Computer SOS

[Brutus]

OK so I'm going to toss a computer question at the hardware savvy folks here.

Several months ago, I posted a question regarding Linux and whether I should make the transition from Windows. I was getting the BSOD too often, and was tiring of it. Suffice to say, I did try Linux, the desktop version, but just couldn't get used to it on my own timetable. So I ditched it.

Fast forward several months. After several attempts at various fixes, including System restore, registry cleaning, disk defrag, etc., the BSOD problem just didn't go away. It was happening too frequently, especially when the computer's resources were running low with media files open.

So finally, I got tired of it and decided it was time to do a complete recovery. I was able to transfer some of my files to my laptop as a backup, though I lost a lot of media files since I didn't have nearly as much hard drive space (250 GB on my laptop whereas I had 500 gig on my desktop).

After a few days of transferring the files, I did the recovery on my computer. I lost all the files, as expected, and started from scratch. Well it's been two weeks, and today it crashed again. But now despite doing startup repair and such, it would not boot. It seems like the hard drive has gone corrupt.

So I'm attempting another recovery. My question is this: even if I recover the system back to factory state and start (yet again) from scratch, is this a worthless exercise? If the hard drive went corrupt, will I continue to have these problems or is it possible I'll correct the issue? I don't want to waste my time on this if the drive is likely bad.

This is incredibly frustrating, but if I resign myself to the notion the problem won't be resolved with this physical drive, then I can prepare for purchasing a new drive.

Any advice is welcomed. Thanks!

[Redsfan320]

I don't know much about computers, but I do know if you've tried all else, then yeah, the hard drive's probably screwed.

320

[Brutus]

I don't know much about computers, but I do know if you've tried all else, then yeah, the hard drive's probably screwed.

320

Yeah I did a system recovery. Once I got to the initiation process where it was preparing the computer for first use, I got a 'code purple' basically saying there was a critical error and the computer would not be able to load without being fixed. So it seems pretty well set: it's toast.

The frustrating thing is the computer is barely a year old. I don't feel like buying a new hard drive, but don't have much of a choice.

[Brutus]

Fortunately, it was still under the manufacturer's warranty. After an hour spent on the phone with tech support (outsourced, mind you), we concluded it was a hardware issue and it's going to be sent to a service center to be restored to factory condition.

[Roy Tucker]

I know my home Dell has a separate bootable partition that has the Windows Recovery in it. I also burned a bootable DVD with Windows Recovery on it just as a belt and suspenders thing.

They both set it back to factory condition. I don't know if it reinstalls Windows or just plops in a factory Windows image.

[Boss-Hog]

I wouldn't consider myself a computer "guru", but I know a few things about fixing them and your problem definitely sounds hardware related to me.