hi, my main pc has gone away for some upgrades and my reserve pc has now crapped out (it could be a virus)

what happened was i opened an email from my hotmail which was around 62k, but didnt have much content (few lines about buying a teddy bear) and didnt have any attachments, i then browsed the net for a while and switched off, two hours later i switch back on and get this message:

131072 kb ok

1720-smart hard drive detects imminent failure



compaq deskpro en series

f1 boot (f10=set up) (f12 network service boot)


when i do (f1 boot) windows 98 screen appears and i hear the hard drive clicking, but no action, it just dislays the windows 98 screen, then it displays the message

data error reading drive c
abort, retry, ignore, fail?

i was told to check connections on hard drive, so i did and coudnt find any lose connections, can anyone help here, has a virus killed my hard drive?

#:-(

I's no help suggesting you buy a Mac - but this suggestion isn't much better, sorry.It may be "nothing" to do with that e-mail, although you are linking the two events.
One solution (not exactly "cheap" is to buy another HDD - about 50 for something modest and re-install is several hours) - if you buy from PC World the disc will cost a little more but they may offer an install service. At least you would have a genuine "good" computer. All the working data files on the HDD may be gone but don't do anything rash - there are "recovery" firms who may be able to extract those files you never saved to CD. If you do a re-install don't be tempted to slave-connect the "old" drive - if it's screwed up one installation it will (probably) do the same again.
The Windows 98 screen is "on" the suspect HDD so something is being read. Indeed to display that, some basic display files are being loaded, including the underlying DOS - but I could be wrong on that.
As a bonus any newly-installed HDD will work a lot faster and gives you the opportinity to leave off those programs you don't use often. Probably worth upgrading Virus software and make the episode the round 100.
[Again it's no help but I try to keep "working" applications separate from general use including the internet, trouble is sometime the internet is essential - but any files that are worth saving should be burnt to CD
I us an old HDD as a store then burn it in sections, or to separate CD's. The spare HDD is "removable" so 95% it is not present.]
Regards, I realise this is an imperfect solution.

Nice to see you do use an applemac machine Tulletj what`s your opinion on them, apart of course from busted hard drives.
Your very hard on hard drives .
Regards.

how about creating a floppy boot disk, booting from this and try a scan disk to see what this uncovers. This approach may confirm that all your data is present but the boot partition and files are screwed.

depending whats gone likely to require a rebuild, if the data is not important repartition and reformat disk and install required software.

if the data is important consider connecting it to your PC when it comes back having virus checked the disk before copying across the required files.

when you have it fixed invest in firewall and virus software and make a habit of deleting unsolicitated email.