HDD on its way out?

Kagemusha

Kagemusha

Kagemusha

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Joined
7 Mar 2003
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Location
South Yorks
Since around the begining of March I've started to notice that my PC hangs for a second or so, sometimes its a momentary pause or "not responding" in the title bar for a second or so. It happens regardless of what program or game i'm using/playing and gets worse when online gaming and with Firefox. I can't be sure but I would say it seems like its happening more frequently - like 1 or 2 times per minute, as oppose to once every 5mins like it was a while back.

I've ran some system monitoring and can't see a problem with the CPU/RAM/GPU load, nor are there any Temperature problems.

My System Spec is;

Vista 64bit
AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 2.8GHz @ 3.5GHz
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P Mobo
Corsair XMS3 4GB DDR3 10666C9 1333MHz TwinX Dual Channel
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
Pioneer 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter
OCZ ModXStream Pro 500w PSU
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro PWM Cooler
4.5mb DSL line
KIS 2011

I've also De-frag'd, Virus scanned, Malware scanned, Cleaned up the HDD and registry with CCleaner. Basically everything short of a fresh install of Vista. I've pretty much accepted the HDD failure and have on order a replacement drive but, is there anything else I can do in the meantime?

I do plan on running HDtune tonight when I get chance.
 
Check the Performance Monitor to see if something is using the disk or CPU at or around the time it freezes. Could be a badly written application doing something stupid. Also, have you tried a surface scan on the drive? What about looking at SMART statistics using Crystal Disk Mark? They might highlight a problem.

Lastly, is your HDD in warranty? No point buying a new one if you can get a replacement for free.
 
Look in Windows Event Viewer to see if any disk/controller problems are occurring. If there are then check for bad sectors after swapping SATA ports and cables.
 
Here are some SS from HDtune, I'm running a full Error scan now but will take ages, the very first sector is already showing as damaged...





I'm not sure if the HDD is under warrany, but to be honest for the time and effort in doing an RMA, probably easier just to but another,
 
AbsenceJam said:
Look in Windows Event Viewer to see if any disk/controller problems are occurring. If there are then check for bad sectors after swapping SATA ports and cables.
Click to expand...

I've just checked Event Viewer....there are loads of Disk errors, ID7, going back as far as late January, their frequency matches more or less with when my machine hangs...Confirmation of a HDD dying?
 
My Sammy 1tb has just stopped working. Had it in by USB3 dock and it just makes a noise now and wont show in Windows. Tried my other 2 drives in the dock and all works fine. Just did a warranty check and have got an RMA ticket done. Will be sending this back for replacement.
 
Yeh I agree with you to be honest for the amount of money it actually costs to get a new
HDD now there is no point in sending one in for RMA.
 
AbsenceJam said:
Why not just clone your current install to the new one?
Click to expand...

I had thought of that, but i'm struggling to find a decent free cloning program. I downloaded and installed Arconis but the free trial doesn't support disk cloning. I downloaded Macrium but have yet to install it.

Also won't cloning the drive also clone the bad sectors?

I only started looking into this last night and have never cloned a drive so I'm a bit green on the issue.
 
Kagemusha said:
I had thought of that, but i'm struggling to find a decent free cloning program. I downloaded and installed Arconis but the free trial doesn't support disk cloning. I downloaded Macrium but have yet to install it.

Also won't cloning the drive also clone the bad sectors?

I only started looking into this last night and have never cloned a drive so I'm a bit green on the issue.
Click to expand...

No, the bad sector is a physical fault.

CloneZilla is free and good.
 
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