So you think maybe the hard drive is pooched? Seemed to work fine before windows 8 went all to heck and again system diagnostic (full scan) revealed no indication of any errors. Windows 7 I'm happy with, windows 8 makes me want to jump off a bridge (figuratively speaking). And trying to get any help from microsoft is like trying to find a needle in a galactic cluster. Might be time to go mac or linux and be done with their shennanigans.
Anyways, any ideas would be greatly appreciated; thanks again.