Would appreciate any advice/help

[Panda]

I built my computer last summer and got a 40 GB WD Hard drive for it. After a couple of months, the HD started clicking and freezing the computer and after a while the computer wouldn't even start. I found that I lost the reciept so I bought a new 80 GB WD Hard drive and it worked fine. after about a month or two it started doing the same thing! I am pretty sure that there is something wrong with my computer because two faulty WD hard drives in a row would be a really wierd coincidence. I tried switching the IDE cables around but that didn't work. I put the HD in my brother's computer, then ran a disk check and it fixed it for a bit, but after a week or two in my computer it did the same thing again. Now it gives me the error: "Windows could not start because the file ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt." I can probably format it and get it to work again for a while but I would like to hear what anyone has to say about it, because, like I said before, I don't think it's the hard drive's problem.

I checked my ram with memtest and it was fine. I am thinking it might be a power supply problem, so I downloaded speedfan and here's what it gave me:
www.geocities.com/iamjico/speedfan.bmp (I think you have to copy and paste this in the address box) I don't know what any of those voltages mean, so I would appreciate any help or if anyone can interpret the voltages or if anyone knows how I can fix my computer.

I'm running windows XP PRO
2.0 GHZ AMD athlon XP processor 2400+
256 MB of ram

 

[CODEPOET]

how many fans? sounds like your over heating or you need a good spyware removal tool

 

[Panda]

I got one fan on the CPU, I don't know where speedfan gets this 8000 some RPMs fan but I think I only got one fan on the CPU (Volcano 12). I got zonealarm, adaware, and norton. I don't think I have a lot of spyware (if any). But would spyware cause the HD to make clicking sounds anyways?

 

[ekÆsine]

if it's an unusually loud persistant clicking it's probably hardware failure. some western digital hard disk do make loud clicking noises under normal operation so it's hard to tell if it's going bad unless you've experience with some of them....or if it just dies. if you keep blowing hard drives I would immediately replace your power supply. choose a quality (not cheap, at least $30 or more) power supply. you might want to do it anyways. when many things start to fry always suspect the power supply first.

in your situation though a missing file doesn't mean it's necessarily a hardware failure. it sounds like windows crapped out on you or possibly your IDE controller is faulty on the motherboard or maybe the hard disk itself is faulty. I think you should reinstall or repair windows and see if it happens again. don't forget to backup your data in case the worse happens.

 

[CODEPOET]

if it were the power supply you would have more failures than a hrad drive! start messing with a power supply thats not bad and you will have more problems,sounds more like bad sectors on the drive,reformat and add a few exhaust fans,the easiest fans to add are PCI slot fans, also maybe run the sfc (start>run>cmd>sfc /scannow) also believe it or not a trick we use at work to stop clicking or hung hard drives is to put the drive in the freezer for a few minutes and normally the contraction of the metal allow the drive to pass by the bad sectors or unlock the jam,heck its worth a ty