Opinions needed on corrupted files

[amdskip]

Problem:

Little over a year old compaq P4 computer w/1gb factory installed memory (not sure if ddr or PC133)
Western Digital 100GB hard drive
Windows XP home
yada yada yada

Anyways this user uses some norton system works program and he has his optimization warning set at 95%. He starts to constantly having to defrag his hard drive because the percentage goes down to almost nothing. It keeps saying corrupted files yada yada yada. I mess around with it and it's a nice straight foward computer and he just formatted it with windows xp and has a minimal amount of basic programs installed. He thinks its the hard drive and it's no longer under warranty so he decides to replace it. He gets a new Western Digital 100GB drive and now he's back in the same boat. Files keep getting corrupted. He can repair them but it doesn't seem to do much good for very long period of time. He says it will be fine until they install a program or move some files around.

I'm clueless, anyone have any input on anything I can check on this? Thanks!

Jeff

 

[DieHardware]

Have you checked the RAM? I'd run memtest86 through ten or so passes to check for any errors-you shouldn't get any. I'd change the IDE cables too.

 

[amdskip]

Haven't actually gone over there since the hard drive replacement. I shall check the ram for sure. Good idea on the IDE cables.

 

[Mday]

how do you know files get corrupted? are you running scandisk or disk doctor, that is, have you scanned it with either program? is he using ntfs or fat32 or what? the only thing he should have running from norton systemworks is the antivirus.

a fragmentation of 0.0% means it's NOT FRAGMENTED, no defrag needed.