Computer issues

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AMmayhem

Mayhem is everywhere
Nov 3, 2001
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NaliCity, MI
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I think my hard drive is giving out. Had one crap out on me a couple years ago, and now this one is giving similar symptoms. Runs really slow, takes forever for programs to open or close, and shutting down the whole computer takes like 5-7 minutes.

My confusion is that it did this about a month ago. I had just gotten back from taking my tower to my brother's to download Guild Wars 2 (which would have taken all week on my DSL), and that's when it started acting super slow. Figured seeing that I had unplugged everything, moved it around and such I'd check connections. Fussed with the connections, fired it back up, worked fine. Yesterday it started doing the whole running super slow thing again. Only I hadn't taken the tower anywhere or moved it, it's just been sitting at my desk. Gave up on working on it yesterday, today I did the whole checking of connections again and fired it up: working fine again.

Could a loose plug actually be the problem here? Seems possible, but unlikely to me. I'm still assuming it's the hard drive giving out. Either way I've been furiously backing up stuff to my laptop.
 

Balton

The Beast of Worship
Mar 6, 2001
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Berlin
Currently Opera in combination with an .flv codec does something like that to my computer.
 

dr.flay

Dr.Flay™
Sep 19, 2011
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Kernow, UK
yourunreal.wordpress.com
You have some bad sectors on your drive, by the sound of it.
Running chkdsk/scandisk with the repair option may fix it.

I made a thread dedicated to Drive issues and salvaging.
Check here for some free tools.
http://www.ut99.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3840&start=0

I had a look through the stuff FireFly linked.
All of those OEM tools (and more) there are built in to the UltimateBootCD ;)
 
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Hadmar

Queen Bitch of the Universe
Jan 29, 2001
5,557
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Nerdpole
Can be pretty much anything. In my experience disks suddenly getting slower is most likely a sign of it nearing it's end of life. But that does not have to be the case. Best bet is to make backups and then test it. If it acts up, replace it. If you find bad sectors continue to test it. More bad sectors showing up? Replace it.

What exactly "test it" means depends on your needs. The last time I had a HDD at work that I had doubts about I put it through 8 or so full surface tests before I was convinced it's okay.