PC hard disk unstable.

[xkjyeah]

My disk is getting unstable, and I removed Gentoo Linux from it after that partition got really unstable and because it was taking up to 85% of the 3GB partition and wasn't good for use anymore.

But the problem remains.
---------------------------------
I wonder if it is a hardware problem, because my hard disk keeps ringing and the disk busy LED would be continuously (not continually) on.

Once or twice, when things start to get busy, with the LED flashing faster and computer getting slower, (checking disk with scandisk on DOS), it would crash, keyboard gets unresponsive and the only thing that responds is the three-finger-salute.

Could it be the
- Cooling system? That computer was left running over a few nights to compile. Might have konked out some mechanism?
- Bad blocks? Linux partition had bad blocks, hence I felt it unstable because I couldn't find a solution to handle a ReiserFS partition that had bad blocks.
- Old computer? 5yrs old HP Brio BAX, but it shouldn't be the case... I know there are even older systems out there perfectly stable...

btw, I had successfully compiled GNOME in stages with such crashes coming every now and then and reiserfsck-ing when needed.

I plan to buy a new hard drive 'cos my old one has 8GB and [some time ago, ] dual-boots windows XP and linux and it was a squeeze. But if the problem lies with the cooling, it would only serve to worsen it...

[paranode]

Sounds like the drive could just be near its end of life. Cooling problems could have contributed to this though. I had a hard drive that was really close to my floppy drive for a while, and it wasn't until I installed Gentoo on that hard drive that it got so hot it ruined my floppy!
_________________
Meh.