Hard Drive Issues

[cdo]

Need advice on best way to proceed. I think my hd is getting ready to go south as its starting to make a "clunking" noise at times. Being on a small pension & with 3 in college i have to look for work arounds on computer issues. My concern is being able to re-boot if hd crashes before i can replace. I DO NOT have the original XP cd as i bought the system used. Also if i install 2nd hd should i move data from old hd to new & remove old or just leave in place? At my location memory stick is half the price of the hd. Is there a way to put on floppy enough to get the system running again just in case. Open to any suggestions.

Thanks

[patio]

Stop using the machine as soon as possible if you are hearing HDD noises...otherwise you risk losing everything.

The new HDD should come with an installatiion CD ........use this to clone the old HDD to the new one.

If you are lucky the old one will run long enough to make this possible

If not you may be shopping for an XP CD.