Hard drive constantly runs

A couple computers ago I had a hard drive that ran pretty continuously for a month or so. Then it failed Sometimes, apparently, it can be a sympton that it's on its last legs. Consider an external hard drive and copy your resident hard drive to it before something happens.

Do you have a good virus protection/security suite? Could something have highjacked your computer into a botnet? Hit control-alt-delete and then "task manager". How much of your computer's resources are being used? If it's 10 or 15% that's pretty normal. If it's always 50 or 80%, something's wrong. Try rebooting. See if your internet browser is open in the applications even when you shut it off--i.e. if it comes back on by itself (and if your security suite isn't updating itself, which Norton does with some regularity).

Thanks so much Monterey Jack! This is a Laptop from jan 2007 with vista. Of course i waited for Vista and had nothing but problems, and in may the HD crashed, and Dell was nice enough to replace it. I do feel like this hd may be getting old and i do have an external, which i am in the process of transferring info to.