Harddrive? My computer died.

Problem: Computer experienced dieing process. I was doing simple task such as email. I noticed the mouse started to "lag" and was having trouble doing much of anything. I decided to restart and I could not get anywhere. I pass the BIOS, I get all the way to the menu saying "Windows did not restart properly" asking me which mode to load. No matter what option I choose I would experience a very very slow load, until it just comes to a complete stop. As I restarted more I noticed the slower it got. It always got to the point of windows menu, but the little "pre-loading" bar sometimes or sometimes does not go, and if it does, very slowly. Also something I've noticed is I do not hear the BEEP when I power on the computer when performing POST.


I recently upgraded my computer, excluding the hard drive. Everything ran fine together for a good amount of time. I do not have the exact specs with me at the moment. The harddrive is an IDE 250gig from western digital, I dont know if that is the problem, but it is my first hunch. I also tried swapping RAM in and out of different slots with different sticks. All of this stuff is within a year and a half old (but bought in the last few months.)

Any ideas or suggestions or stories of similar occurrences will help.

 

I have a similar problem. I would like to know if there is a solution to this.