Possible bad Hard Drive??

[1landshark]

I could use some assistance. Something may have happened to my HD. I have 2 Hitachi 80 GB SATA HD - one is a copy of the bootable I update every 2 weeks. My boot HD is starting to make some "little squeaks" and takes forever to boot up and some times it does not boot and I have to try 2-3 times to get it to boot. I have no viruses, spyware or anything else. Just ran a ZoneAlarm and Webroot scan. Also did a "chkdsk /x" and "scannow" - nothing wrong. I keep the drive defragged w/ Diskeeper10 and basically everything runs great. This just happened today.

My question is if I use Norton Ghost to copy this drive to my backup drive will it bring any of the problem over to the other drive if the problem is just with the HD and now with any data. Once I get my computer booted up, it seems to be fine. So I'd like to do a full copy now and then switch my boot up drive so that I can see if it is a hard drive problem. I would appreciate any assistance or ideas on this problem. Many thanks.

Components:
AMD Dual Core X2 4400
Evga Nvidia 6800GT
2 - Hitachi 80 GB SATA HD
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe MB

 

[Jiggz]

You can do the Ghost and then switch boot drive to find out if the problem isolated on the original boot drive. If the problem is software related, you will experience the same problem after switching over. But if the problem goes away, then you can isolate the problem solely from the original boot hdd. If the problem is from the original hdd and not software related, you might want to "zero" the said hdd to see if it come back to normal.

 

[1landshark]

Thanks Jiggz,
By "zero", I guess you mean to thoroughly erase it and reformat the original boot drive. Is the best way to change the boot drive by changing it in the Bios?
Thanks again

 

[Jiggz]

"Zero" means it's like getting it fresh from the factory. All data and partitions will be gone. To change boot drive you can either physically switch the hdd or change it in the bios. Since you are troubleshooting still, I highly recommend disconnecting the 2nd hdd first until you are sure the system is working to your liking. This will make the troubleshooting easier. After you connect the 2nd hdd, make sure you partition and format it first.

 

[1landshark]

Thanks Jiggz, I can't seem to make any progress on situation. I have changed the HD in Bios but because both are exactly the same they show up as same number in Bios and I can't tell if the Bios switches to G drive from C drive. I guess I'll manually disconnect the C drive.
Thanks again