Well, essentially, my PC has taken a turn for the worst. I've got no idea what exactly is wrong with it though, so I'd appreciate it if someone could give me a hand in deciding what the problem is.
So, I was doing usual PC things ie - browsing the internet, talking on MSN etc, when all of a sudden my internet cuts out. Now, because I use a wireless connection, my internet occasionally does this, so I thought nothing of it. Rebooted, my net was fine and everything was working normally. About an hour later, my net cuts off again. I reboot, but this time, before it gets to the desktop, I get some message about windows checking disk for consistency. Now, this is something I've never seen before, and I've got absoloutely no idea why it appeared. Anyway, after that was done, my PC loaded up normally. I tried a system restore, and despite it saying it was done successfully, the consistency check still happened before the desktop loaded up. That made me assume it was likely a hardware problem.
So, a friend of mine told me to download a program to check the temperature of my comp. I download it, try to install it, but when it gets to installing the start menu > programs icons and stuff, it tells me that there's an error with start menu > programs and it can't install to it. Then a little exclamation mark icon appeared in my programs tray telling me that Start Menu\Programs is corrupt and unreadable. Also, I've found that nothing is listed in Device Manager. It's just an emptry white box where the list should be. That's pretty much the point I'm at now.
Now, I'm thinking it could be a problem with my hard drive, but I'd appreciate some input, as I'd be pissed if I bought a new HD and it didn't fix my problem.
So, I was doing usual PC things ie - browsing the internet, talking on MSN etc, when all of a sudden my internet cuts out. Now, because I use a wireless connection, my internet occasionally does this, so I thought nothing of it. Rebooted, my net was fine and everything was working normally. About an hour later, my net cuts off again. I reboot, but this time, before it gets to the desktop, I get some message about windows checking disk for consistency. Now, this is something I've never seen before, and I've got absoloutely no idea why it appeared. Anyway, after that was done, my PC loaded up normally. I tried a system restore, and despite it saying it was done successfully, the consistency check still happened before the desktop loaded up. That made me assume it was likely a hardware problem.
So, a friend of mine told me to download a program to check the temperature of my comp. I download it, try to install it, but when it gets to installing the start menu > programs icons and stuff, it tells me that there's an error with start menu > programs and it can't install to it. Then a little exclamation mark icon appeared in my programs tray telling me that Start Menu\Programs is corrupt and unreadable. Also, I've found that nothing is listed in Device Manager. It's just an emptry white box where the list should be. That's pretty much the point I'm at now.
Now, I'm thinking it could be a problem with my hard drive, but I'd appreciate some input, as I'd be pissed if I bought a new HD and it didn't fix my problem.