is my hd dying?

[DK10]

built a new system this last Christmas and in it threw a brand new wd 320 gig ide drive for my music since i needed more space. so the drive is only about 5 months old.

basically once i transfered my music over the drive would only get written to about once a week as i added more music, so it was not put under stertorous conditions by any means.

few days ago i noticed that every time i browsed down to the files on the drive or switched songs in my media player the song/sound would distort/slow down for about a second. seemed strange since this is a pretty fast system. i do not have the problem with music played off my C: drive. basically my whole system slows to a crawl if the drive is being written to/ read from for a few seconds.

ran some diagnostics tools on the drive. the wd hd diagnostic is saying that the drive is passing all the smart monitoring tests.

then i ran a hd benchmark and while my C drive is reading at about 45-60MB/s the wd (D is reading at 2.7MB/s.(no that is not a typo)


so does anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

 

[DK10]

below is the report i get on the drive when i run it using the little utility in speed fan. everything is telling me the drive is functioning great/peak performance but it sure desnt feel like it.




Your hard disk is a WDC WD3200JB-00KFA0 with firmware 08.05J08.
The average temperature for this hard disk is 31C (MIN=21C MAX=43C) and yours is 38C.
Your hard disk's S.M.A.R.T. attributes are now being analyzed and a full report about the reliability, health and status of your hard disk is generated:
Your hard disk is not below any attribute threshold. This is good.
Your hard disk was never below any attribute threshold. This is good.
Your hard disk is now being compared to real data used to define normal values for your specific hard disk model. This way, the analysis can automatically use proper operating ranges. The images give you an idea of how each attribute is within such range. Current and raw values are shown for easier reference for experienced users. There are 1471 hard disk models in the current archive.

Attribute Current Raw Overall
10 Raw Read Error Rate 200 0 Very good
7 Spin Up Time 186 5675 Good
10 Start/Stop Count 100 25 Very good
10 Reallocated Sector Count 200 0 Very good
10 Seek Error Rate 200 0 Very good
7 Power On Hours Count 96 3056 Good
10 Spin Retry Count 100 0 Very good
10 Calibration Retry Count 100 0 Very good
10 Power Cycle Count 100 23 Very good
10 Reallocated Event Count 200 0 Very good
10 Current Pending Sector 200 0 Very good
10 Offline Uncorrectable Sector Count 200 0 Very good
10 Ultra DMA CRC Error Rate 200 0 Very good
10 Write Error Rate 200 0 Very good

All of the attributes of your hard disk have normal values. This is good.

The overall fitness for this drive is 96%.
The overall performance for this drive is 100%.
The link to get back and see a new report about this hard disk in the future is this. Consider that new hard disks and new checks are added over time.
DISCLAIMER: this report does its best to highlight issues and warnings related to your hard disk. It cannot be held responsible for any mistake. This page and its results cannot be used in any other way but the one defined by its author.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Have you defragged it lately?

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

Sounds like you have a problem. Not sure what it is...but you have a problem.

1) check the hardware in Device manager and make sure that it's still set for UATA mode. When drives hit errors they can be dropped to a slower PIO mode by the OS. that state can persist, and is very slow!
2) Make sure that you have the latest Mobo/chipset/ata drivers...I would do a re-install just in case.
3) make sure that you are not sharing IRQs between the drive controller and something else that is causing conflicts.
4) move the drive off one channel to another...check the cable
5) get Speedfan and make sure that the drive isn't getting too hot etc.
6) check your event viewer for errors...this is where you are likely to see soft errors before they hit the SMART threshold.

see what you get and report back.

 

[DK10]

it was switched to pio mode and reinstalling the ide channel driver fixed the issue.

thanks

 

[DK10]

well, its already back to 2.7MBs/s the next day. why is my drive doing this? is it going bad or what?