hard drive going bad?

[mccrab]

Yesterday my computer suddenly froze and then BSOD. After restarting, it was very slow and trying to open any programs or task manager took a couple of minutes. Few minutes later some programs report that they have stopped responding until Windows explorer stops responding and I get another BSOD. This happens if I boot windows normally.

 

The first BSOD error code was 7a, the second was f4. After googling for a while and asking a couple of friends, it looked like it might be either HDD or memory. I ran memtest86 for 4 passes without any errors. I the ran HD Tune and it found a few damaged blocks. Here is what HD tune and CrystalDiskInfo say:

http://imgur.com/FBvrOeC

 

Is the disk going bad? It is still under warranty, so should I try to RMA it?

[bben46]

If you can - the FIRST thing to do is make a system recovery disk - the process varies by Windows version, so google it. You should have done this the first day you had it. But most people don't - and later regret it.

Next - BACK UP anything important that you cannot just reinstall easily or cannot be replaced - pictures, important documents, term papers.

 

Even if you discover the HD is not going bad do these two things anyway.

 

If you RMA your disk or even the entire computer , the first thing the repair people do is wipe everything off of your HD. And any replacement disk you get is likely to be a bare disk without even an Operating system - that's where the system recovery disk comes in.