Hard drive issue?

[sande]

Problem: It began, I assume, when I tried to install my new OS. It took several tries before it installed correctly without errors. But soon after the first few uses I began to get errors about memory and constant rebooting and shutdowns. I thought at first it was my memory since they were not all the same brand etc.. Removed the one dissimilar stick and continued to function. I thought that had fixed it but then the errors started again. I am down to 8% free space on the drive as well.

Specs:
OS: WinXP Home

PIV 2.4

Drives:
37.53 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
5.18 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

YAMAHA CRW2200E [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

WDC WD300BB-32CCB0 (30.02 GB) [Hard drive] -- drive 0
WDC WD75AA-00BAA0 (7.54 GB) [Hard drive] -- drive 1

Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P4S533-E REV

512 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM 1' has 256 MB
Slot 'DIMM 2' has 256 MB
Slot 'DIMM 3' is Empty

I thought about getting a new HD next month and trying to see if installing the OS on that would prove easier. I would like to use all the RAM I have bought as well. Any suggestions? ALso, anyone know of the best way to completely clean a HD of errors and data?

[originel]

the best way to clean an hd of errors is to a low-level format. might help anyways.

have you tried installing the OS on the other hard drive? also do you have another OS you can try installing?

also what type of processor do you have and how hot is it running? (overheating can cause instability). also how powerful is your power supply? an underrated ps can cause instability as well

[DoctorReno]

What original means by a low level format is a zero fill format. It is impossible to do a low level format on modern drives.
You can download a free utility from most of the major drive mfgs that will do the zero fill format.

Anyhow I would look more at the mismatched memory as your culpret. XP is notorious about being fussy about memory. It is likely that it would have installed with no problem if you had removed all but one module of memory. XP often gives problems with perfectly matched memory modules during installation and the solution is to remove all but one module during installation and then add the extra modules after installation.

You might want to download and run one of the free memory testing utilities available and see if you have a bad module of memory.