Is my hard drive dying?

[dysaio]

Disregard my sig, this is concerning my laptop, which is:

p4 3.0ghz (northwood)
uniwill MB w/ SiS chipset
512x2 ddr ram @ 166 mhz, 2.5, 3, 3, 7
60gb hdd

Lately it's been running everything extraordinarily slowly, and its startup time is abymsal (it pushes 10 minutes, no joke - when it was new, under a minute easy). I've defragd and reformated a number of times, but that doesn't seem to help. I'm pretty sure it isn't a CPU or RAM problem - I monitor CPU usage all the time; rarely does it go above 10%, and rarely am I using more than 150mb of ram. Of course, I used to use 100% and a lot more ram, but that was when I could still do things like game without the computer crashing. It seems that if I ever do anything hard-drive intensive (download, move big files, open lots of browser tabs) I get a BSOD, and the error is always KERNAL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR, and it does a physical memory dump, then reboots.

To me, this looks like a HD problem, but I have no idea what the error msg in the BSOD means, so I just wanted to confirm it here. Also, assuming it *is* a HD problem, what are my options when it comes to replacing them? Is it relatively easy to remove/install a new HD in a laptop? I've never done it before (and no, the machine isn't under warrenty any longer). Would it be viable to run off of an external USB or FireWire HD exclusively, or would that just be too slow/not possible?

Thanks for any help/advice.

[DougLite]

MS KB article (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315266) on the STOP error - highlights:

This errror can be caused by a boot sector virus. Given the other problems you are experiencing, I doubt this, but if you can, run an AV Program to check the boot sector.

The other potential cause(s) are more distrubing: bad blocks on the hard disk, in the page file, or interface issues, such as bad cables.

Check your drive cable, verify that you have the latest BIOS version and chipset drivers for your motherboard. Run maunfacturer diagnostics on the drive, but I'm over 99% sure the drive has developed bad sectors and is toast. Back up anything you can, and you will also have to check and make sure the data you copy off of it is not corrupt. The Ultimate Boot CD will be a huge help to you, unfortunately. Good luck, and post back here if you find out more.

[dysaio]

Yea, I think you're right, it looks like the HDD is dying. I looked into the admin tools in control panel and found a *ton* of disk errors, dating back to my last reformat (no doubt it started well before that, because I reformated that time due to this problem). I'm hoping the hard drive will hold out for the next week, as I still have two more essays to write before I get to go home. Once home, I'll be able to order/install a new HDD, which I'm sure will fix things. I'll also (finally) get to throw all of the parts in my sig together :D They've been waiting for me for almost a week now... I'm rather eager.

One quick question: are there any good programs which I can use to check if files are corrupt? I've backed up all of my important data onto my external HD and USB drive - the majority of which are small notepad/openoffice files. If I move them to a new drive, and the files themselves are corrupt, that can't cause the new HD to become corrupt too, can it?

[DougLite]

No, copying corrupt data to a new drive won't cause any physical damage to it, the data will merely be useless and unintelligible to you.