How to check a Hard Drive?

Hi

Over the last 48 hours I've noticed that my laptop has become unbearably slow,

I've done numerous Malware and Virus scans all come back clean as a whistle (However the scan have taken some time compared to normal)

I have noticed that my programs seem to be slowing when the computer is accessing the HDD, I've had task manager running and the cpu and memory are both reasonable running at about 50-60% max.

I've run Seatools which passed all the test until I got to the long generic which it FAILED.

My question is does anyone know any software that I can run to confirm it is my HDD failing and not the HDD controller (which is inbuilt into MB) before I spend money on new HDD etc

My Laptop is:
Intel Core i3 - 380M
Windows 7 Home Premium
4GB DDR3 Ram
320GB HDD ( Western Digital )

Any help greatly appreciated
Kind Regards

 

Here's a couple I can recommend:

CrystalDiskInfo

and

HDDScan

 

Hi Thanks for the info,

I've just run and installed crystal disk info and i'm getting a Caution message, something to do with current pending sector count, current 200, worst 200]
Any ideas?

I'll download the other software now and see what that brings up

Thanks again

 

Hi
Thanks for this, I run ccleaner quite often and also my computer is set to defrag once a week, I've checked today and it's at 0% fragmented.

I've begun backing all my important files as I am believing it is going to be hard drive failure and hopefully not the HDD controller which is part of the motherboard

Thanks again

 

Yep, i'll uninstall the later ( I'm not quite sure how to work it anyhow )

I'm going to run the windows c: drive check as you mentioned now and will let you know what the result are

Thanks again

 

It's looking bad I'm afraid, only on stage 1 of 5 at 5% complete and I already have
File record segment 144120,144121,144122 and 144123 are unreadable :/

Time to get HDD shopping I think

 

Yeah I looked at SSD's but they're probably a bit pricey for what I use the system for, been looking at a newer laptop which has 2 drives 1*sata and 1*SSD Might be something for the future...

Struggling with this hard drive scan, getting up to section 4 of 5 when all of a sudden my screen flashes blue then the entire scan starts again:/ seem to be stuck in a loop

 

Hi,

Pardon me for just jumping in here, but the symptoms that you're reporting DO indicate an issue the drive itself, and it's in your best interest to NOT do anything to exacerbate the problem.

Modern consumer hard drives, i.e., anything from IDE to current, are self-contained, in the sense that the host interface between them DOES NOT actually control the drive. In fact, IDE *means* "Intelligent Drive Electronics", and later/current technologies are an elaboration of that: All of the communications functions between the hard drive and the host system are mediated THROUGH the hard drive's electronics. The interface between the drive and the host computer serves merely as a data channel: The "heavy lifting" is done by the drive.

Generally, when my users report symptoms such as yours, my first question to them is this: "When you experienced slowdowns, does the hard drive activity LED stay lit for a long time?"

When it does, it indicates that drive is working hard, most likely to try to correct read errors.

You have to understand: Read errors are the NORM, now. The high capacities of modern consumer hard drives comes at the cost of reliability, by definition: Cramming ever-more data into the same form factors (i.e. 2.5" for laptops and 3.5" for desktops) means that there's ALWAYS uncertainty with regards to what the hard drive's heads are reading, at any given moment.

We're talking about an analog to digital conversion, after all, with ever-lowering tolerances.

And, mechanical hard drives ARE, fundamentally, analog storage of digitally-encoded data. Ones and zeroes, represented as electo-magnetic "blips", recorded in ever-smaller areas.

Given the current capacities of consumer hard drive storage, it is, in my estimation, amazing that they are as reliable as they are.

That, of course, is the result of VERY smart algorithms, designed to offset these issues, to ensure that the digital data recorded on the analog media is as best as it can be.

And, for the most part, it works. Remarkably well.

Now, what to do, when your drive starts to fail, as it appears that yours is?

The VERY first thing, is, of course, to backup.

If you don't have a current backup, then the WORST thing that you can do is to aggravate the problem. DO NOT clean up temp files, etc., as others have advised. At this point, you have NO idea of what's really wrong with drive, nor how close it is to failure, and time is of the essence, ESPECIALLY if you don't have a current backup of your data.

Do as LITTLE as possible to change anything at this point, or "touch" the drive: Running OS-level apps such as CCleaner, etc.? They're the WRONG tools at this point, as they are "top-down": They assume, by necessity, that the underlying file system, and the media beneath it, are OK.

I'm proceeding, assuming that you don't have a current backup of your data, and also assuming that you don't have access to another computer, so you have to do this with the computer you have.

First. Shut down your computer, and let it rest. Many hard drive failures are a result of heat, and shutting it down, letting it cool off, will help, if that's the case.

While it's down, and cooling, off, you need to take a step back, and think: What's on that hard drive? How important is it? How much do you stand to lose if you can't recover it?

DO NOT PANIC. It won't help matters any. But, it DOES help to prioritize things.

While the computer is shut off, take a moment, and dig up whatever documentation you might have. Is it under warranty? That's the first concern, for me, whenever something like this happens.

I always have backups, because I was the person that created the slogan here about such: "Backups are only slightly less important than your heartbeat". Too true, and I learned THAT lesson, the hard way. A story for another time, perhaps.

But, we're going to proceed as though you don't.

So, it's time to methodically assess the damage, and recover what we can.

You want to boot in Safe Mode.

For your OS:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Start-your-computer-in-safe-mode

Once booted, the first priority is to save your data. Ideally, you can copy it to a USB memory stick.

Once done, the next thing that you want to do is replace the drive. If it's under warranty, then this should be a simple matter.

Regardless, my advice would be, buy a new drive. They're cheap now.

SAVE the old drive. Buy a "Universal" USB to IDE/SATA converter, and use it to peruse the old drive... given the nature of your reported problem, you'll be able to browse it at your leisure, with only a few lags: Generally, performance-related hard drive failures as you report stem from issues when reading OS-related files, NOT data. Connecting the drive this way side-steps this, for the most part.

Well, that's about it. I wish you well.

Oh, and SSD's ARE nice! They have their own issues, of course, but, they're coming along nicely.

Regards,

dj

 

Thanks for all the help guys

Just to let you know that after chkdsk scanning and looping about 7 times it eventually re started my system and Lo and Behold everything seems to be working spot on again!!

I realise that with the bad sectors etc it is only a matter of time before it fails but at least this has given me a bit more time to prioritise what needs backing up and what doesn't.

New HDD should be here early next week, I've chickened out of going for anything bigger or SSD, I've simply gone with the direct replacement ( Same make and model )

Once again thanks for all the help and advice