Series of BSODs now can't boot even in safe mode

[pgoughy]

I left it overnight and it did 4 passes and then stopped. I am really thinking it's the hard drive now. I am getting a disk read error and although the BIOS reads the drive, the Windows RE detect the drive.

 

[axe0]

Either the drive or the motherboard is bad, easiest way to test this is by replacing the drive.

 

[pgoughy]

I should mention that I accidently plugged the wrong end of a USB cable into a USB port and it sparked. A friend thinks I may have shorted the motherboard but it continued to work for years after except the USB ports occassionally stop working temporarily.