Baaaad problem, PLEASE HELP.

[dunerider5]

I was playing Counter Strike when all of a sudden my comp crashed and restarted. It had done this a few times in about a 2 week period. The last time, I started getting messages when trying to boot up saying something is wrong with windows/system/sys.ini. Every time after that it only says "DISK READ ERROR INSERT BOOT DISK PRESS RETURN TO RETRY" or something like that. I dont have a windows cd

I asked a guy at a local store and he sayed my partition on the hard drive failed, and to bring it in so they could check it out. He was a penis though so I dont really want to go back. Its a western digital HDD and its only one year old, but I dont think it has a warranty, it was oem from new egg.

What are my options??? Can I buy a new hard drive with windows pre-loaded onto it? I just cant afford the full price of windows.

 

[NeXuS1]

Guess you gotta reformat dude

 

[borat_sagdiyev]

yeah you do have to reformat. my friend got that message before.

 

[dunerider5]

How do I do that? I dont have a windows cd or anything. Can I just buy an old version of windows and upgrade to vista when its available? Anywhere?

 

[Zapdos]

how do you reformat without the windows install disk ?

 

[Zapdos]

lol idiots...

 

[Deathstar1]

Disk read errors usually mean a failing hdd. If you have access to another pc d/load the diagnostics tools from the WD website, this will verify if your hdd is failing.
You have no windows disk ???? where did you buy your pc from? go back and demand your disk, it is illegal to sell a machine with windows on it and not supply the disk (or recovery disk for brand name pc's) though if you say the guy is a "penis" I doubt you'll have much luck as it sounds as if he is pirating Windows. (Assuming that is where you bought your pc)
EDIT: AKAIK WD has a three year warranty on disks, check that while you're on the WD website.

 

[dunerider5]

I HAD a disk, but its dissapeared. If I remember correctly it was a burned copy from a friend anyway. I would like to go legitimate if it means I could reformatt during problems like this and upgrade to vista.

I this what I would have to buy??? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16837116193

 

[kchi55]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16837102059
this is enough... lol

 

[dunerider5]

One of the reviews for that says you cannot upgrade with that version. Is that incorrect? I guess that doesn't matter to me so much anyway. If im too poor for XP ill be too poor for VISTA.


Would I be able to use a seagate barracuda with my WD HDD? Just looking for backups....