benardo16, welcome to the forum! You stated that that computer is refurbished, did you purchase an extended warranty with it? I hope that you have some form of warranty. You do need to backup ASAP. Macurim Reflect is a good free backup program to use.
It sounds like your drive is going bad, or has bad sectors on it. You can run the command "chkdsk /r", w/o the quotes, this may help you get your file system in order. Upon startup, has your computer went straight into "chkdsk" yet? Usually it will happen sometimes when a drive is starting to fail. I'm in the same boat with my notebook (mine is a refurb, too).
Before I spend the money on another refurbished computer again, I'll start going back to the library and use the computers there. Refurbs have always been trouble for me.
Should you require further assistance, always feel free to post back. I do hope that you get your drive issue resolved soon, for me, going without a computer is like not having socks on.
Best of Luck,
Cat