By booting linux from a usb stick, you can avoid any problem that your drive might be having, and safely run diagnostics on it.
No, as i said it was on another separate drive which worked fine before.
I had tried to boot Linux from a USB before, and i think i used http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/, but as something did not work, though i have a new 8gb Verbatim flash drv. Should try again sometime.
I think i have tried about 12 flavors of Linux on older PCs (less than 1gb ram) ever the years, and found Puppy the fastest for one that has the basics, but lacking in software and ease, while Lubuntu is a little heavier but the best so far in its class for old PCs. But lack of legal codecs (USA) is one issue with all Linux distros (i know you can but them).