S.M.A.R.T HD problem? and Explorer view solution?

[Rique]

Hi everyone,

I hope you guys can help me. I have 2 questions:

[A] The most obvious problem is that I have some kind of a Hard Disk problem... Windows does not see something, and I have to press F1 to boot up. There is also some kind of problem - The blue screen warning, with some "fatal error... Kernel problems, etc" and then it reboots but then stops and asks for a "boot up" diskette, then it reads the CD with XP and starts doing all kinds of crap and finally.. it reboots again ... it keeps doing this in a loop, finally..... I have cut the power off from the wall, then plug in back in, and power on from the main computer switch (normal).. This at least gets me to F1 (see PIC), and al least I can boot up my system... but it's been driving me nuts!

See screen capture of the problem at boot up

Now, I am assuming that I have some kind of a HD problem, - excuse to buy a new one - I am getting a WD Caviar 400GB SE 16MB buffer...(pretty good one HD I think. So I am planning to Install Windows XP on it... and hopefully this problem will go away! BUT, i am still curious what is causing this problem? Hopefully is that the HD is about to kick the bucket...
ANY IDEAS?

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This one is minor problem... but an ANNOYING ONE!... But I don't know how to fix it. This is the way I would like to see everything in my HD.... just like that (see pic on link)

My ideal explorer view

Instead I have to keep changing and changing it over and over... from the different views I get (mostly Big Icons or No "explorer” on the left panel), and I just fricking tired of doing it! ...
There must be a way of changing this "globally" so that everything will look like this. Please tell me how.

TIA

Rique

 

[Zoron]

That message at start-up is pretty self-explanatory:

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) has detected one or more unrecoverable errors on the drive. In a nutshell, yes, this means the drive is failing and probably explains why your Explorer view won't permanently change.

S.M.A.R.T. will hopefully tell you when you hard drive is failing before it fails completely to allow you to back up any data on the drive. It doesn't always work that way, of course... but usually if you see any S.M.A.R.T. errors on startup, you've got a failing hard drive on your hands.

 

[Rique]

Zoron,

Thank you for your reply. Yes, I am waiting anxiously for my new HD to arrive so that can re-install everything on it. There is no point in considering other problems until I have taken care of that.


I will be in touch.

Thanks


Rique