How to test if my HDD is dying?

F

feo

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My PC has been dog slow recently and it's just been lagginf more and more everyday. I have 2 HDDs, a 3 year old 160GB SATA (Seagate) and a new 500GB Seagate SATA 2. Now I suspect the 160 GB for causing all the bottlenecks because when installing XP SP3, it wrote some files to the 500GB drive which copied very quickly but as soon as it did it's thing on the 160GB drive everything started to slow down again.

What software should I use to test the health of my HDD?

Also, would a format do any good?
 
C

cyberarmy

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Backup whatever is valuble to you from old to new drive and run those seagate HD diagnostic programs (available from seagate website) and see if it can find anything wrong on your HD.

Any SMART warnings during system boot at BIOS screen?
 
howardb

howardb

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Have you defragmented your drive recently - I never use the Windows Defrag utility, 'cos it's rubbish - rather use PerfectDisk v7.0 from Raxco. I usually defrag XP with this at least once a month, as my PC is on 24/7.

Also do a system cleanup every so often - all the junk left behind can slow the PC down drastically... I'd try these before bench-testing for HDD failure. My WD 250GB's have been running constantly for 3-5 years now, and no sign of failure yet - I just keep them clean and defragged...
 
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F

feo

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cyberarmy said:
Any SMART warnings during system boot at BIOS screen?
Click to expand...

Nope.

Last time I went into the BIOS, everything looked fine.

Also, I can hear my HDD clicking every 2 seconds or so, as if it's indexing something. :confused:
 
medicnick83

medicnick83

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I'd copy everything off buddy!

As soon as you start hearing clicking... it's on its way OUT!

DO NOT TAKE A CHANCE!
 
F

feo

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howardb said:
Have you deframented your drive recently - I never use the Windows Defrag utility, 'cos it's rubish - rather use PerfectDisk v7.0 from Raxco. I usually defrag XP with this at least once a month, as my PC is on 24/7.
Click to expand...

Haven't done a defrag in years but I try to keep all my stuff nicely organised into folders and sub folders etc so that it's not cluttered in a mess all over the HDD.
 
F

feo

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gdiza said:
I'd copy everything off buddy!

As soon as you start hearing clicking... it's on its way OUT!

DO NOT TAKE A CHANCE!
Click to expand...
Thing is it doesn't happen everyday and I usually find out that it's some process in the Task Manager that causes it. As soon as I kill the process the clicking stops.

Maybe I should just do a reformat anyway.
 
LazyLion

LazyLion

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The click of death... you have only a few days at most.
 
medicnick83

medicnick83

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Dude, you don't wanna think u know what u talking about, its clicking... its a hard drive... you add those 2 together and you get a guy in a week or so FREAKING out cause he lost everything.

LISTEN TO US!
BACKUP!
 
I

Ivan...

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this thread has me made afraid of any hard drive noises :D :(

does anyone have a sound clip of this "click"?
 
I

Ivan...

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phew!
I can go to bed now...my hard drives have never made that sound.

wonder why no one has made some viral video/song using that click as a beat.
[Trent Reznor, if you're listening: Ghosts V-VIII...]
 
F

feo

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OK, I'll backup all my valuable stuff onto whatever space I have left on the 500GB HDD.

I'm thinking of replacing the 160GB HDD with a raptor, how much do the 72GB Raptors go for? Or should I buy those new Velociraptors?
 
T

The_Techie

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feo said:
OK, I'll backup all my valuable stuff onto whatever space I have left on the 500GB HDD.

I'm thinking of replacing the 160GB HDD with a raptor, how much do the 72GB Raptors go for? Or should I buy those new Velociraptors?
Click to expand...

Linkage
 
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