hard disk error

I was installing Office 2007 and got an message saying it couldn't finish installing because of an error on the drive. I try to run scandisk and it won't run because the drive is being used. I schedule it to run on startup and it starts to run and then gives me an error saying it cannot run because of a recent software installation, please restore from a restore point prior to installation. I try to run the restore point and it says it can't because there is an error on the hard drive. I ran WD diagnsostics and it says the drive is passes S.M.A.R.T. I don't know where to go from hre. Any ideas?

Try chkdsk.

How to use CHKDSK (Check Disk)

Byt the way, welcome!

I tried chkdsk x: /F /r and it said I could not run that command . I needed to "elevate my privileges" I am logged in as an admin and I do not know what "elevate my privileges" means

Oh right. You'll need to run the command prompt sa admin.

Type cmd in the start menu and right click on cmd.exe. Then select "Run as administrator" . If the location is "C:\Winows\system32" you can try again.

Elevated Command Prompt in Windows 7

1. Click on Windows 7 Start Button
2. Go to All Programs > Accessories
3. Now right on Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator" from context menu
4. This should bring elevated command prompt mode with full Administrators rights.

Just being tidy FC

OK. I was able to get the elevated command prompt and ran chkdsk from the command line. It said it could not run chkdsk because the drive was locked. Did I want to run it at startup. I chose yes and rebooted. It then says it cannot run because of an error from a recently installed software package. Run a restore point. Which I cannot do because restore says there is an error on the drive. It does say there was an "unspecified error 766c6..." during running chkdsk. I do appreciate the help in geting this far. Any other ideas?

Your going round in circles mate, do you have another Computer you can attach the HDD to, if so I would be inclined to clone over data then on that Computer download and run HD Speed its freeware and will check out the HDD.

Thanks for the advice. I can connect the drive to another computer. I did run the Western Digital Diagnostics and it passed. I looked at the HD Speed link provided and I do not understand how benchmarking the drive will actually fix the problem. If I clone the data over to another drive, I might just keep the new drive installed.

Hi Veedaz, thanks for the advice. I am frustrated at the computer. not at you, you are being very helpful. I did some further steps--

I ran the dell diagnostics and get the following error messages: error code 4400:011a msg:USB_Disk_0_:_multicard_Target not ready. With continuing to run the same diagnostics past that point, other errors show up-- I get the same wording but different numbers: 4400:051a, 4400:031a, and 4400:041a
Any ideas? Is that a hard drive problem, an I/O problem, or what?

That sounds like you're having issues with the multi-media card reader on your system. Do you have the driver installed for it?