New Problem! Is it my HDD or my CD Drive?

[Gelliebeen]

So, recently my graphics card burned out and I got a new one. I plug it in today to find that my computer won't boot up. I put the Windows 7 disc in, and it goes straight to startup repair and sits there for a couple of hours. I then made a mistake and booted up from that disc, and decided to try reformat my HD. It takes forever to format the drive, and then when it tries to install Windows it gets to the 2nd step "expanding files" and just idles there forever. SO, I give up on that and try booting up in DOS using a Hitachi Fitness Diagnostic Disc. It sits on "Starting PC DOS..." forever.

I checked all the plugs, to make sure I didn't jostle one when putting in the new video card. I probably made a huge mistake formatting the drive too. Can anyone figure if it's the HD or the CD drive? I don't mind replacing one but I'm really not prepared for both.

Edit: Tried the diagnostic disc again and DOS started up like a champ. Got the test running on what I hope is the right thing (it had the right serial number anyway). So hopefully this will give me some picture of what may or may not be wrong with my HD. I'll give it a while yet.

Editedit: The diagnostic says there's something wrong with my HD, so there we go I suppose. It didn't give me any details aside from that there was a failure in the test and I should contact my HD manufacturer. Even so, I'm kind of concerned for my CD drive, but I'll leave that for now. Any ideas as to what may have caused this? Was it just general wear and tear?

[Gelliebeen]

Okay, so it looks like I'm shopping for a new HD (to start, I'm still eyeballing my CD drive). Does anyone have any tips on what I should be looking for? For now, these are the two I'm looking at and I'll probably choose one by tomorrow:

Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - $80 with a $15 off promo code so = $65
After reading some of the comments, it seems people are saying that 1TB HDs often die quickly, does anyone have any experience with this? This one seems like a great deal but I'm leary.

Western Digital WD Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - $65 with a $15 off promo so = $50
My current (though now broken I guess) HD is from WD. I've had it for 2 years personally, and the friend I got it from had it for another 2 years before me. I don't know what the lives on these things generally are though. I think the old computer I gave to my Dad is probably around 8 years old and though slow still going strong.

Anyway, any opinions? The $15 off coupon things end tomorrow, so I' sort of in a hurry.

[jason2074]

I prefer using the 500 Gb capacity hard drives over 1 terabyte but that's just me. Seagate and Western Digital are widely used and popular but make sure the warranty period favors to your advantage.

[Gelliebeen]

;] After about 10 hours of grueling work, I managed to fix the thing. This may not be a major accomplishment but since I had no idea what I was doing I'm pretty proud of myself. Apparently it was bad sectors, though it took me forever to figure it out. My last ditch effort was to use Hiren's Boot CD, and try HDD Erase on my computer (which even involved going into BIOS and changing my SATA to IDE, a daunting task for me). After 2 hours, my HD was supposedly erased to 0s, and I was able to format and install windows again. Hurray.

My question now is, do bad sectors signal the end of my HD? Should I order a new one anyway?

[Computer_Commando]

...The diagnostic says there's something wrong with my HD, so there we go I suppose. It didn't give me any details aside from that there was a failure in the test and I should contact my HD manufacturer. Even so, I'm kind of concerned for my CD drive, but I'll leave that for now. Any ideas as to what may have caused this? Was it just general wear and tear?

Replace the hard drive.