Computer crashes: Shockwave or a bigger problem?

[sabomnim]

My computer has worked fine for years (~4 years old) until very recently (yesterday, it worked in the morning but started acting up in the afternoon)

I have been having issues and noticing it has been freezing a lot
Ive run countless malware/anti virus scans (malwarebytes and microsoft security essentials) but they find nothing
I defragged using defraggler
I periodically run Ccleaner to fix my registry and clear cache

thinking it was my HDD getting old I ran a check disk (checking both boxes: fix bad sectors and fix system errors)
It kept freezing on "CHKDSK verifying free space 5 of 5" at 63% each time
So I forced shutdown and rebooted and backed up my important files

While backing up I noticed my computer worked fine when navigating folders. also I have no issues with excel. But if I startup firefox or IE, when I try to use a search feature it freezes (not completely bc i can move the cursor but it in a never ending loading state, eventually forcing me to force shutdown and reboot.

I opened in safemode (with network off) and was able to open IE and Firefox and turn off all addons and extensions
I noticed "shockwave flash 11.4.402.265" was the only recently updated file (i have autoupdates on) so this too was then disabled
I then restarted

Everything now SEEMS to work great

No more freezing issues, and so far (about 10 minutes haha) i havent had an issue. but that is 9 more minutes then I had yesterday (it was one of those frustrating days that we have all had with a screwy computer)

So I want to chalk it up to the shockwave flash being the issue (tho all addons are off so it could be any of them) but I am still not sure why my checkdisk would freeze

is there a correlation between the two?

am I in the situation where my issue was the shockwave but my HDD is also on its way out? Did I get lucky that shockwave caused an issue bc it warned me to quickly backup everything bc a bigger problem is on the horizon?

any insight would be appreciated
hopefully this is the end of the issue, but with a 4 year old computer im sure the fun is about to begin

 

[richc46]

Welcome
Lets not guess. Go to the website of your Hard Drive manufactuer and test the drive. Post your results and we go from there.

 

[sabomnim]

well its a WD so i got WD Data LifeGuard Diagnostics and ran the extended time option before I left for class

It was going fine for the first hour before I left but now that I am home the Estimated Time Remaining is steadily increasing so I cancelled it. Guess that is a bad sign
It also appears to be frozen. I tried to cancel it and nothing worked and I couldnt close or minimize it. Then it appeared loading but the light indicating the computer is processing wasnt on
I tried ctrl+alt+del and it went black with a popup: "Logon process has failed to create the security options dialog"

I forced power down and back up

things are working fine but not sure what my next step should be besides backup and prepare for the worst

 

[richc46]

Back up your stuff, now
Then try a chkdsk
It should take about 60-90 minutes
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/67612-check-disk-chkdsk.html

 

[sabomnim]

it freezes when i do the normal check disk stating:
"CHKDSK verifying free space 5 of 5" at 63% each time

I will try the other method tonite

also when I run WD diagnostics quick scan it fails stating:
Test Result: FAIL Test Error Code: 06-Quick Test on drive 1 did not complete! Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 65 (Error Log Test) SMART self-test did not complete on drive 1!

 

[richc46]

Another indication of hard drive problems
Trust me back up your stuff, just in case.

 

[sabomnim]

yes thank you
everything important is backed up
ill post results prolly tomorrow about the other check disk

thanks again for taking your time

 

[richc46]

No problem, the Forum is here for you. Take your time.

 

[sabomnim]

well i am lucky if it boots up now
i cant complete any of the check disk runs, freezes every time

Now when I boot I get "Operating System not found"

Forcing down and then booting back up gives me like a 50/50 shot at either receiving that message again or it booting correctly

it will still occassionally freeze, usually when using firefox (but then again most of my work on this computer involves web searching so it is most likely unrelated.)

Vista came preinstalled so I dont have a disk, then again, wiping it clean prolly wont do much if it is the HDD...which im assuming at that point buying a new computer is the smarter move

 

[richc46]

Dont post it here, but do you have your product key number and do you have stuff to save?