Please help with my Harddrive Problem.

The story:

Since about 1 month ago my computer has been freezing alot, occasionally a "a disk read error has occurred" would pop up and tell me to restart.

Well that was okay with me, so i just let it slide.

Recantly, it has been crashing 10+ times a day, like once an hour.

when it crashes it tells me "beginning of physical memory dump" which scares me lol.

The info:
system is Windows xp pro

i think the problem is on my second harddrive (D)

I don't want to buy a new harddrive, but i do have a spare one, (do you have to install new drivers or do you just hook it up and go?)- i would much rather keep the old one and not have my comp crash tho.

i tried running a CHKDSK and it got stuck on Phase4 at like 20%.

i can still run the computer, but if it freezes sometimes it won't start backup, i have to turn it off for 15+ minutes and then turn it on to get it out of the logo screen.



Sorry my grammar sucks, and thank you in advance for your help.

If you use a different HD, you will have to install the drivers again but before you do that there are a few things to check. The first thing I would do is look at the logs in the event viewer. That's in the control panel under administrative tools. Look for errors in all three logs. That will tell you what you have to do next. It sounds like a hardware problem but it doesn't have to be.

You can download the diagnostic tools from the manufacturers web site, create a boot disk and check the drive that way, So, if it's a Western Digital drive you go to their site.

Run msconfig and disable all programs under the startup tab just in case one of them is causing the dump. Do not return to normal startup. The programs are not lost, they just don't load into memory at boot time.

I checked that, and i found that i got this error alot.

"The npkcrypt service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the file specified. "

any idea what that means?

I don't have nplcrypt on my computer. I'm starting to think your PC maybe infected.

I don't suppose you play the game Gunbound.

I found similar forum posts on the net with the same problem related to installation issues with the game called 'Gunbound'

Check this link out:

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/npkcrypt-t93184.html

Hi Doom box,

I sure hope you have made a backup of your files. The drive sounds like it is on its way out. I have a data recovery/computer forensics business and hard drive repair just isn't done. Digital storage is about $.40/GB, don't lose your data, backup!