FAO Keith (man of all knowledge)

[Profit Seeker]

Usual problem today, the post start up seizure followed by a successful reboot to normality...only today it crashed with a twist! Imagine the belt snaps or something gets caught in your vacuum cleaner, the racket it makes! Well that's the noise my pc made before crashing, I thought it was getting ready to take off! Now considering your words about how all hard drives fail sooner or later, mines been going nearly 5 years and am thinking it's bound to fai any minute and maybe these are the early signs? What I want to do is replace the hard drive with a new one, probably bigger, and add more ram, probably the same mb as is already in there to double it up. Is this an easy plug in and go procedure? I need to transfer all the stuff over to new harddrive, so I obviously I'll need both installed at the same time...?

[TheOldhamWhisper]

First off, check to see if there is a CD in the CDROM drawer - sounds more like that is the problem rather than a failing HD.

[Win2Win]

Hard drives tend not to make a sound when they fail, as Oldham says, could be the CD, possibly though the processor fan has gone, especially if it's 5yo and hasn't been replaced.

Take the lid off, bootup, and stick your ear around the box. If it's the fan, use www.dabs.com £5.