Possible HD problems - need suggestions
 

Corporate issue HP/compaq nc6000 running XP Pro. Last night and once this afternoon it locked up on me. Everything froze and I could hear the hard disk clicking until I received the blue screen of death, then the PC shut itself down and restarted. The blue screen said something to the effect that Windows shut itself down to avoid damage. The damned thing appeared for such a short period of time that I couldn't read it all, was a full screen of text. Said something about removing any recently installed hardware. Nothing installed, ever. If it was the first time, don't worry. If not, let your system administrator know. And it created a log.

After last night's problem, I defragged the HD. No problems identified. Is there anything else I should do? Maintenance type programs? Any suggestions on freeware to d/l.

I just backed up all the data files, contacts, email files and bookmarks.

First of all check the Event Viewer (Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer)

In there it will give you a plethora of wonderful good and bad "things" going on in your computer. To make it easier, just look for red or yellow icon'd items. If at all possible provide a screenshot of them. (Mainly the system tab will show Harddisk related errors).

Of course backup all important files, and this should be done even if you dont have any problems happening. The phrase "Shit happens" is all to true in computers. I've had 2 harddrives die within a week that were completly independent of each other.

If you know what brand the harddisk are, or have tools from Hp/compaq that can check for actual hardisk related issues, that would be a great place to start. Western digital and Maxtor both provide great tools.

Other then that have you installed any recent hardware at all? Software?

Nothing's been installed, ever - its a corporate issue laptop and nothing gets put on it by the user. Ran some diagnostics but nothing showed up. Can't get the HP remote diagnostics to run.

I'm going to be in our main office on Monday and will have tech support check it out.

HP should have some diagnostic tools available to check the hard drive and everything else.
If the HD is giving out a clicking sound, most likely, the disk is bad. You should be able to get a RMA. However, the data on the disk maybe done for...... I don't know how to recover the data but take to the recover center (They charge quite a bit).