Penny - it sounds as if your hard drive is acting up.

Have you got a removable drive caddy? If the answer is 'uh?', you probably haven't! If you have, remove the drive and push it back firmly.

Are the ends of the drive cable pushed firmly home? Opening it to change the hardware - even if it's only the CPU fan! - can dislodge the connectors, as they are such a poor fit!

If it's neither of those, the drive may well exhibit rapidly increasing numbers of bad sectors each time you run scandisk 'thorough'. If you haven't run 'thorough' recently, it's time you did!

If you're in or around the Manchester area, I am able to help (for a small consideration!!)...

Good luck - you'll need it!