Is my HDD failing?

[TBSN]

I've noticed that recently my desktop has slowed down considerably, especially during startup. It could be that I need to reformat, but the change was relatively sudden.

Obviously, a back up is in order.

Are there any utilities or programs to check if a harddrive is going to fail, or is there no way to tell? Maybe it is running too hot?

TIA

 

[masteryoda34]

SMART monitoring. Also, you can usually hear them make clicking sounds before they fail. But yeah, back up everything first.

 

[shempf]

in my experience SMART is a joke. Usually lets me know as or after the drive has failed.

high error count = throw away imo

chkdsk > defrag > chkdsk or it could be software conflict(s)

 

[TBSN]

ok, thanks for the input. So just run chkdsk under Start > Run... ?

Are there any particular programs for using SMART monitoring?

 

[TBSN]

OK, help me out here. These are the results from running CHKDSK in windows. I think the results are at the bottom. It said that there are no bad sectors, but it said it found "problems" with the filesystem. I doesn't seem to say anywhere if there are any errors, which would probably indicate a failing drive, right?

Here is the output from "chkdsk"

C:\DOCUME~1\BRADYN~1>chkdsk
The type of the file system is NTFS.

WARNING! F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
File verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is recovering lost files.
Recovering orphaned file URLCLA~2.SQL (26926) into directory file 25827.
Recovering orphaned file urlclassifier3.sqlite-journal (26926) into directory fi
le 25827.
Recovering orphaned file MSS0B91C.log (30000) into directory file 120156.
Recovering orphaned file MSS0B91D.log (30021) into directory file 120156.
Recovering orphaned file MSS0B91E.log (30032) into directory file 120156.
Recovering orphaned file SESSIO~1.JS (30228) into directory file 25818.
Recovering orphaned file sessionstore.js (30228) into directory file 25818.
Recovering orphaned file SYSTEM~4.GTH (30229) into directory file 120162.
Recovering orphaned file SystemIndex.Crwl929.gthr (30229) into directory file 12
0162.
Recovering orphaned file SYSTEM~2.GTH (111481) into directory file 120180.
Recovering orphaned file SystemIndex.452.gthr (111481) into directory file 12018
0.
CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
Security descriptor verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.
Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.
Windows found problems with the file system.
Run CHKDSK with the /F (fix) option to correct these.

244187968 KB total disk space.
186875824 KB in 194750 files.
70584 KB in 13206 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
328148 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
56913412 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
61046992 total allocation units on disk.
14228353 allocation units available on disk.

 

[Denithor]

Run chkdsk /r to actually fix the problems it finds.

You should also make sure your hard drive has not dropped into PIO mode. Go into System Properties to the Device Manager and find your IDE controllers. Check each to make sure they are all operating in DMA mode. If you find your drive is in PIO mode, uninstall the controller & reboot, that fixes the problem 95% of the time.

Obviously you should also do a backup of any needed photos/music/etc immediately so you don't lose anything if the drive is actually failing instead of just out of sorts.