Our computer's hard drive is in the midst of a gradual crash, according to our computer guru, who examined it yesterday. (I have been getting various strange messages lately, concerning power consumption and other matters. And I can no longer access some Word documents. Apparently, one sector will go first; then another, and another...) We should be getting a new CPU around the middle of next week. (Our computer guru will hook it up, and transfer the old files to the new machine; and try to recover the lost files.) In the meantime, it is an inconvenience. (I am trying to use the computer somewhat sparingly, lest it should crash entirely.)
You should stop using it. Typically the reason for this is that the magnetic medium itself is flaking off of the platelet. So the more it sits in there cooking, spinning at 7200 rpm, the more it wears away at it. For best recovery efforts, you should power it down.
The computer is fixed now. (When compared with many other computers, its 250-gigabyte hard drive and four gigs of memory seems rather modest; but when compared with our previous system, it seems downright enormous.)
Quick question; did you move everything off that harddrive? It will only continue to degrade, and if you haven't moved it yet you should salvage what you can. If you are using the same hard drive then either get a new one immediately or backup all your important files to something else (DVD, net accounts, whatever). Hope you the best! I still need to flip out my old drive; damn thing has been around for atleast 6 years and seen heavy use. It'll probably go any minute with the amount of dust my computer takes in (the wall is covered after a month, thank god for canned air!)
Our computer guru backed up everything on a flash drive, and then transferred it to the new CPU when we got it last week.
