Disappearing files

[GRoston]

All,

Several weeks ago, I received the dreaded, "Recycle bin corrupted" error. This is annoying as the recycle bin is a safety net, and being force to delete all of its contents means no net. Bummer - but I got over it.

About two weeks ago, my desktop gadgets stopped working. When I looked, I found that the the gadget files no longer existed on my computer - they simply all disappeared. I ran a full virus and malware scan but found nothing wrong.

Two nights ago, while updating some programs, when the system rebooted, it performed a disk check on one of the hard drives (claiming it had not been properly dismounted). After booting, I found that the profile file for my backup program and my XP virtual machine file had disappeared. Today, I again received the "Recycle bin corrupted" error.

As you can well imagine, I am now getting rather concerned. All of the problems have been limited to a single hard drive, the one with my /users partition. I downloaded DiskCheckup and checked the S.M.A.R.T. data, and everything appeared nominal.

My question: Is this behavior indicative of a potential hardware failure? If not, what else could explain these problems? Should I simply play it safe, buy a new hard drive, and clone the existing one?

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions.

Some more info: I am running Win 7 x64, fully patched. My AV is avast!

 

[richc46]

Download and run a full scan with malwarebytes
Run a full antivirus scan
Test memory
Download and test RAM with Memtest 86. Test each RAM stick separately, for 6 passes. Then with a known good stick test each RAM slot.
Memtest86
Go to search type cmd, then right click run as administrator
then type sfc /scannow
Run 3 times if errors
Go to search type event viewer look for errors in administrative group.
Type device manager in search look for problem graphic drivers, upadate.
Go to website of your hard drive manufacturer and test the hard drive.