Re: Hardware Issues / Backing up data
 

When I posted above, that was the result of running chkdsk without any parameters. I have tried doing it with /F, and it would make the corrections it needed to, but then if I ran it again it'd still say there were problems. I downloaded a diagnostic tool from Western Digital and it failed its test, and I'm still getting the occasional popup saying Delay Write Failed blah blah.

I just spent three hours dealing with Dell hardware support. I spent the first two and a half hours talking with one representative, and then just gave up on him and talked with another. Anyway, I should receive a new drive within 2 business days. Thankfully it won't ship imaged so I won't have to deal with removing the Win32.AOL virus :p

Re: Hardware Issues / Backing up data
 

On my first dell laptop, the laptop magically fell (long story) and the system would blue screen. They sent me a new hdd, and re-installing wasn't fun. I had to install a program to install the dell drives from the dell cds...hopefully you wont have to do the same thing. It was a great pain.

Re: Hardware Issues / Backing up data
 

I already did that when I reinstalled XP on Friday night, and getting all of the drivers installed was a really a pain. Not only that, but then I have to go through installing all of my software again and restoring my data backups. The whole thing took over 5 hours to do... oh well. Maybe I can hire a monkey (possibly my brother) to do it for me this time. At least it isn't as much of a pain as it is to remove all of the bloatware that computer manufacturers insist on including these days.

Re: Hardware Issues / Backing up data
 

hiring a monkey may not be a good idea i used that method once and it cost me a fried motherboard...