That your drive is starting to go is the most likely explanation,
although not the only one.  In an old machine overheating
(dead fan) and an ailing power supply are also common
problems that could potentially cause the hard drive (as
well as everything else in the machine) to act up.

First, I wouldn't use the machine for anything critical, or store
valuable data on it (without a lot of backups).

If you want to play around, reformatting the drive might help,
either by solving the problem (for example, by finding some
bad blocks), or by delaying the problem.

If you want to play around even more, you could start by
reinstalling the os --- there's a chance that's the problem,
but it's not too likely.

As a practical matter, if you like the machine, the most
efficient course would be to replace the hard drive.  If that
doesn't fix the problem, then you go on to the less likely
stuff.

Good luck.


Niraj Jaiswal <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I have a 800 MB harddisk. It's pretty old I guess. When I do a
> error-check in Windows 98 SE. It generates a hell lot of *.Chk
> files. And this keeps on repeating with successive error-checks.
>
> I am sure I am loosing my data. Has the harddisk gone bad?
> Do I need to do a low-level format? Please help.

     Frank R.Brown
     Frank.R.Brown@MailAndNews

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