computer getting flaky...

[Max-Powers]

Recently my computer has been going down the crapper. Going slow, stuttering on things it has no problem with before (like sagetv), doing active desktop recovery thing, crashing, doing something weird on start up, like ask me for a boot disk or do a check disk scan. Counterstrike stopped working and FEAR sound doesn’t work. I run 2 monitors using ultramon. Recently it started making the mouse disappear on once screen. I can still do stuff with the mouse but I just don’t see it. it works on the other screen though. it is doing it all the time now. (turned my computer on, went to hard forum, started typing this and it did it)
Some things I have done recently- Used trueimage to clone my old 80 gig to my new 250 gig. Installed FEAR, installed sound drivers. Copied some files from friends external hard drive. (Scanned them with AVG)
Especially after using my friend’s hard drive, it has really been acting up. Any advice or help would be much appreciated.


PS: my computer just made a beep sound and froze for about 10 sec with a hour glass pointer

 

[Max-Powers]

My computer just locked up a couple minutes ago. I went to look at a folder in windows explorer and got the hourglass icon. I could move the mouse but nothing else. No alt-f4, ctrl-alt-del, nothing. So I powered down. It showed that no hard drive was plugged in. In bios and in boot up. Kept asking for a boot cd (boot from cd was 2nd in boot order) So i fiddled with it. Trying every SATA port on my mobo, and trying both cables I had, and the same thing with my other 80 gig hard drive. nothing. So I tried a different SATA power cable and it came on. Could a crappy cheap power cable be the problem? *knocks on wood* I was using the SATA power cable that came with the mobo, now I am using the one that came with my power supply. (OCZ modstream)
I will have to wait and see if I keep having problems. Until then, what affect could a bad power cable have on somthing like the hard drive?