I think my hard drive is dying

This just started, but I've noticed for months that some files have been getting corrupted, but didn't think much of it. Now tonight, I was watching a YouTub video in Chrome, opened a new tab and tried getting to NBR, but the computer completely froze. I noticed the hard disk activity was completely seized and the computer wouldn't respond to anything. When I hard shut down, the hard drive didn't spool down as it usually would when forced off. I booted into windows and it locked up the same way at the log in screen. I restarted and again no noise from the hard drive. I finally got in, and it locked up again. I was able to boot into safe mode and I'm running a check disk now, which is going to take a while.

My question is, is this indicative of hard drive failure, or something else?

Written on my iPhone if anyone cares.

 

Sounds like you have a good number of bad sectors. When the number gets large enough that it can't shift around bad-to-good, it starts acting erratically. Freezing, corrupting files, seriously degraded performance, constant I/O activity, etc...

 

install speedfan and see what the SMART report says. That'll give you a definitive answer

 

This seemed to come on rather suddenly though. I keep the drive defragged, and aside from the corruption, performance has been fine.

What are the chances that the check disk will fix it?

Hopeless, thanks. I'll give it a try once the check disk is done

 

Kaelang, I would recommend backing up any important data ASAP. Then run chkdsk, but I would run it as described here (from command prompt) http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/682-command-prompt-startup.html
CHKDSK C: /F /R (assuming C is the failing drive)

 

Thanks josea. Fortunately, I have nothing other than pictures that are important on the computer, and those are all backed up on SD cards.

 

speedfan will tell you all you need plus if your drives is failing you dont notice any performance difference until its too late.

 

IMHO, it sounds like it's already so bad that CHKDSK won't be able to re-allocate good sectors... you've ran out of "overflow" sectors so to speak.

If there's any length of time you can boot into the OS, try what hopelesslyfaithful said and check your SMART status. It'll tell you definitely.

As for it happening all at once, my desktop drive that developed bad sectors not too long ago developed a BUNCH in a very short period of time. Luckily I was able to actually pull necessary stuff off of it... because it completely failed 2 days after it started displaying bad sectors.

 

Thanks for the help guys. It's been at 13% on the last stage for a while now, but once it's done, I'll do what hopeless recommends.

If the hard drive is bad, I have to decide if it's worth replacing a hard drive in a 2 year old notebook or just getting something new. The hard drive is obviously cheaper, but I dunno.

 

Of course it's worth it! I upgraded the hard drive in my 5-year-old notebook to a 500GB unit several months ago simply because I was running out of room on the original 100GB drive. (That, and Ubuntu kept saying I had tons of bad sectors on the original drive, even though that drive still works perfectly to this day. Go Hitachi Travelstar!)

 

EXT3/4 >>>>> NTFS.

I'm actually really excited to see ReFS supported on Windows Server 8. That means it'll eventually trickle down to consumers at some point. Much better FS management than plain old NTFS.

 

through in the large hybrid drive and give it some life!

 

I've heard about issues with the hybrid drives. I may consider an SSD, though they have limited life.
On the same token, I've wanted something lighter and thinner.. The G73 is too much to travel with, but I still want the gaming power. And aside from the G75, I can't think of any other windows notebook that I like. I've considered a MacBook, but it's probably more trouble than it's worth to switch os's.

I'm also not sure where my recovery disks are should I need them...

 

The checkdisk is complete and I'm on the notebook now. Slow start up, but no lock ups. All of my desktop icons are messed up.

I just installed Speedfan, and that icon is messed up too. It's like a broken icon image on top of the icon. You can see the icon behind the broken icon..icon.

Aside from that, Speedfan isn't reporting any fails. 8 Ok's and the rest are blank.

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned running event viewer and looking under system to determine if Windows is logging errors related to the HDD....

 

I forgot all about that.
I see tons of errors from the 23rd, all of them eventID 11, controller error. The same error was logged several times on the 29th of February. I'm seeing several Service Control Manager errors around the time the issue began.

The hard drive is also making some strange noises that I've never noticed before. It's like the sound an automatic watch makes when you spin the rotor on it. Abstract reference perhaps, but it's the closest thing I can think of.

My desktop icons are all still messed up. I rebooted and even put new icons on the desktop, but they're all showing up weird. Speedfan isn't showing anything though...

 

Try using Spinrite. I used it on a bad hard drive once and it made it partially usable. What the program does is it tries to recover any data that is on bad sectors and rewrites it to known good portions of the drive. Not necessarily good for longterm use, but it will get the drive in a usable state until a replacement can be gotten.

 

TimFountain's Post remined me to suggest looking at Computer Management - System Tools - Event Viewer - Windows Logs - Application - Wininit.