is my HDD about to die?

[merlin_the_magician]

Lately, my system is behaving strangely while booting. When the boot process is almost done (windows already played the startup sound), the screen turns black and booting starts all over.
Afterwards, a message shows telling me XP recovered from severe errors.

This all very much looks like a power-supply problem or something. I do not think it actually is power related though, since it is happening quite often. Also, i did not make changes of any kind to my system that could have lead to power-problems.

In order to find the problem, i ran Regscrub XP, cleaned all data i did no longer need, and defragged using DisKeeper. I also tried to run Norton Disk Doctor, but this won't work, due to "some program" having exclusieve disk access. :alert:
By now... I'm getting quite concerned about my HDD.... could this be indicating my HDD is slowly dying?

[TierraDelFuego]

Personally i would say it is really hard to tell whether the hard drive is dieing. You could try going to the hard drive manufacturers website and see if they have a prog which checks for errors on the hard drive. Also you could try running an AV prog in case it is a virus causing the prob.

Otherwise back it all up, the data you need that is, and format and see if that helps.

In general a sad hard drive will give tell-tale signs like scrapeing noises from within.

[Zac]

I'd say it is your OS as Tierra said format and reinstall

[Neo]

Are you overclocking? Have you checked your temps? Have you checked your voltages?

[merlin_the_magician]

It is defenately not virus-related, after a recent reinstall-and-update-action my system is 100% clean of virus and adware. I have not been overclocking or messing around with components (just plain standard-configuration HP Pavilion system).

OS could be causing trouble due to some unlikely conflict... i'll go and examine XP for trouble a little more...

[philmeehan]

Have you checked the event viewer to see what it reports?

[Virgin San]

Certainly sounds like an XP problem - probably a bad install, particularly if it always ducks out at the same point during booting. Picking up the mantle from my old friend HO, I'd suggest that running the XP repair install might solve your problem.

[PhilEnfield]

Does it behave the same, if you boot up in Safe Mode ?