i have a steelseries one now (lowest end model) after a while it gets uncomfortable because of my glasses, mainly on the top ear,which headset you guys recommend?

@Maverick6585: Is your CMOS battery holding a charge correctly? I ask, wondering if the BIOS could be losing your configuration setting for Hard Drive access, i.e. AHCI or IDE mode. Also, have you checked that hard drive for errors? I wouldn't be so quick to say it absolutely can't be the hard drive. Hard Drives do fail. Other than the fans, they are the biggest mechanical parts in the computer.

Try running chkdsk /r with your Windows cd's recovery console.

If all of that is useless, check for a firmware upgrade for your Motherboard. They may have updated it to fix a specific issue like this. If not, they I'd say it's likely that your Sata controller is fried. Since you act like you've had these kinds of escalating problems for a while, that's what it sounds like. Maybe your MOBO got fried in a lightning storm or brownout. That would mean buying a new one.

Halflife is a game that took quantum leaps ahead in the FPS genre, it pretty much laid the foundation for every other fps today, and just to prove how good it was people are still talking about it decades later. Ask most gamers what Halflife is and you wont find a single person who dont know the answer.

And you even prove it today by trying to start a debate about Half-Life.

@Maverick6585: Most fans hold it in high regard because of its then unique approach to storytelling in video games. It was a game that let the environments and actions tell the story as much as some of the dialogue did. Not to mention the fact that the protagonist was silent so players could feel like they were the hero instead of playing a written character.

Me, personally? I think very little of it--and by that, I mean the environments are the best part of the whole thing--works as well as people think. The main problem? Gordon Freeman's incorrigible silence. Why do players even try having a conversation with him if he's not going to respond at all? All it does is make the dialogue more awkward and breaks the immersion when it happens. If he either talked or you had options in dialogue, that would've been okay in my book, but to be completely silent in this kind of game is just jarring.

And as for the immersion argument, he has an established backstory and an iconic appearance. I am not Gordon Freeman, this shell of a man is, and I'm just his puppet master as he awkwardly listens to people trying to get a reaction to him and shoots the bad guys because of course he does.

Oh, and also the gameplay's average, the vehicles control horribly, the gravity gun is a cheap gimmick (though a fun one) and the story is interesting but way too vague for its own good. Sorry, personal opinion over. The answer to the TC's question can be found in the first paragraph if you didn't like my thoughts on what I think is an overrated series.