saul1664

This has happened repeatedly over the last year or so, and am sure it is caused by a virus. I try to download a link (could be anything) - say startup inspector (www.windowsstartup.com) and before it can go to my download programs, the whole screen freezes, only way out is CTRL+ALT+DELETE, ending the browser and starting it again. I got rid of this before (has even frozen from links in emails), but can't remember how, and right now driving me crazy. All spyware, adware, virus programs find nothing. Anyone shed any light...? Saul

About a week ago, my hard disk drive started making what can only be described as high pitched tinny/clinking/clattering type sounds accompanied with a blue screen (which has appeared 2 more times since then) telling me that my computer has shut down to stop further damage and on rebooting telling me that I had a hard disk error advising me to back up information on hard drive (haven't because I have 80GB on there and have no idea how to get that onto removable media) and to run scandisk. Scandisk will not work (scans the disk) and tells me it can't complete, defragmenting the drive brings up the blue screen, and several diagnostic programs downloaded to check the state of the disk drive show no problems though there obviously is. What is happening and what can I do about it (assume a bad sector somewhere?). This shouldn't be happening, the computer is just one year old, a Compaq Pressario and the hard drive is Western Digital WD1200BB. Is it on the way out already. I have a 5 year warranty on the computer, so do I replace it now or is there something else I can do. Saul