Is my drive dying?

[Ruggerbugger]

I have a WD Caviar 120GB on SATA that I believe is dying. It started bluescreening today with "critical errors", Event 51s in the system log, and a "click - buzz" sound that is getting faster.

Is this drive on it's way out?

[merdat]

Better back up everything quickly just in case. I don't know a lot about sata drives but a h/d 'clonking' is not a good sign !!- mind you it may last for a while yet.

[Ruggerbugger]

I've been able to get into Windows, but HL2 crashes each time I try to load a saved game.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Your best bet is to download the Diagnostics ISO that WD provide on their website. Burn the CD and boot to run the diagnostics. This will tell you for sure if the disk is borked or on its way out.

http://support.wdc.com/download/

Think you can run from CD, floppy and there is even a version to run in Windows.

[Ruggerbugger]

Cheers Crimson, I'll try that.

[CrimsonAvenger]

[mr mister]

could be your hdd or crashing out of games could signal ram, but tbh i would be backing up the hdd as that sounds more likely.