.tmp files

I opened an attachment direct from email this morning and, since I knew the sender and was expecting the document, I immediately tried to save it to file. At that point, I received a message saying there was a serious disk error on file ~ Word work File S {a long alphanumeric line}.tmp.

Later in the day, I opened a Word doc from the hard drive. I was going to edit a table and when I started to insert a column I received the same message. When I clicked on OK, I received a message that said "Unrecoverable. Disk has media problem that prevents Word from using it. Try formatting another disk or save the doc. This was followed by another message: "Word failed reading for this file."

Microsoft advised saving the attachment before opening it. When I mentioned the second instance, they said it sounded like a Mac problem.

a. Is it a Word problem or a hard drive problem?
b. Would it help if I removed .tmp files?
c. Is there a quick way to remove all .tmp files/

Thanks,

Start your mac from your installation disk and run Disk Utility to repair your hard drive (not a fresh installation, just run Disk Utility)

Or, you can run Disk Utility while booted normally, but it won't be able to repair.