Buzzing Noise

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I have real problems now, which are probably HD related, but I haven't checked fully. Here's the story:

1) I boot up my computer. The buzzing noise is a little louder than usual.
2) The Windows boot screen appears (when it asks to select if you want your computer booted in safe mode or not)
3) Windows recognizes my HD and Disk Drive (not sure if it's related)
4) Windows loads, but just before the username/password screen is supposed to come up, it black screens, with a little mouse, and doesn't load.
5) I was forced to stop my data backup after some problems.

I'm taking it in to get looked at, but I can't until Tuesday. Is the problem for sure the HD, and what can I do?

EDIT: Oh great. Oh ****ing great. I can't even start based on last known configuration now. Why?

It makes me think my HD is corrupting my data.

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM"

[Whacker]

I have real problems now, which are probably HD related, but I haven't checked fully. Here's the story:

1) I boot up my computer. The buzzing noise is a little louder than usual.

Failure imminent. Seriously.

2) The Windows boot screen appears (when it asks to select if you want your computer booted in safe mode or not)
3) Windows recognizes my HD and Disk Drive (not sure if it's related)

This is NOT good at all, usually means the hardware is starting to physically fail.

4) Windows loads, but just before the username/password screen is supposed to come up, it black screens, with a little mouse, and doesn't load.
5) I was forced to stop my data backup after some problems.

I'm taking it in to get looked at, but I can't until Tuesday. Is the problem for sure the HD, and what can I do?

Do whatever you can to finish backing up your most critical stuff, NOW. No exceptions. You may already be too late, but keep trying.

EDIT: Oh great. Oh ****ing great. I can't even start based on last known configuration now. Why?

It makes me think my HD is corrupting my data.

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM"

Hence my statements earlier, I think you're well into the downward spiral. Most likely your data is becoming corrupted and the drive is not too far away from mechanical failure. Keep trying to back your stuff up, verify your backups. After that's done, you need to RMA your HDD or go buy a new one ASAP, do NOT continue to use the machine for important things.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

The HD is physically going to Seagate, who have a data recovery service from busted or corrupt hard drives, and will send me back my data in addition to a new hard drive as part of my warranty. That's where it's going come Monday.

[Ramses II CP]

Well, you never really know something until you experience it (As some of us have). Noisy drives are almost always about to die! Most likely you just got unlucky with a drive that came off the line with a fault. I hope you didn't lose any critical data. Seagate is a reliable company who will honor their warranty, so you should be back up and running fairly soon.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

They're going to be recovering my data from the drive, and I'm not too concerned about anything except the Windows install itself - everything else should be fairly easy to recover, as the most expansive sets of data are on my external or discs (music collection, for example).

I'm confident that I'll be up and running in about a week and a half, after my data is recovered and I get a new drive. This is being typed from my old computer.

Thanks to everyone for doing your best to help, much appreciated, and it probably saved me quite a bit of work in the long run. I'll mention it when I have everything up again.