Can this mean a dying hardrive?

I've had this happen multiple times, so it's making me worry a little.

I'll be using my PC, just doing normal stuff, and suddenly it will just freeze. Can't move the cursor, pressing any key does nothing, and I don't even get noise from the bios speaker. It just shuts up and does nothing.

So, I'll try restarting it since it's my only option at that point. Only then it won't boot. I can try a few times, but the farthest it will get is the "Starting Windows" screen with the win7 glowing logo. That is until I unplug my data hdd (my windows install is on a total separate hdd). Then it boot just fine. Even if I plug the data hdd back in it'll boot and run for a day at least without problems. But eventually it'll freeze up again.

Last time I checked the hdd the manufacturer's diagnostic said it was fine, but that was at least a few weeks ago. I'll be checking again shortly.

Most of the data on the hdd is backed up, and any files I'm currently working with are on my windows hdd, so it's not a big deal if it could be dieing, but if it could be dieing I'd like to figure that out so I can justify buying another one to replace it.

I'll admit I haven't had to deal with dieing hdd's much before so, my question is does this mean my hdd could be dieing? If so, what in your opinion is the best way to figure out rather or not my data hdd is dieing?

 

When was the last time that your ran Malware/AV scans ?? it could be an infection that is causing your issue, or have you installed any new hardware/software lately especially to just before the issue started or even any updates to software/drivers.
I would suggest running through the malware removal procedure for your OS here... http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407 .. try to run all of the scans as set out for your OS, create a new thread here... http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35 .. and attach the logs that are requested like this... http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=86880 .. one of the malware fighters will assist you in getting your machine infection free (if there is an infection ), when you get the all clear post back here if you are still experiencing the freeze issues.

iain.t :major

 

Avast is set to scan the computer every day. I gave the computer a full multi-day cleaning about 3 months ago, and since then have been using comodo and avast. I'm aware the problem could be malware because it always could be malware. Scanning and going through the whole malware remove process takes a lot of time, but I need to use my computer right now. It seems odd to me that if the problem was malware that it would go away when I disconnect the drive.

It also seems weird that before it froze, all the partitions on that hdd vanished from "My Computer". It was like it had been unplugged but it hadn't and I know windows doesn't do that great when you take away hardware that isn't usb. This, windows repair not working, and the hdd not appearing in BIOS while connect was the reason I thought to disconnect the drive. Sorry that I left out that detail.

I haven't installed any new hardware in about 3 months, that issue is why the computer got that full cleaning about 3 months ago.

The drive causing the issue is older than pretty much anything in the computer and older than most the things connected to the computer. Therefore I thought it might just be this drive's time, but since I've never really dealt with that situation before I'm more looking for advise on hdd diagnostic tools or something like that. Do you have any opinion on the chance it could be hardware failure? Sorry but I don't really need someone simply posting it could be malware without any opinion of the likelihood of malware vs hardware failure.

 

Sounds more like heat issues to me. Run OCCT for a couple of hours which will stress your machine to the fullest by running everything at the same time at full load though will continuously write info onto graphs until the machine fails and if it doesn't then you have to look elsewhere.

 

Thank you, I hadn't thought about heating issues. I will post back about how that went after I have the time to let it run for at least an hour with the data hdd connected.

 

I let the test run for just over 50 minutes and my computer seems fine. The cpu only got up to 47.5C and the gpu to 65C.

I also ran the quick test in the manufacturer's diagnostic tool, it says the hdd passes.