2 weeks ago I had a wierd crash while working in SW. I decided to restart to `clear the air' and literally nothing happened. This was on my notebook and it just hung without starting Windows. This machine is over 3 years old and I ride it pretty hard but keep it backed up and cleaned up pretty well. XP-32 with SW 2010, sp5. I cannot easily say for sure what the HD specs are since this was re-built by Xi 2 years ago under warranty and they didn't fill me in on what they put in there to replace the bad stuff they sold me in the first place. (suppose I could figure it out if I needed to.)

Took it into my local computer dude who had it up and running again in a few hours. What he told me when I picked it up was that he found some bad sectors on the hard drive and cleaned them up-whatever that means. No problems since, but I am wondering if I am living on borrowed time. From research I have done on-line it seems that a system can work around bad sectors but I can't find any sort of time frame for when I can expect the next problem. Amybody have any experience they care to share on this subject?