds of stuff you can try, but I personally just don't have the patience for doing all that stuff. Computers are so complex that it could be 8 million different things. If you have a windows problem, no matter what it is, a reformat will take care of it. And you'll be thrilled with how great your computer runs afterwards.

The trick is to have your stuff organized (files to backup and program CDs handy). I keep all my pictures and mp3s (anything I want to save) on a separate partition, which makes reformatting really easy.

this is good advice. back up what you have and reformat. maybe give maxdiag (available off the maxtor website) a run through before hand. if the drive is toast maxdiag will give you an error code, take it back to compusa and have them swap it or contact maxtor for replacement. you can get a new drive shipped out in advance with a credit card for security. but again, as nacho said above, a reformat is the quickest route to fixing the issues barring a bad hard drive.

I agree that Windows fucks it self with regularity, but for the most part it does it in the same ways. I disagree that no matter what the problem is, a reformat will take care of it. If this is truly a hardware-level problem (and it sounds like one), going through the effort of reformatting, reinstalling windows and all his software and files just to start getting bluescreens again would be a real bitch. I would tend to lean toward trying all of the more likely-to-help solutions before a reformat mostly because 1) most people don't back-up and 2) it takes like a day to get your computer back to where it was software-wise.

That's why I said if you have a windows problem, a reformat will do the trick. Gotta read the plain language, you future lawyer.

Sorry, I was working more from a "trying to provide useful advice" angle

Besides, if I've learned anything about the law, it's that the plain language is rarely taken into consideration. And besides, "windows problem" can be read broadly to mean "any problem that manifests itself via the Windows OS" or narrowly as "a software-only OS problem." See Walker.

Nice move tossing in the dictionary definition, but you still know you're wrong.

The plain language is the first place you'll look to for any question or in any argument, so it's often very important. But that doesn't mean the "plain language" argument will always win; it often loses. I'd rather have the language on my side in a dispute, but it's all in the facts. But that's probably a discussion for another time and topic...

Even if it is a hardware problem- if you reformat and the same problem still exists, at least you're now certain you have a hardware problem. And factoring in the time searching for and trying different fixes and measuring it against the time reformatting and restoring your computer, I'm not sure reformatting really takes much longer.

To all that responded...thank you, thank you, thank you.

I just got off the phone with a Maxtor tech representative and she said that when you're running Win98 on your PC there are limitations for fixing bad sectors with Scandisk that have to do with the FAT32 protocol. After using 32 GB of space on my drive (mostly because of mp3 and wav files I have accumulated over the past two years) my computer has become unstable and has this limitation. Because my 80 GB hard drive was never partitioned I have this problem. She recommended that I back up everything I have of value to data files while I still can and reformat the drive...either that or upgrade to Windows XP.

Though I don't know beans about how to reformat my drive at least I know now what the problem is and can have it fixed by someone who does. It's going to be painful to reinstall all of my bookmarks and programs though if I can't directly transfer everything to a new drive.

(scratches head) I don't think I even have my originial Win98 disk or boots..this is going to be painful.

Are you gonna reformat it yourself? Try googling for instructions, or I can post the way I do it if you want.

I'm worried that If I try to do this myself I will permanently damage my computer.

I think that's pretty unlikely, but I certainly understand feeling hesitant. I think its do-able (knowing about safe mode and defragging, etc is more than I knew when I first did it), but you should pay someone if you feel more comfortable.