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How do you tell if a hard drive is failing?

L

LW07

Golden Member
I know about the sign where the hard drive makes clicking or grinding noises, but is there any other way to tell if a hard drive is about to go? What problem is it if when the CHKDSK program(the thing that scans your hard drive when you turn off the computer improperly) locks up on you just when it starts? Sorry for asking so many questions.
 
I am not sure. Mine didn't make any clicking noises.

They seem to fizzle out. You can leep a dead hard drive actually running for up to 2 months before it will actually stop booting and you will get a hard drive failure.
 
What would you say if things are loading more slower than usual? For example, when it logs into Windows XP, it used to be like 2 seconds to get the desktop there. Now, it takes 10-15 seconds.
 
Try going to the manufacturers website and checking out their utilities. Seagate for instance has SeaTools which works for more than just Seagate drives, but they have several tests that may be Seagate-only so get the official manufucturer utilites. They can do various scans as well as check the S.M.A.R.T status to see if something is terribly wrong. They may not necessary mean the hard drive is going to fail, but its worth it to check out.
 
My hard drive is a Maxtor Diamond Max 9 or whatever the number that is 80GBs. I've had it since June of 2002. What would be a good brand to go with if the hard drive is starting to die?
 
I have Everest home edition, and it has a SMART utility on it and it says that things are alright, but still, I smell something fishy going on. Also, when I load a game or about anything, a yellow triangle with an ! sign always pops up in the area where your clock is on the computer.
 
if you have to get a new drive I think Seagate is about the top. Hitachi isn't bad either. Some people like Western Digital, but I prefer to stay away from those.
 
I'm getting a seagate for march. How would I tell if the memory is faulty instead? Again, sorry for so many questions, but I don't want to screw up this upgrade.
 
Get the memtest86+ iso and burn it to a CD. Insert the cd, make sure it has a boot priority, and let the memtest run for AT LEAST a couple of hours. If you can make it through with no errors say overnight with it running, you're memory is likely not the issue.

But again, check out the WD tools and run some other scans. I've had SMART status show a hard drive to be fine even though the thing was clearly failing (later did, but I recovered my crap and RMA'ed)
 
I once tried to install the memtest, which was recommended by some other computer forum people, but I didn't understand the instructions on how to do all that and when I said that I didn't understand, I just got flamed by everyone for not listening to them when I tried to install it(again, I tried to install it, but it didn't work). By the way, on my upgrade, I'm going to get 2 sticks of this, so tell me if it's a good stick:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146545

 
I'll admit it. I'm kinda n00bish at this stuff. I'm just asking for help. To clarify, I'm asking what signs there would be if my memory sticks were going bad. I wasn't asking what to use to test them. I'm not trying to say that my RAM is above needing to be tested or something like that. I'm wanting to know the signs of bad memory sticks and I want to know if the memory stick I posted above is good.
 
That's the thing, though the problems you are experiencing may be symptoms of bad memory, there's no way to tell for sure unless you run some tests. Say for instance you're computer is freezing up. Well there could be a million reasons why. Bad PSU, overheating, failing hard disk, bad memory, to name a few. The way to troubleshoot a problem like this is to run tests in order to indentify which component is causing it. You may for example, try taking out some sticks of memory and only one run stick just to see if that fixes it (similarly, you may try switching the slots the ram is installed in). Thats why I recommend running memtest. Its very easy. Just download the .iso version of it, use any burning program to burn it as a bootable CD, then restart with that CD in the drive. Press a key to boot that cd when it asks you to, and memtest should start running.
 
I've just decided to do an almost complete overhaul of my system, because I really am n00bish at this stuff and don't know all this stuff. Sorry, but I just don't know how to do this stuff. I think my PSU could be playing a part in this, since the 12v rail is at v11.43 and the -12v IIRC is at -7.some number. My PSU now is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103931

I'm going to get this stuff as my overhaul:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16827135061
Asus DVD drive, not important to this overhaul.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811129155
Antec Sonata II case so that I'll be able to have better ventilation, my case now is from the 1990s.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822148104
to replace the Maxtor DiamondMax. Thinking about getting 2 just incase 1 comes DOA, but not sure yet.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813131569
(going to replace an ABIT KN8 ultra, don't know if that's being unstable or not because I don't know the signs of faulty motherboards, I really am a n00b at this stuff, sorry guys.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16817703001
to replace my antec PSU since PC power and cooling are said to be the best quality

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820146545
2 sticks of this

and this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103547
Athlon X2 4200+


 
If it helps, I ran Prime 95 2 weeks back and it failed in like 10 seconds because it said something about rounding was at 0.5 or something and it was expected to be at 0.4, and I don't know what rounding in this sense is.
 
the total for all that's gonna come down to $1700-1800 because I'm getting some other stuff, including an X1900XT, also. This is with Fedex overnight shipping, since I keep hearing that UPS takes a week to deliver products.
 
I have used Everest Home edition SMART thing, does that count? Is the voltages on my PSU 12v and -12v rails mean something's bad?
 
Hmm, that Prime95 error is odd. I've gotten the same error while trying to overclock too high (running Prime95 for even 5 minutes can tell you if you overclocked too high for stability).

If you got $2k to spend, then by all means do it. I would pesonally try and troubleshoot your current system a little, since for a few hours of your time you could find the issue. But if you have other reasons to upgrade like your current system wasn't up to snuff even if it was working properly, then go ahead and do it if you got the cash. I'm sure you'll have a blast with your new system.

BTW, those voltages sound okay. And your PSU is better than 95% of the PSUs we have here. Unless its somehow defective, it shouldn't cause any problems. I've seen fairly intense systems running on cheap 300-350 W PSUs without issue. Don't pay much attention, if any, to the negative voltages. They are seldom used and almost always not even close. Also, your 11.43 V on the +12 V is perfectly normal. That's about 5% off, which is about as good as you can expect the majority of PSUs to regulate at.

edit: And no, absolutely not about the ATI card. THey are JUST AS GOOD as Nvidia, usually its other components causing problems. My previous two systems had ATI Radeon cards and were stable as ever. Now I'm running Nvidia for the first time ever. I prefer the Nvidia driver interface to ATIs by a large margin, but as far as driver quality and stability, I consider them equal.
 
i have done no overclocking. in fact, i have underclocked my 3500+ to 3200+ speeds several times to reduce heat to no avail. I want the best stability I can get. Do you think that crucial stick is good? Do you think I should get 1 or 2 of those seagate I listed on 1 of my previous posts?
 
Also, should I keep my Abit KN8 ultra or replace it with the Asus A8N5X? I don't know if my motherboard is stable or not and don't want to take chances here.
 
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