Corrupt Profile, Bad Sector

[rough cut]

Hello all. I have a 10 year old HP Pavillion(windows xp) with a 40gb SAMSUNG SV4002H hard drive.

Recently after reboot I got an error message(s) about a corrupt profile, and then it logs me on with a temporary profile.


The 2 error messages are:

Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a
temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off.

&

Windows cannot load the locally stored profile. Possible causes of this
error include insufficient security rights or a corrupt local profile.


I'm the only user, and just have(or had) the 1 original "Owner" profile.

I have checked the Event Viewer, and it looks like whenever I reboot I get a series of several "Event ID 7" errors, and 1 "Event ID 51" error.
Event ID 7 is The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.
Event ID 51 is An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.
The Event 7 error is odd because it says drive D, and I have everything on drive C. Drive D is my cd/dvd burner(which did burn out a couple of months ago).

I have been googling for info.
Some say create a different profile, and migrate everything.
Some say to do a chckdsk /f /r to try, and repair the bad blocks.
Some say that chckdsk can actually cause a distressed drive to fail, and not to use it.


I could really use some knowledgeable advice.

Thanks in advance.

 

[tokencode]

Immediatly backup everything and consider replacing the drive. If the drive 10 years old, you've more than gotten your monies worth out of it. I could not recommend and chkdsk, but rather all the contents to a new drive. You can try the chkdsk on the new drive if you are experiencing issues, but there's a reason that a lot of admins I know call it fckdsk.

 

[rough cut]

Thanks for replying tokencode.

I figured that I needed to replace the drive, but I'm just going to get a new computer. I'm just trying to keep this one going until I can do that, as the burners on both my computers are down, and I have no way to backup.


So you don't recommend using chkdsk?

Is it better to leave the comp. running continuously so I don't get the 'event id 7' errors at every startup, or should I shut it off when not in use?

And why does the id error list the drive as d?

Any tips from anyone on keeping my hard drive running as long as possible?


Thanks in advance.

 

[tokencode]

Expect it to fail, make sure you have everything and anything you care about backed up, the just let it go for as long as it lasts. In general keeping it cooler will prolong the life of the drive but if you're at this point already, not much will make a difference. Leaving it on will prevent potentially from reading from the bad sector if thats the info written there. Again backup everything, and who knows it could last another year, it could die tomorrow.