How about replacing the drive or getting another PC? If it is too complicated for you, you could you ask Best Buy (or another store) if they will transfer the data in your current hard drive to a newly purchased one, throw away the old one and install the new one in your PC for a fee?

What program or procedure are you using that throws up this error message? You could visit PC Pitstop from the link bleow and run the free diagnostic program for a second opinion. This is a free test, do not click anything that wants money. After the test be sure to click on each red or yellow flag for an explanation of the problem if refers to.

If you know the make of the hard drive then go to their web site and run a diagnostic test on your hard drive. Is that 160gig drive the original or have you replaced the original with this one? If you replaced it did you use the original eMachine CD to install the operating system?

You might want to back up your Favourites/Bookmarks and address book also.

When you opened the case and cleaned out the dust bunnies how did you do that? If the tower is on the floor try raising it up 4 to 6 inches as the floor is always the dustiest place in the home so more gets into your computer.

Here is a link that might be useful: PC Pitstop

You could clone your hard drive to a new hard drive if
you believe the old hard drive is giving out.

Thank you all for answering.
owbist, I downloaded a program called HDD Health (recommended by Kim Komando) and that is what is giving me the Attribute seek error message. It was giving me the message about the Temp Critical and with the dust that was there, I'm sure I was headed for a crash. It said the temp ws 48 degrees celcius, so I feel very lucky that HDD Health caught it. I haven't had that message since I cleaned it out. I will try PC Pitstop when I finish here. I did a Balarc Advisor report and all it says about the hard drive is "160.04 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity",so I have to do a little research to find out what make it is.

I do have the case up off the floor sitting on my desk top, but it still was very dusty. It has plenty of free space around it for ventilation. I really don't want to replace the whole set up, because this has every thing I need except smaller size and still feels like a "new" one to me, except I have a bulky 17" CRT monitor. Until now I have had zero problems with it. I think I bought it in 2004, so it isn't that old, at least for me, and it has everything most of the new ones have. I have 135 GB free out of the 160. How do I backup my bookmarks and address book? I use Firefox and Outlook Express.

cboy,I think cloning to a new hard drive is what I want to do, so I might be back to ask how to do that.

Thanks again

Belarc does not provide you with the make of your hard drive. If you care to download and run SIW (System Information Window) it will tell you the make and save you having to pull the drive out of the computer. SIW is very small and does not need to be installed. Simply download the 1.5 meg file and double click on it. Nice little free program. Your hard drive will be listed in the Hardware section under ÂStorage near the bottom left side.

When you cleaned inside did you pay particular attention to the heatsink and fan on the CPU (processor)? This is where most of the heat is generated.

If you are happy with the computer there is nothing requiring you to replace it at the moment. At some point you can always purchase an LCD monitor, these are coming down in price these days

You can back up your favourites from C:\Documents and Settings\yournamehere\Favorites

You can back up your OE address book by opening Outlook Express, click File/Export/Address book/ and save it as a .wab file

Searching for HDD Health I seemed unable to find conclusive reports of it being a successful program. On other forums where it got queried there were only sparse and vague responses. Softpedia.com only report 7,000 plus downloads yet the program seems to have been out since 2003

Here is a link that might be useful: SIW by Gregory Topala

owbist, thanks so much. You have been a great help! As well as the others who answered. I ran the PC Pitstop las night, or rather very early this am, and it gave me the make of my hard drive - WDC WD 1600 AB - 220YAO IDE details DMA. I will check out the SIW link and also Western Digital (that is what WDC stnds for?) to run the check there. By the way, the Pitstop test didn't show any hot spots except for security, but I run Firefox, and I don't think those particular ones are applicable. I have Zone Alarm installed, and I use an anti-virus program, and AdAware and Spybot, and knock-on-wood, haven't had any problems so far.

Thanks for the favorites & address book back up instrux.