Windows 7: Latest updates are causing me disk problems

When I shut down the other day (Win 7 ultimate 64bit), there were 30 updates to be applied. when I restarted my system yesterday morning, there was an error message about my hard disk eventually failing. Is there a possible relationship here? I have been trying to clone this hard disk (tried the backup\restore image copy and Seagate diskwizard), they have both failed. I have rebooted multiple times with no problems. Did computer\disks\properties\tools\fix clusters etc (does a report go somewhere), the system rebooted automatically after. Not sure if I am having a registry or hardware problem. I am wonderig if I should go back to a restore point.

Try restoring from a restore point and immediately run a hard drive scan using one of these tools: Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

See here: System Restore

If you are still having problems, yes, I would do a system restore...

If I do a system restore, and then do the system updates again, will I not have the same error message? The disk utilities previously mentioned are older. I downloaded seagate diskwizard, it has no check and\or repair disk tools on it. I did a backup and restore\create system image in case the hard drive does quit (my hard disk is 121 gb, the system image file is 60gb, does that sound correct?). I tried to restore it to another disk (create a clone), but I must not be doing it correctly. I booted from the system repair DVD with the possibly bad hard disk disconnected. I had another blank formatted disk in a removable disk caddy that I wanted to restore the system image to. I had the system image on another hard drive in a usb caddy. The drive in the usb caddy could not be found. Could this be caused by not having had the usb caddy connected when I made the repair disk, and thus the repair disk does not have the drivers for it (re-create the repair disk with the usb drive attached)?

I wouldn't have thought so, but would run the tools Mr King has linked to, because it just might be that your HD is actually on it's way out.

I have been trying all kinds of cloning, imaging, etc, and have booted my system at least 10 times since I got that error message (when booting up after the 30 updates to my system), and have not gotten another error message. If there is a hard disk problem, should I not be getting that error every time I boot up? Am I doit the image recovery correct?

For the amount of time that I spent on this, it would have been quicker to have installed everything again on a new hard disk. Anyway…this is how I resolved things. I used my Windows 7 upgrade CD to do a new installation on a blank disk (the 30 day, no key required installation), no updates, etc…just the basic installation. I then tried to do a restore from the system image that I had made of the old hard drive; again, it could not find the drive and system file. I then created a system image of the 30 day installation that I just did, and tested to see if a restore would find it…it did (I had used the same hard drive for this 30 day image that I had used for the old system…it overwrote the first one (you learn the hard way)). I want back to the old system, and did a system image of it to the same disk (again it overwrote the 30 day one that I had just did). I then booted up the 30 day installation, tried to do a system image restore using the image from the old system, and, finally, it did find the old system disk and image!!! I did the restore of the old system to the new drive, overwriting the 30 day installation. I am up and running again! Something to note here; the Seagate DiskWizard clone software (a subset of the Acronis software), could not get past the error on the hard disk (it kept failing at 75% completed), the Microsoft Backup and Restore\Create a system image, was obviously able to get by the error (different ways of looking at the drive and data?). The point here is that it appears possible to clone a hard drive that has problems (to a new drive).