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    Could My HDD be Failing?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Eleventeen, Mar 6, 2012.

  1. Eleventeen

    Eleventeen Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey guys!

    I have a Seagate ST9320421AS 320GB hard drive in my laptop, upgraded from the stock drive from HP about 3 years ago. Over the month, I've noticed the hard drive slowing down. Programs take longer to start up, virus/malware scans take considerably longer than before (about twice as long), and I've just noticed a considerable slowness, accompanied by disk access.

    About a month or so ago, I powered on my laptop (an HP Pavilion dv4), and it hung at the HP BIOS screen. No beeps, no error message - it simply halted and wouldn't load past the screen. I manually powered it down, removed the battery, discharged any electricity, plugged the battery in and then powered the system back on. It booted up normally after that, and I immediately backed up everything of value. It hasn't acted up since.

    I ran HD Tune, and everything looks OK except for the "Spin Retry Count" which gives the following values:

    Code: 
    Spin Retry Count    100    100    97    4    warning
    Is this something to be concerned about? Is it possible my drive is failing?
     
    Eleventeen, Mar 6, 2012
    #1
  2. Tinderbox (UK)

    Tinderbox (UK) BAKED BEAN KING

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    Could Be.

    Time to get off, you photo`s and other files you dont want to loose.

    Maybe get a new hdd, and use the failing one as a storage drive for non important data, external cases are only 5$ on ebay.

    ZAR - Quick guide to understanding S.M.A.R.T. information
     
    Tinderbox (UK), Mar 6, 2012
    #2
  3. MattJ016

    MattJ016 Notebook Enthusiast

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    MattJ016, Mar 6, 2012
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  4. Eleventeen

    Eleventeen Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks guys!

    Well, I ran Seatools and it didn't find anything wrong - no errors or warnings for the S.M.A.R.T. check. I also installed Speedfan to check and again, everything looks ok. I wonder if the error from HD tune is a false positive?
     
    Eleventeen, Mar 6, 2012
    #4