For last week my 3 yr old MICRON PC has been making alot of clacking noises. Sounds like a bunch of relays clicking. Doing this even as I type. Screen also locks up all the time now and I have to kill the power. Course then on restart, it has to do a scan disc. It used to only take a few seconds to do that, now after 1/2 hr, it only gets 1/4 way thru the "cluster" then it restarts the scan. It finally errors out after 10 retries. Also can't defrag since it won't complete a disc scan. No viruses or such.
I'm no means a computer wizard, but a college student friend said the hard drive is going out and to start making copies of all my stuff.
Is my time limited or is there something that needs to be done?

Thanks

yes` he is right , I have to do this for work all the time
copy and save your data before your drive fails completely

Go to Best Buy, Circuit City, or your local 'puter clearing house, and pickup an External USB Hard Drive. Best $200 bucks I spent on 'puters. (And I bought a big one, 80GB, most don't need 1/4 that.) The make I bought was Maxtor. Mine came with SW that can allow automatic backups with no finger-boning.
You can literally dupe your whole entire hard-drive. Don't expect to boot off of it, but you will have EVERYTHING you had before saved.

Yep hubbys micron did exactly the same thing! Hurry and get your stuff saved because sooner or later it won't boot up.

Good luck!

Clacking noises: A drive's death rattle. Save all data, replace drive IMMEDIATELY. Do not get a USB drive. Replace with similar or larger sized drive. They are incredibly cheap.

Try not to use the computer until new drive arrives, your time is very limited.

Complete installation (boot, operating System, data) can be "imaged" to new drive (must be equal size or larger) using software such as Norton Ghost or similar.

BTW US1 to bypass the scandisk press the space bar when it starts

Jerry,
I have a Ghost utility that will "clone" your drive. Works in DOS mode and will make an exact duplicate of your drive. Install new drive as D and clone from C to D. Shut down computer and make the old D the new C by changing jumpers. You are back up and running again. If the original drive fails there are a few tricks that can be used to bring it back to life.

Then, put the old C drive out to pasture. Do not keep it in the system. Put a sticker with "Bad" on it and put the drive on the "BAD" pile. If it's in warranty, send it in for warranty service. If you have sensitve data on it, do not send it in for warranty service.

My hunch: The drive is probably an IBM drive. They made good drives. Then they moved their production to Hungary, and drives died like flies. Put IBM out of the drive business.

Don't rely on the USB drive, just invest in it now to back up your data, and then use it for the same thing in the future. That way when your HD does fail, you have everything.

Ok , bought new hard drive today as it went dead last nite while trying to save all I could. JUst spent over 5 hrs to get it installed and to get windows back up. Not the smartest computer guy. In fact, may be one of the most ignorant. Got alot of drivers to reload. Having someone that knows this chit come tommorrow and get it all running for me. Course, the CD I saved EVERYTHING on won't work. Maybe got to get the drivers for the CD-Roms reloaded for that to work?? No Anti Virus right now, so got to get off before chit hits the ceiling.

I HATE this stuff!