nixxio Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 dying? Two days ago I noticed that while extracting a rather large file on my old XP partition that it was painfully slow. I then loaded up some games, and I got really bad loading times and lots of pop-ups. So I tried to copy some files on the dying hdd, and well confirmed my suspicion.. 200 mb = 5 minutes, which is obviously much much slower than usual. A month ago I got a backup hdd because I knew this was bound to happen with all the stutters with some games even with the defrags and random crashes but I didn't take it too seriously until it crashed and I wasn't able to start up XP again, even in safemode, it would just crash while its booting. I had win7 installed on a different partition so it wasn't that bad but I knew something was wrong. Sum it up 1.) crashes & stutters 2.) XP wouldn't boot up 3.) re-installed XP on backup hdd and formatted old XP partition on the dying hdd 4.) installed gta 4 on dying hdd, it was playing fine and all the other games on it, never touched old xp partition. 5.) extracted large file to old xp partition on dying hdd, noticed it was painfully slow. 6.) Now whole dying hdd is slow but I got lots of files to copy and it would take days to do so. Fortunately I can backup my files but it would take literally days to copy around 60-80gbs of files that I are worth copying, so I was just wondering is there any program that may confirm the hdd is really about to give up? I tried the built-in windows one but I don't count on it since it said the hdd had no problems. Should I even bother backing up the files and leave pc on for a couple of days just for it do that or would the hdd inevitably die in the process? what struck me though and this is probably gonna sound like an idiotic question for some of you but I still have my music in the dying hdd, when I have music on that its reading from the dying hdd, sometimes the whole pc would just stutter, why's that? Shouldn't WMP itself alone should be stuttering not the whole pc since all I was doing was browsing the web with firefox that's installed on the backup hdd and so is the os I was using? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronnyboy Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 You check the SMART report on your HDD? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060275244 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf68k Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 Get HDTune (non-pro will do fine) and see what it can tell you Get SpinRite and let it run, it will take a long long long time but it just might let you save the drive or at the very least help so that you can better recover file Get an external drive and backup software, I like GFI Backup Free and back up your files Get a subscription on one of many online back up sites, yes it'll take a long ass time the first time you do the back up but after that it should be quicker, Carbonite is good, 15-day free trial and then $55/year and backs up in the background and unlimited storage (1 computer only). Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060275254 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nixxio Posted January 2, 2011 Author Share Posted January 2, 2011 You check the SMART report on your HDD? Uhh.. no? Get HDTune (non-pro will do fine) and see what it can tell youGet SpinRite and let it run, it will take a long long long time but it just might let you save the drive or at the very least help so that you can better recover file Get an external drive and backup software, I like GFI Backup Free and back up your files Here's what HDtune tells me(sorry I used quick scan, will do full one tomorrow hopefully); I have no idea what any of this means but afaik that hdd has been hanging around that temperature for quite a while even before adding another one in so hopefully heat isn't the case, but if 55c isn't normal then well f*ck because its been like that ever since. I'll also try that SpinRite, as for backing up stuff, I think I can do that on my own, thanks. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060275313 Share on other sites More sharing options...
james227uk Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 Access Time is seeming a bit low. I've ran HD Tune on multiple HDDs, and all have had an access time of around 16ms. 55c seems a bit high to me for the HDD. I have my laptop left on all day and it's HDD temps never exceed 40c Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060275433 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoječ Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 This HDD has 1199 reallocated sectors and 29 uncorrectable sectors. This HDD is basically dead. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060275486 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf68k Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 (edited) 55C is not good. Once it hits 50 you need to start looking for a better way to cool it. Anything above 50C the drive starts to warn out faster than it normally would. Something else to keep in mind about SpinRite is that it's not cheap and it's extremely small file size. And like I said it'll take a long time. If you watch the video on the site he says a 100GB drive will take around 6hours. But you can stop and resume at will, so run it over night or while at work or school. Edited January 2, 2011 by Wolf68k Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060276067 Share on other sites More sharing options...
james227uk Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 This HDD has 1199 reallocated sectors and 29 uncorrectable sectors. This HDD is basically dead. What would you rate a HDD with 295 Reallocated sectors? Because that's how mine is at the moment Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060276422 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoječ Posted January 2, 2011 Share Posted January 2, 2011 It's in very bad condition. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060276563 Share on other sites More sharing options...
james227uk Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 Thanks. I guess it hasn't got long before it dies then... @OP Sorry for the minor threadjack Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060276608 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stinky12 Posted January 3, 2011 Share Posted January 3, 2011 Grab the HDD diagnostic tool from your HDD's website. Maxtor is now part of Seagate. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060276817 Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSiggi Posted January 16, 2011 Share Posted January 16, 2011 Sorry for the bump, i hope the problem is still there or fixxed Check what CrystalDiskInfo says and try to defragment. But if its an old one rather go for a new one, HDDs ain't that much atm. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060297999 Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWEETSAPRIK Posted January 17, 2011 Share Posted January 17, 2011 SpinRite is an awesome program that can save drives (at least long enough to recover the data on them) that some self-professed "experts" would consider dead, beyond saving, and not even capable of being run long enough to recover that data stored on it. That said, it does take quite a long time to run. More importantly, if a drive is very close to dying then running SpinRite can kill it. Not because it isn't a good program (it is), but because if a drive is on the verge of dying running SpinRite can be the "straw that broke the camel's back" so to speak. Of course if a drive is that close to dying then just trying to back up all the data on it could be the thing that kills it. As for what to use for backing up the data, I usually go with something simple like SyncToy, or even more simple RoboCopy. Personally, what I'd do would depend on what is on the drive, and how important it is to get it before the drive dies. I would absolutely not try to defrag an HDD that's already dying unless the data on it wasn't that important. If any of the data is extremely important I'd try to back that up first, prioritizing the data and backing it up in order of importance. If and only if that fails would I try running SpinRite. Though there is of course room for disagreement on the best course of action in a situation like this. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060298561 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nixxio Posted January 24, 2011 Author Share Posted January 24, 2011 Sorry for the late reply but the hdd is still working and I have backed up most of my files, still around 20 gbs left but they're not really that important but I'll try to do it tonight. The hdd is still on the verge of dying though. Thanks for all the tips(and lesson about defrags and spinrite). I haven't used spinrite yet(completely forgot) but I'll try it sometime. I did do quite a lot of defrags before its near death(installed gta 4, re-installed tdu, etc etc), didn't know the stutters were actually coming from something else. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060310037 Share on other sites More sharing options...
radltzx Posted January 24, 2011 Share Posted January 24, 2011 (edited) Don't want to create a sperate thread, so might as well ask here. Umm.. Is my hdd f*cked? It's only about a year and a half old.. It was starting to act up some time ago (painfully slow file copying/extracting etc.), but after a defrag of one of the partitions and a fresh install of windows it came back to normal and it hasn't been acting up ever since. So.. is it already dying on me or what the hell? Edit: more tests: Edited January 25, 2011 by radltzx Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060310185 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolf68k Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Again I would suggest SpinRite which might fix those problems and also tell you if there is something to really worry about I notice in the Error Scan screen shot you did a quickscan which isn't as detailed. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060310501 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoječ Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 @radltzx: check if SATA cable is connected properly, and/or replace it with another one. Other than that it's OK. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060310546 Share on other sites More sharing options...
radltzx Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I'll perform a full error scan later and check out that SpinRite program to see what's what, thanks guys. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060310759 Share on other sites More sharing options...
james227uk Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 Shameless bump? Sorry for this minor threadjack, but it's on the same subject. I said earlier that my HDD had 295 reallocated sectors. It now has 163 reallocated sectors. That means it's got worse, right? Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060329874 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoječ Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 The lower the better, but both values are far from being OK. But since the number of reallocated errors is changing, maybe there is a connection problem? Check your SATA cable and replace it. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060329923 Share on other sites More sharing options...
james227uk Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 I will. Thanks for the help; although, Since this is a laptop, does it even have a SATA cable? The harddrive, just slots in. I don't have to connect a cable. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060329962 Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoječ Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 ...oh, I thought it's a stationary PC. My bad. Maybe cleaning the HDD port will help then. Link to comment https://gtaforums.com/topic/466563-my-harddrive/#findComment-1060330026 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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