Not 100% sure this is Vendettas fault but all clues points that way.

System:

p4 2.4 northwood
Geforce FX 5900, latest nvidia drivers (61.77)
Elitegroup 865 PE-A MB
Realtek built in sound
IBM 30.7 GB HD--- <-- this is the C drive and the troublemaker.
IBM 120 GB
Win XP pro SP2
DX 9.0c

Now the thing is I just recently started playing and after a few hours my HD began acting REALLY weird, as in starting/stopping freezing the system and the game. I had to reboot by force and XP could not perform disk check, on second attempt I aborted and then no IDE devices could be found, system started on third attempt. I tried some other things, games mostly and all was well, I then ran Vendetta again and it only took like 10 minutes before this same procedure repeated itself.

I ran diskdefrag to check if that HD was physically broke somewere and to my surprise found that vendetta mdeia.rlb was fragmented in like 500+ pieces, a few of the smaller files had like 200 fragments+.

Now I installed XP like 4 days ago on a clean and formatted disk.
As said this might not be the game but evidence suggests it is, all other things run OK but by now Vendetta will run only for a few minutes before HD goes mad and system locks up. I shall tre a defrag and see what happens but doing that for a few hours for each hours game time is not an option.. :)

Visit the website for the harddrive's manufacturer. Most of them will have some sort of utility that can check the harddrive's integrity, and possibly see major issues before they arise.

Western Digital has the best. Their utility will even help you RMA the drive if there's an issue.

But like i said, check your manufacturer's website.

Was there any particular reason you just installed XP on this drive a few days ago? Is it a new drive?

Good questions,
also, is there a way to check for bad sectors and tag them as bad so the os/filesystem doesn't use them?
I had an IBM SCSI drive get a couple bad sectors a couple years ago and it marked them as bad so they wouldn't be used anymore. The drive then had slightly less space free but that's just the way harddrives work internally.

harddrive platters are made bigger than needed and the firmware has a built-in list of 'bad sectors' that it avoids using.

I suspect a failing harddrive.

Check the smart status. Perform smart selftests. Check you harddrive manufacturer website.

I had the same problem about 3 monthes ago on my small (20 Gig) HDD , all i had on it was xp,internet explorer, outlook express, zone alarm and EnB but i had picked up a worm somehow, think thru a e-mail from a friend not sure, i went to trend micro and done a check and yes i had a worm, was a new one and it destroyed my access to HDD i had to reformat to clean it, was a nasty one and no tell tales except the HDD crashing after about 3 or so hours which freezes the program running, in my case EnB
sounds similar to your problem. Also had a HDD burn on me. same problem and no access couldn't load windows after about 2 days, swapped out the HDD and found it was stuffed

I reinstalled cause I changed Mobo, my ASUS p4800c-deluxe broke down so. While I was at it I did a complete system wipe.

The HD is 3 years old and as it is a IBM, (they no longer make HD's), there is very little support to get. But diskeeper 8.0 reports no error on it, aside from the massive fragmentation.

I to fear i migth be the beginnign of a HD breakdown, but this far all that is affected is Vendetta, and id rather not buy a new one if it aint broken, besides I just did a XP install and the crap that comes with it and it is one the things that is a bottom of my "fun" list, sadly Vendetta is at the top about now and I am enjoying it greatly so far. Decisions decisions..

Anyhow I just figured maybe someone else had a similar problem.

I shall keep you dated on the health of my HD. :)

It's actually reccomended that you defragment your HDD right after installing Win XP. Their installer, to put it politely, is a rude house guest and will leave your HDD space full of small patches of free space. This causes the next large installation you preform to be spread out all over the place. A single defragmenting (remember to set it to consolidate both files and free space) should resolve the problem quickly.

You might also want to say how much memory you have- after loading, Vendetta has almost never used my HDD during gameplay as everything used seems to fit in my 655 MB RAM.

I work as a Computer Tech. Don't bother defragging your drive. As it sits now, from what I've read, you're most likely wasting your time. I have seen a lot of those IBM drives go out in less than a year. The drive is most likely at fault, not Vendetta. As an aside, just because a diagnostic says a drive is good doesn't mean it is. I've seen lots of marginal drives pass that where obviously on the brink of death. You have a 3 year old IBM HDD. Count your blessings that it has lasted this long. Ignore the diags, bite the bullet, replace the HDD.

That'll be $55.00 US. (0.o)

Well defragging seems to have sorted it out.
And ye I forgot to put RAM there:

1gb dual channeled (2x512) PC 3200

And ye you are are right, HD does not work at all any more, or barely.

As to IBM, well I kinda like em never had any problems and I prolly built somewere in the area of 100 computers, mostly with IDM HD's. (I used to run a computer support company/shop). I can tell the HD is not healthy still though but im just not gonna save anything important on it and run it till it snaps, I sooooo hate installing OS.. :) (that to comes from my support days)

I think there was a bad batch shipped out because I've seen a lot of IBMs (now Hitatchi) go bad this past year or so, mainly on Dells. Same thing happened with Quantum Fireballs (now Maxtor) and even Maxtor (Gateway). But then, I've heard others talking about Western Digital and I don't see the same problems with them that I have with the IBM.

Okay, professional curtesy, $35.50 US (^.^)

For the consulting time or for a new HD? :)

Ill take a 250gb s-ata for 35$ if you dont mind? hehe..

Uhg.. I had to replace a batch of Fireballs last year.. 2/3s of the computers in the lab that had them went dead... Replaced them with the western digitals we were sent (free of charge, because seeing a whole shipment of Fireballs go bad kinda proves they were falty, so the supplier replaced them) and onyl had 1 problem.. 1 died within 48 hours. God i love that kinda crap.

Just to throw in a counter argument. :P
I'm using a 40gb Quantum Fireball as my main HD for over three years without problems. Other than that it's awfully low.

Umbrood: Consulting time of course. :-D

mr_spuck: Count yourself lucky. I wouldn't use a Fireball if it was given to me in a factory sealed, retail box.

Urza: I feel your pain. In all honesty, I can relate to your plight having been in similar circumstances.