XP Home or Hard Disk Problem??

[SpringFlower]

PC been slow recently & did some maintenance, including chkdsk, After chkdsk/f or /r and restart, PC restarts & goes through process, but after message "please wait while your computer restarts" nothing happens & have to use reset button to start. On trying chkdsk again, message same, so seems no "fix" took place.

Have XP Home, SP2 CD, 1.7 GHz, P4, 40 GB, 256 RAM. Have recovery disk, not Windows CD. Thought despite McAfee A/V and Zone Alarm Pro, there might be something lurking. Used recovery disk & loaded only basics, Zone Alarm & McAfee, & seemed OK, then loaded SP2. Tried chkdsk showed 4KB bad sectors. Did not notice this before. Could this be the reason for problem restarting after chkdsk.

HDD is Samsung SV4002HD. Used diagnostic test from Ontrack Data Advisor. Tests 1-4 Ok. Surface Scan showed pass with minor errors. Also tried "Doc Mem" and OK .Anything to worry about, before I load other software. Tried CCleaner and Registry Mechanic and uninstalled SP2, but no change.

Any ideas anyone??

[s7p9a2m4]

Have you tried running whilst not online? Have you tried disabling Macafee and Zonealarm? Did you have chdsk set to repair errors?

If chqdsk cannot repair errors then something more could be going on with the drive.

Try disabling different programs too to help pinpoint something.