A dying HDD?? Or something else??

[Mij]

(Running Win98SE)

The missus has recently started to get the "Boot Disk Failure Insert System Disk" error.

Complying with this just brings up the unable to find the FAT32, reasons might be.... etc etc.

Things that have been tried are

1. FDISK /MBR
2. Scandisk
3. SYS :C

These seemed to work for maybe 12 hours (tops) before it falls over again. During one of these brief spells of activity, she managed to back up a few essential files. The annoying thing is the FDISK /MBR worked only once, Scandisk worked only once. Each then refused to work after that.

However, with the essential files backed up, the all clear was given to wipe the drive & reinstall from a fresh. (there's something purifying about wiping a drive....)

This works again for about 12 hours before the symptoms reappear.

The HDD is not yet 2 years old (bought Oct 2000) but is it time to trash it?? Or is the fault lying potentially elsewhere??

 

[4Ryan6]

Try installing a new CMOS motherboard battery, before you consider the hardrive aspect. With it forgetting as you might say its either the battery or faulty RAM, or it could be the hardrive but I doubt it.
Try the CMOS battery replacement first.
If you have or can borrow RAM try swapping out RAM modules if you've got more than one module in your machine try pulling them and reinstalling one at the time if they are DIMM, (SIMM usually is installed in pairs) using #1 slot or (for SIMM #1 & #2 slots)