REVscene - Vancouver Automotive Forum

trd2343 · 01-31-2009, 11:01 AM

What are the signs of harddrive symptoms?

I've just reformatted my Toshiba laptop w/ a recovery disk, and it takes forever for anything to load.

I checked task manager for CPU usage, and that is almost zero, but my harddrive led is constantly on/flashing, meaning it's constantly being accessed. Also, I have had this screen several times after install Windows Update (not the same error)

http://technabob.com/blog/wp-content...06/11/bsod.gif

I can hear it being accessed as well.

Before reformatting my laptop, I attempted to install Windows 7, and that failed because it failed to load after it's been installed. Moreover, my recovery disk didn't work after that, came up with a harddrive error, and had to borrow a OEM disk to reformat the computer, then use my recovery disk.

In addition to that, I've had the harddrive make really weird noise, and the whole computer freezing and not responding to any buttons.

Is that a good sign of harddrive failure? Thanks.

Presto · 01-31-2009, 11:31 AM

What does S.M.A.R.T. say about the drive? You can check it's status with Speedfan

lilaznviper · 01-31-2009, 12:45 PM

if it takes longer than regularly then the hd mite be on its way out
another sign is having weird noises

InvisibleSoul · 01-31-2009, 12:48 PM

Find out what brand the hard drive is, download the diagnostics software for it, and run it.

trd2343 · 01-31-2009, 01:16 PM

Thanks for all the replies!

Right now I am running chkdsk, it went up to 40% on step 4, found some bad clusters, and suddenly it gave me an error, and I have to reboot the computer and start chkdsk again.

Other stuff that I've noticed is that, eg. takes 5 seconds for Start Menu to load when I press start, takes 10 seconds for menu to show up when I right-click the C Drive icon to do chkdsk... etc. the idea is that everything takes a lot longer than usual, when these tasks should normally take no more than a second to load.

This all happened after I installed Windows 7, attempt to load Recovery disk, failed, then reformatted with OEM XP disc, then load Recovery disk, that's when everything went haywire.

I've started noticing weird things ever since I flipped the laptop upside down when it was still running. I was in a hurry, so I just flipped the display down so that it will go into hibernate, and I placed it upside down on my passenger seat. Then I came back and realize that the laptop hasn't been turned off, nothing is responding, and started making weird hacking noise from HDD

I'll definitely run speedfan when I'm done chkdsk.

All help appreciated, thanks!

I doubt it has anything to do with software/virus/malware, because I've reformatted the computer with recovery disk.

InvisibleSoul · 01-31-2009, 11:03 PM

Weird hacking noises means hard drive is dying.

syee · 02-01-2009, 10:06 PM

Usually, a constant clicking sound is a good indicator of a problem. Laptop drives are usually pretty sturdy, and it takes a lot to cause damage to a hard drive.

Like others have mentioned, try getting the manufacturers hard drive diagnostic utility and see if it returns any problems. Hard drive constantly being accessed really doesn't mean all that much. It could be loading background applications, or it could mean that it's accessing virtual memory because you don't have enough RAM.