Geek advice please

[cheekbones3]

Okay, after my recent PC issues, my latest diagnosis is that my hard drive is banjaxed. The behaviour is now that it'll run in safe mode if it's standing up, but if it's on its side, it won't run at all, which sounds distinctly mechanical to me. Would anyone agree with this assessment?

That leads me on to what I should do next. I've rescued a load of files onto my external hard drive at least, so I shouldn't in theory lose anything important.

My options appear to be as follow:

1) Use the external HD as the main drive, but I don't want to do this.
2) Get hold of another hard drive. Is this easy to do, and are there compatability issues?
3) Anything else?

The main problem I see is that I don't have an original XP disk, since the person I bought the computer from didn't know where it was, and I don't know if it's possible to transfer the OS from an old drive to a new one, and I don't want to anyway, a fresh installation would be nice.

Your thoughts please!

Comments

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I ran a boot scan and it came out clean, so I'm assuming it's mechanical. I'll have a look at the cables.

Where would I get a smart drive tester? Or is that what I've already done?

[409.livejournal.com]

you already kinda have, this sort of thing will do it:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/Active-SMART.shtml

check the cables and see if you can cause a failure when the machine is running happily. if you can then cable is the answer. if not then move the drive 90 degrees while running and listen for an odd noise as it fails - any grinding noise or similar could be the head, platters, or bearing moving in a bad way. beyond that i'm not sure without seeing it.