I have a Dell desktop that the hard drive has crashed on for the 2nd time in less than 6 months.  Should I try replacing the hard drive again….or get a new computer?  It is almost 3 years old.  Help me!!

Strange. I've got about 50 dells between our offices and in 10 years, I've never had a hard drive crash.

Who is telling you it "crashed"?  And what is it doing?

The hard drive crashed in October and I replaced it.  Today, it is doing the exact same thing…error message is the same…won't load windows at all.  So I am thinking it is the hard drive again.

When you turn it on it says that windows did not start successfully.  It tries to start in safe mode.  Then you get the error message that a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage.  UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

We have dells at work and they certainly do the job without any problems.

You need to boot up with the recovery CD and go to the repair console.  From there, run chkdsk.  This will scan your hard drive for errors and repair them if possible.  In most cases, the hard drive doesn't have physical defects.  Hard drive "crashes" usually show up if the drive hasn't been defragmented in a while.

He knows his stuff…try that.

I knew Richard would point me in the right direction!  Thanks man…I'll try it and see what happens…

It's not really your fault so much as it's the fault of the file system.  Depending on how you use your computer, "normal" activity can do a number on a hard drive.

it gets used a lot…and with the son living with me now..he uses it even more than me…mostly listening to music and watching youtube…damn teenagers…  :-P

ten bucks says porn was involved….and NOT by your son.

LOL

What are you trying to say David? ;-)