Question about damage to a hard-drive?

I have a compaq presario 5000 with a pentium 4 processor. I had it running with dsl with no protection (stupid I know) and I got lots of damage including spyware, virus's, etc. I took it to the Geek Squad at my local Best Buy. They told me that it needed a new hard drive. I think they said because of all the spyware and infections the harddrive got overworked and damaged. Does that make sense? Is it worth it to replace the harddrive or can I just use my recovery cd and wipe out all the virus and spyware and then just install virus protection/anti-spyware. I know it wont be running to its full capacity if I do that but some of the harddrive will still be working right? I cant really afford to shell out the money for a new system right now. PLEASE ADVISE.

Question about damage to a hard-drive?ktm

your time is free I would definitely try it what do you have to lose

Question about damage to a hard-drive?nortan

NO, that does not make sense. While a hard drive may fail in time, it can be tested to see if it is still good. If they didn't do that, don't replace it.

You need to back up all personal data. Next you do a low-level format of the hard drive, you can generally download a program from the Hard Drive manufacturer's support section. Then you need to reload the operating system, reload any program files and finally reload you personal files including the documents and settings files.