Desktop PC problem driving me mad

[GeeMan1973]

I'm about to throw my home pc through the window and need help please...

I'm using my laptop but use my desktop pc for work - and its got a serious bug.

This is the 2nd time this has happened.. so any advice appreciated..

I've got an Athlon 64 3700 xp running windows xp service pack 2
1 gig of ram
Got a barracuda sataHD 320gig
DVD Re-writer
Ethernet connected with be broadband

Basically it was working perfectly until a week ago - until suddenly the pc froze.
mouse wouldn't move and had to hard reset the pc.
When i re-started xp wouldnt load and said something about a DCHP error or DNA error!
Since then - sometimes my pc registers the IDE hard drive when initally loading bust most commonly it doesn't - it either registers - none for IDE or it sticks on the blinking white cursor.

I've tried repairing windows by using the xp windows disk - but it usually crashes with blue screen of death or tells me no hard drive is installed.

I've got Hiren's boot CD - but dont know what program to use.

This happened with my previous hard drive- and ended up getting a new one - i'm fairly technical to a certain point - but this has stumped me.. what can i do to make the pc recognise my hard drive?

Usually if i leave my pc off for a long period of time then the hard disk gets registered again - but quickly then crashes. I've managed to get into windows xp - but its very slow and then usually freezes after about 4 minutes. Again - most of the time it doesn't even register the hard drive.

The hard drive is partitioned so that Windows xp is on drive C only - my work and files are on drives E and F - so i'm ok about re-installing windows as long as i wont lose my work..

any help needed please.. im feeling like just going to buy a new pc - as this is now driving me mad and i need the pc for work..


Also - i've run chkdsk - but that crashes at either 64% or 83% - never completes and freezes

Thanks

[Max Tractor]

I would run seatools on the hard drive and see what it comes up with

[GeeMan1973]

is seatools on hirens? someone suggested it could be a physical connection problem maybe a loose cable inside the pc - going to try that and also look around for a laptop - im fed up of always having problems with my desktop pcs - had this laptop now for 3 years and touch plastic - its not gone wrong once..

[Max Tractor]

seatools is seagates hd utility, check out their site

[greenalien]

This sounds much more likely to be a hardware fault rather than software.

Could be :

loose graphics card
faulty HDD
faulty Power supply
faulty memory
overheating processor
faulty motherboard - especially northbridge/southbridge chips

i.e. not easy to diagnose over the 'net - if you've got alternative parts to swap, try changing components, otherwise getting it checked over by an expert will probably get you sorted the soonest!

[vaughan]

count how many beeps happen (if any) when you 1st switch the PC on. the amount and timing of the beeps can be used to diagnose hardware faults..

a dodgy graphics card will give 8 bleeps on AMI bios. etc..

try speedfan too, which can check your hard drives SMART info, it will give you a good spec of the hard drive condition & tell you what is wrong or what is failing.. although if the hard drive stops being detected, there's not much you can do.

sometimes you can get these problems if your PSU is being overloaded aswell, for the specs you posted above you'd probably want around 400 - 430 watts PSU to be on safe grounds.