C drive is corrupt!!!

[newuser]

Hello,

I just did a defrag.. or at least tried to do it since my computer has become slow lately. But it stopped in the middle and gave me a message saying that my C drive is corrupt and asked me to do a chkdsk /f.

It doesn't let me do it (chkdsk /f) now and says I can do it when I restart my computer. But I am afraid to restart my computer because I'm afraid of what might happen.

DO I NEED TO BACKUP MY COMPUTER NOW.. before I restart??? What could a C drive being corrupt mean??? How does that happen? What can I do now? What am I supposed to be doing now?

[vantim]

Yeah, I would. I've had drives warn me before. The last time that happened I lost everything. Don't hesitate.

[newuser]

What would be the best and cheapest way to do that? I do not have any backup software with me now... and I don't have a external drive either..

[vantim]

The easiest way is to go out and get another drive. They are pretty cheap now and they come with software to clone your current drive. You will have to shut your computer down though.

You could burn things to cd or a thumb drive.

[vantim]

The problem is... If you don't shut your computer down you can only back up your data. If you get a new drive then you can clone your current drive, have more space, and not lose anything including Windows.

[vantim]

If it were me. I'd back up all my important data (like My Documents, email, favorites...etc) to CD or DVD. then I would install a new drive. that way if your drive dies in the process at least you'll still have your important stuff.

[newuser]

To install a new drive do we need to open up the computer? Is it something we can do ourselves?

[newuser]

I have another drive called D: which came with the computer. It is almost the same size as the C drive. It is 21.6GB and the C drive is 29.2 GB (with 12 GB free) Can I use it to clone the C drive? If yes, how do I do that..

[newuser]

Ok.. I just downloaded Norton Ghost.. cleaned up all my D: drive (moved its contents to my C: drive so that my D drive is empty).. Now is it enough if I say the destination is D:?

Would that be sufficient? What am I supposed to do after I restart the system. I'm new to this so I'm just a little confused.

Sorry, I'm asking so many questions but this is the first time I've ever done this so.. its better to ask too many questions now than be sorry later..

[vantim]

The D: drive is probably the restore partition. Usually those hold the files to do a full system restore.