Hard drive or Windows XP problem???

[DJcs]

I have an MSI SA VIA KT133A v5.0 266FSB-ATX, Duron 1.3GHz, 256MB 168-pin 133Mhz memory, Western Digital 100gig HDD.
I am running this on a Windows XP operating system. This system is only a year old. Has been running fine up to this point. I have virus protection on the computer and keep the updates current. Have had no problems with virus's. I also am running a dual fan bay cooler on the hdd. A couple of days ago while I was working on the computer, it rebooted itself, and took quite a while to come back up. It ran scandisk in the beginning which took quite a while. I have about 30 gigs used on the hdd. Now it is rebooting on its own about 4 times a day.I mainly use the computer for scrap booking and some games, I have a lot of pics on the hdd. I am very carefull about programs that I down load on the computer. I have checked for the blaster virus and I come up negative, is this an operating system error or hard drive problems ???

 

[AP81]

It seems like a virus. A hard disk error doesn't often show those kind of symptoms (in my experience). Hard drive errors often show during boot-up, cause the drive to fail completely or start clunking until they die.

I think it is a virus which didn't get detected. Do you have the latest virus library for your Virus Scanner? Visit the tek-tips virus forum and take a look at the FAQ. There is a good list of online Virus scanners there.

 

[shaner66]

What voltage is your power supply?

 

[bcastner]

What do the system logs show? You can waste a lot of time guessing, but if the system is rebooting the System logs will show you why.

Control Panel, Administrative Tasks, Event Viewer

 

[DJcs]

AP81>I use a free anti virus soft ware called Avast. Seems to work well and have had no other problems in the past. I turned off the antivirus, and scanned the computer on Trends home page. It also came up negative on any virus's.I have to agree with you though, because on start up the hdd does not make any unusal noise. I will however check out the virus scanners you have mentioned, thank you!
Shaner66> I have a 350 wtt power supply Amd approved.
bcastner> Guess I should have done that right away, thanks for the reminder!!!!!

 

[madjuice]

You may want to check your cpu cooling fan and any other fans you have in the system. If my cpu temp goes above a certain level the system does an automatic shutdown.

While my computer does not reboot if that happens, some systems do. Even if that's not the problem, cleaning the dust bunnies out is always a good thing.