Hard disk failing?

[ellspeedy]

Hi guys,

So I'm just over 2 years of having my PC Specialist desktop and yesterday things went downhill.
The PC slowed right down to the point of clicking Chrome (or any program for that matter) and nothing happening for a good minute or so.
I've ran anti virus (norton) and malware scan (malwarebytes) both of which found a few things that cleared off. Hoping the issue was one of thoes malwares I restarted but the same issue was happening.

I noticed that there was a error message in the little flag in the bottom right, and it said an issue with my hard drive, specifically my hard disk is failing.
I googled around and am in the process of doing the Disk error check (booted back up and is processing as we speak). So far there are a lot of 'flie record segment XXXXXX is unreadable'.

I'm just wondering if anyone here has any advice on what to do if this error check doesn't fix the HDD? And if this issue is what was causing the pc to run slow?
Is this normal after only 2 years? It is a Western Digital Caviar Black 1tb.

Full Spec is:

ASUS® P8Z77-V
Core i5 3550
8gb Ram
GTX 570

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[SpyderTracks]

Hi guys,

So I'm just over 2 years of having my PC Specialist desktop and yesterday things went downhill.
The PC slowed right down to the point of clicking Chrome (or any program for that matter) and nothing happening for a good minute or so.
I've ran anti virus (norton) and malware scan (malwarebytes) both of which found a few things that cleared off. Hoping the issue was one of thoes malwares I restarted but the same issue was happening.

I noticed that there was a error message in the little flag in the bottom right, and it said an issue with my hard drive, specifically my hard disk is failing.
I googled around and am in the process of doing the Disk error check (booted back up and is processing as we speak). So far there are a lot of 'flie record segment XXXXXX is unreadable'.

I'm just wondering if anyone here has any advice on what to do if this error check doesn't fix the HDD? And if this issue is what was causing the pc to run slow?
Is this normal after only 2 years? It is a Western Digital Caviar Black 1tb.

Full Spec is:

ASUS® P8Z77-V
Core i5 3550
8gb Ram
GTX 570

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I'd download the WD TOOLS and verify the disk. Unfortunately discs do fail and it can be at anytime. Virus' can cause physical damage to the disc, so that could have contributed, but sometimes they fail without any warning. I'd copy all your data off now just in case.

 

[ubuysa]

It sounds like your HDD is having problems but all might not be lost. You don't say how you ran the disk check but I find the most reliable way is to open a command prompt and enter the command "chkdsk /r" (without the quotes). The /r switch tell the chkdsk program to test each sector on the disk and attempt to recover the data. You'll have to reboot to get this to run if you're checking your system disk.

If chkdsk /r still reports uncorrectable errors I would suspect the HDD is indeed failing.

 

[ellspeedy]

Thanks for the quick responses guys

Thanks Spyder, I will download WD Tools when my computers done checking, currently on stage 4 of 5, 300 000 of 660 000 files processed.

Ubuysa, I ran the disk check by right clicking on the C drive, properties, tools, error checking.
When it has finished, I will try doing that as well.

In terms of worst case scenario, what is the process?
Obviously I would need a new HDD but how would I go about backing up the vital data, transferring the OS etc to the new HDD?

EDIT
Just a quick update, it appears to be stuck on 360444 files and has been for about an hour now, should it be taking this long to get past one file?

EDIT #2
Ignore that, my impatience got the better of me :shifty: It's not back off and running

 

[ubuysa]

If you can copy your user data off the disk now to an external hard drive then do so. If you do need to install a new HDD I would strongly recommend that you do a clean reinstall of Windows, drivers, and third party programs and then copy your user data back.

if you can't copy your data off now then get a new HDD and install WIndows etc. onto that. Then buy a cheap disk caddy so that you can connect your old drive as an external USB drive. Get hold of a file recovery tool (I use Recuva from http://www.piriform.com/recuva) and run that on your old disk to see what data can be recovered.

 

[ellspeedy]

Okay so after going through the disk check 3 times! (running from 10am to 1am!) my pc finally booted up normally
The action centre is no longer showing any issues with the HDD but it is still running quite slowly so I am now pretty much thinking of investing in an SSD.

Ubuysa, thanks for the advice, I've been googling and everyone is saying a clean install is best. I have my windows 7 disk, but was wondering, in terms of other essentials what would i need to install?
Off the top of my head I was thinking GPU related stuff? Mobo stuff? Would drivers be from online or from a disk?

With regards to my current (supposedly failing) HDD, is there any way to completely clear it so its like a brand new HDD and I can just use it for storage?
The majority of stuff on it isn't really needed tbh, mainly games and random programs. I've just copied everything important onto an external HDD.

Thanks for the support as always

 

[ellspeedy]

Sorry for the double post but ive just ran the WD tools scan than you recommended Spyder.
The quick scan was fine, but the extended scan showed some problems, when i clicked repair it instantly came back with 'cannot be fixed'.
Im guessing this means the hdd is on its last legs?

 

[SpyderTracks]

Sorry for the double post but ive just ran the WD tools scan than you recommended Spyder.
The quick scan was fine, but the extended scan showed some problems, when i clicked repair it instantly came back with 'cannot be fixed'.
Im guessing this means the hdd is on its last legs?

Does look that way, an in depth scan with try to repair any damaged sectors, if it can't then it's because those sectors have failed. Once sectors start failing it tends to be a bit of a domino's effect until the disc grinds to a halt. Worth getting a replacement asap and backup all your data.

 

[ellspeedy]

Yeah so I decided to just go for a SSD, went for the Crucial MX100 250g, looked good on reviews and slightly cheaper than the Samsung EVO with very little (noticeable) difference in performance. If that was a bad decision, please don't tell me or I'll just end up kicking my self for it haha.

One quick question, when I'm playing League of Legends, the frame rate drops to literally 1 in huge team fights every now and again. Also on iTunes, it randomly stops playing the song for a few seconds every now and again. And clicking on IE or Chrome (or anything really) has a massive delay in response time.
Would a dud HDD be able to cause these kind of issues?

 

[GeorgeHillier]

Yeah so I decided to just go for a SSD, went for the Crucial MX100 250g, looked good on reviews and slightly cheaper than the Samsung EVO with very little (noticeable) difference in performance. If that was a bad decision, please don't tell me or I'll just end up kicking my self for it haha.

One quick question, when I'm playing League of Legends, the frame rate drops to literally 1 in huge team fights every now and again. Also on iTunes, it randomly stops playing the song for a few seconds every now and again. And clicking on IE or Chrome (or anything really) has a massive delay in response time.
Would a dud HDD be able to cause these kind of issues?

If the HDD was failing then it may be able to. What's your full system specs?

 

[SpyderTracks]

Yeah so I decided to just go for a SSD, went for the Crucial MX100 250g, looked good on reviews and slightly cheaper than the Samsung EVO with very little (noticeable) difference in performance. If that was a bad decision, please don't tell me or I'll just end up kicking my self for it haha.

One quick question, when I'm playing League of Legends, the frame rate drops to literally 1 in huge team fights every now and again. Also on iTunes, it randomly stops playing the song for a few seconds every now and again. And clicking on IE or Chrome (or anything really) has a massive delay in response time.
Would a dud HDD be able to cause these kind of issues?

It would, but have you updated the firmware? Firmware issues are more likely to cause this as the MX100 has been out a while, I'm thinking that may have been an issue that's been addressed (often the case on early firmware versions SSD's).

BTW, not a bad decision, all the crucial's are great drives, sometimes not as fast as the top runners but very long lasting.

 

[ellspeedy]

My full system spec is:

ASUS® P8Z77-V
Core i5 3550
8gb Ram
GTX 570
1tb WD Black hdd (the dying one that im looking to remove)
2tb WD green

Sorry Spyder, the issues I mentioned were on my current HDD (the one thats dying), not the SSD.

My MX100 has just arrived but I naively thought it would come with cables etc haha.
I have a spare hard drive caddy with screw holes in the right places to fit the SSD but I'm not sure I have the screws?

What screws and cables would I need to install the SSD?

 

[ricbai]

It might be worth registering on the Western Digital site [ http://wd.com ] with your failing hard drives serial number and the date of purchase and see if it is still under warranty (which I suspect it is - even the cheapo green drives have three years) and if it is, pay for the postage to send it to WD for a replacement: at the very least, for a few quid, you'll have a backup drive...

 

[SpyderTracks]

My full system spec is:

ASUS® P8Z77-V
Core i5 3550
8gb Ram
GTX 570
1tb WD Black hdd (the dying one that im looking to remove)
2tb WD green

Sorry Spyder, the issues I mentioned were on my current HDD (the one thats dying), not the SSD.

My MX100 has just arrived but I naively thought it would come with cables etc haha.
I have a spare hard drive caddy with screw holes in the right places to fit the SSD but I'm not sure I have the screws?

What screws and cables would I need to install the SSD?

Cables should be the same as off the HDD you've just swapped out, just a SATA Power and Sata Data, just those need to plug into the SSD.

As for screws, it depends on your case. You may need 2 little screws to screw the SSD into the little 3.5 adapter, then that should slot into a spare HDD bay.

 

[ellspeedy]

Thank Ricbai, I will do that later this evening and see if I can salvage myself a strorage drive

Okay so I've done as you said Spyder, connected it all up, booted up and made the dvd drive priority.
Am currently on the windows install screen, selecting the drive to install to.

My SSD has appeard, under Disk 0 Unallocated Spade (238.5gb) but when I click next it comes up with "windows is unable to install to the selected location error 0x80300024".

Any ideas on this one? I have googled around a little and a few conflicting answers


EDIT
I've just removed my 2tb drive and re-booted and its currently installing Fingers crossed!

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thank Ricbai, I will do that later this evening and see if I can salvage myself a strorage drive

Okay so I've done as you said Spyder, connected it all up, booted up and made the dvd drive priority.
Am currently on the windows install screen, selecting the drive to install to.

My SSD has appeard, under Disk 0 Unallocated Spade (238.5gb) but when I click next it comes up with "windows is unable to install to the selected location error 0x80300024".

Any ideas on this one? I have googled around a little and a few conflicting answers


EDIT
I've just removed my 2tb drive and re-booted and its currently installing Fingers crossed!

The reason it wouldn't install whilst the 2tb was attached is because secureboot is enabled in the bios and a portion of the boot info is on the 2tb. If you have troubles booting when you reconnect the 2tb, just go into the bios and find secureboot and disable it.

 

[ellspeedy]

Ah okay, that explains it a little more (although im not sure I fully understand haha).

It installed fine, and after re-connecting my 2tb everything booted up without an issue
Installed graphics + mobo drivers and all seems good.

The only thing is that bootup is stuck on "Failure configuring windows updates. Reverting changes"
Basically every time i turn the pc off it does the updates but when i turn it back on, it tries to configure, fails, reverts and then loads up as normal. However this is a viscous cycle and is repeating over and over again.

I've googled this and found a variety of 'fixes' but just wanted to check if anyone here has experienced this problem and has a solution?