Hello,

A recent problem has been occuring with LFS. When I start it and
go to multiplayer and click display list of games, it starts refreshing the
list for a few seconds, then my hard drive clicks, powers back on, and
the system locks up. I have to reboot..

Now I know you are all thinking HD failure, but this only happens with LFS,
no other game, or software.

Anyone know why this is? Should I reinstall the game to another directory?
Any advice would be appreciated,

Thanks.

did u do the usual stuff?

- check temps
- check for unusual sounds (damaged HD)
- spy/malware scan
- close all other applications before starting LFS
- try windowed mode
- disable firewall/antivirus

thats about it atm.

Temps are fine, I run other games etc for hours at a time,
Yeh unusual sound is what the HD makes when it sort of re-powers up,
I know this sound from past HDs is sign of failure.
No spyware/etc this pc is well protected

I'll try disabling AV and try windowed mode, thanks for the ideas!

Warning: General internet response approaching!!!

Stop downloading pr0n!!!

There are two small and simple freeware applications you could use to test your hard disk in windows, HDD health and HD Tune. I recommend using the latter, but it sometimes gave me some false positives about SMART parameters, so a few times I used HDD Health to additionally check them.
IN HD Tune you can benchmark the performance of your HD, do a SMART check, do a full scan to see if there are surface faults.
In absence of major problems or additional disk access there should be a fairly consistent performance, SMART parameters within the norm, if they're not HD Tune shows them in yellow or red. Yellow is a warning (sometimes even a false alarm, there are some bugs at least in older versions) and red is definitely critical, indicating the need for a replacement.
A full surface scan should give no damaged sectors at all, while having damaged sectors (especially in the very first section of the hard disk) would suggest immediate replacement or at least extreme caution and future checks to see if the situation deteriorates.
Generally I go for a hard disk replacement if there is something wrong, even minor (except obviously for false alarms). I like sleeping safe, when I can.
As long as data and files aren't compromised (or are easily fixed) you can use applications such as Norton Ghost (or whatever it's called now) or Acronis Migrate Easy to make an image (snapshot) of the entire hard disk without having to reinstall completely, if the situation is still fine.
As additional note, for hard disk failure or pre-failure analysis unfortunately there's a rule: it's never 100% safe. Tests could say everything's okay, but it isn't, or could say there's something wrong: for instance some temp sensors on some hard disks are prone to severe errors, indicating impossible temperatures, but everything is nonetheless fine.

luftrofl - what the hell are you talking about...?

Albieg - thanks for the advice, i'll check it out!