Is my computer dying?

[puternoobie]

I''m using a 7 year old Sony Vaio, WinXP and it's been a pretty good machine. Recently I got hints that it was about to crash (strange things on the screen, odd behavior, etc.) so I backed up everything important (except the one thing that I TRULY wanted to save) and did a re-install with my recovery disks. Since that was such a rousing success (NOT!) I bought an external hard disk, 160 gigs, thought sure I'd be safe.

But a few days after I did my first backup, just for fun Iwent into My Computer and clicked on it. I got Disk C, x gigs, Disk D, no gigs, plus the CD and DVD and Share folders. The backup disk (named G by the computer) didn't show. I unplugged it from the USB port, replugged, and it showed up again. All seemed to be in order.

A few days later, the same thing happened. Exactly the same.

Today I was listing some stuff on Ebay and had copied some text. I left the file open, listed my item, and went back to close the file. The page was blank and then I heard "...dit-dit-dit-dit-dit" etc and little dots lined the page, then began turning into the text I had copied.

Is my computer haunted or is it about to die?

 

[Atheus]

Hi, welcome to Anandtech 🙂

7 years is very old for a laptop so I would think the moving parts are starting to go - it's inevitable. DVD drive, fan, and especially hard drive, so good move taking those backups.

This is almost certainly the hard drive going bad by the sound of it. There's no repairing hard drives, so if you've got backups already, just go ahead and get a new one. You should be able to replace it yourself, but if you're not comfortable doing that, your local shop will oblige I'm sure. Get them to clean all the dust out of it and check the fan too.

BTW you can get a new dell laptop (even the cheapest will destroy the vaio in terms of performance) for probably not much more than the repairs... or if you've got the money... the new Vaios are extremely nice...

 

[puternoobie]

This is a desktop. I suppose that makes no difference?

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: puternoobie
This is a desktop. I suppose that makes no difference?

lol, none at all, except things are easier to fix. I saw vaio and assumed laptop.

 

[RebateMonger]

Windows XP HATES failing hard drives. They'll keep it from booting properly and will freeze it.

As always, make sure you have backups of everything important. I always recommend FULL SYSTEM BACKUPS, to avoid missing important files that aren't located where you think they are.

After backing stuff up, run each hard drive's disk diagnostics program (available for free on their web sites) and see what they say. Diagnostics programs can be tough on hard drives, so can induce full failure of a failing drive. Hence the backups first.