Signs of a Failing HDD?

S

SidewinderX

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 30, 2004
Messages
2,645
Hey everyone,

I've recently be struggling with some odd PC issues, and I'm starting to wonder if my primary HDD might be failing. I'll run through the cronology real quick, let me know if a) you think it's the HDD or b) it's something else.

Here's the current hardware setup: Intel E8400 @ stock, 4GB DDR2 ram, Corsair VX550 PSU, XFX 5850, main HDD WD 640GB AAKS, storage HDD WD 1TB Green.

Cronology-

Couple months ago - Upgraded from Vista to Win7, in-place upgrade (NOT a clean install)

1 month ago - Upgraded from ATi 3870 to ATi 5850. I had a couple problems with this upgrade, the worst of which was clearly from some driver issues. I finally got a clean set of drivers installed which seemed to solve most of the problem. I am worried that my PSU might not have enough juice for the 5850, even though the required PSU is 500W.

Last weekend - Started having all sorts of problems, everything hanging up, took forever to load/unload programs, stuff getting stuck for 20+ minutes before reacting, etc. I thought it was a bad permutation of the driver problem again, tried to reinstall the drivers, which took forever, and didn't end up fixing the problem. I think spent the rest of the weekend backing up my important stuff so I could do a clean install of Win7 and start from scratch.

This week - Clean install of Win7 went fine, started updating/installing programs, etc. Then yesterday I started setting things up, like firefox, windows media center, and songbird, and it took forever. For example, installing Media Browser for WMC took 35 minutes because it seemed to hang up for 10 minutes at a time, then get a little done, then hang up again, etc. Then I tried to shut down the computer and install some windows update and went to bed. I woke up this morning, 8 hours later, and the computer was still stuck on installing updated 1 of 6.

Since this is a new, clean install of win7, I'm at a loss. Which is why I'm here asking if this seems like a failing HDD. Any thoughts?

Cliffs:
1) Computer problems
2) Clean install of Win7.
3) Still have computer problems.
4) Failing HDD? Maybe weak PSU?
 
I believe this is more honest than WD datalifegaurd tools. I mean both Seagate and WDC drive tools favor telling you a marginal drive is perfectly good.

BTW, this program is not going to do a test just look at the SMART data stored on the drive.
 
I use linux based tools (badblocks) and in the process I check the smart data to see if new reallocated sectors or any pending sectors pop up.
 
drescherjm said:
I use linux based tools (badblocks) and in the process I check the smart data to see if new reallocated sectors or any pending sectors pop up.
Click to expand...

...Which leads me to my next question... I just installed the CrystalDiskInfo and fired it up real quick... I don't understand anything it's telling me, and there doesn't seem to be a user's manual anywhere... What am I looking for with that tool?
 
What's the name of your virus again? ^-^
Where did you install your apps from? Local copies of the setup executables could have been compromised. If that crystaldiskinfo thing does not show anything wrong, I would reinstall clean Windows 7 again and the non-optional Windows Updates, and monitor the system for a few days before installing more apps. Make sure to install apps only from their official web sites or CDs, not local copies.

Another option is to install Windows 7 on your backup drive so you have a dual boot system whose only differences are the hard disk and diverging apps settings. Useful in case of broken OS or failing hard drive. Only thing is that I think Backup and Restore may not work if the backup drive also contains a Windows copy (not 100% sure but my old main Vista drive does not appear in the list of backup destinations anymore.) If your dual boot works fine, then your main drive is probably the culprit.
 
drescherjm said:
When you click on the drive does it say good, caution or bad for the Health Status?

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/manual-en/HealthStatus.html
Click to expand...

It now says "Caution", with a current pending sector count of 373.

I have been trying to run the WD HDD scan utility since yesterday, and it has gotten through ~485,000,000 sectors of 977,000,000 sectors total. Except it's been running nearly 22 hours now, and is estimating that it has another 22.5 hours to run. It was going pretty smoothly until it got to where it is now... I think it took about 5 hours to get into the 400,000,000, but it's taken 15+ hours to keep going through there.

Does this sound like a dying HDD?
 
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