Strange but serious problem

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msnews.microsoft.com

My system (Win2k sp4) was actinng a little funny, kept losing my net
connection, files not opening ect. So I re-booted and scandisk started.
Almost every program and file on the drive was being marked as an invalid
link or cross-linked file in alocation (sp) unit 435... ect.

Re-booted and happened again. Sometimes lauching a file gives an error
something like "bad windows image". To be safe I hooked up an external
drive (Iomega 120gb firewire) to start backing up but trying to transfer a
file just brings up another error and the external drive disappers from
explorer and My Computer.

Any help would be MUCH appreciated
 
After the second reboot, scandisk reported invalid links, etc? Scandisk, or
CHKDSK? Is your drive FAT or NTFS?

With just this information, it does sound like you have a dying disk, and no
backups. When the boat is sinking, just grab the essentials. In other words,
just copy your data. The OS and programs are more than likely going to
require a reinstall anyway. Now, if your drive is FAT, you can just boot
from a DOS boot disk, and manually backup files to removable media. Tedious,
but doable. Or, you could get a replacement drive, install Windows (in which
case, file system is not such a problem), and copy over documents and
settings (see the knowledge base on how to migrate these intact). An
intelligent utility like Robocopy from the NT Resource Kit or the shareware
Xxcopy make this somewhat less painful.
 
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