T40 - "Cannot find operating system"

[renderful]

I keep getting "Cannot find operating system", intermittently, on my laptop. I can usually boot if I turn it off for a while and turn it back on.
It also blue screens sometimes when I'm doing hard disk intensive work(music production, copying files, virus scan, downloading lots of torrents) Also, when I installed Windows the last time(it crashed beyond repair once), it would only Quick Format. The normal format froze.

I replaced the hard disk a while back with an 80gb 5400 RPM Seagate, and I trust Seagate, so I hope the drive isn't faulty. Does anyone have any idea? IBM sent me a replacement 40gb, but the 40gb isn't large enough. I haven't all the software installed on the 40gb in order to test if it's definitely the Seagate drive or not.

Do you guys know of anything that could sort my drive out aside from windows CHKDSK. CHKDSK freezes when I try to use it while it's fixing a bad sector. I have a USB enclosure, so I could potentially hook it up to another computer and scan from there.

Codey

[GomJabbar]

Offhand, it certainly sounds like a failing hard drive to me. You can look in Event Viewer for ATA/ATAPI and SMART errors. Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Viewer.

You can download Drive Fitness Test and test your hard drive with it. Hitachi Drive Fitness Test

You can run the tests in PC-Doctor. Start > All Programs > PC-Doctor for Windows > PC-Doctor.

[cmarti]

Most of the time around 90% when one sees that error that means the hard drive is faulty.

Another option would be remove the hardrive and re-connect it to see if it's a connection error.

But the new drive has warranty right?