Signs of a failing HDD?

[Epical]

In the last week or so I've noticed my computer freeze during operation (I haven't had time to try gaming on it). Not CPU freeze where everything is frozen like the mouse and such, but hard drive freeze whenever it is being written to or read from. For example, it always happens whenever I'm simply browsing the web or opening and closing programs. I'm playing music in the background and it stops and starts, but Winamp isn't frozen. It's like it's skipping/hesitating as if it's having trouble reading the music file (lol). The little audio bars will drop in full motion (showing that the program isn't frozen), and resume bouncing when the music starts again. Also, explorer.exe may just as well freeze all together, requiring either a restart of the process, or a restart of the entire computer. Just these past two days, CHKDSK started up and found a ton of shit during it's scan. I don't know how much it helped, I'm still finding that out.

I just want to nip this in the bud before it's too late and I lose everything, so if these are tell-tale signs, let me know! Thanks.

EDIT: Some more information: loading any band's MySpace page completely freezes Firefox, and multitasking as a whole is largely impossible.

[Norellicus]

Is your drive a hitachi by chance? Sounds remarkably similar to a problem I had with one of their drives a few months ago.

Regardless, if the drive is under warranty and it IS failing, most manufacturers will want you to run their own diagnostic tool against the drive first...so head that off at the pass and get the tool now, should be able to tell you for sure if there's a problem.

[Neogearzx]

Not so sure it is the drive, but it could be.

What kind of system is it? Dell by chance, or did you build it?
Your hard drive manufacture website should have some sort of download tool to test the drive for faulty sectors.

Dell also offer a diagnostic software too which is pretty decent at finding hardware related failures.

In any case - are you backed up? The slightest hint of hard drive failure is a red flag to back everything up !

I use Gmail / Google Docs paid account to upload music, pictures and junk.

[feary]

just want to nip this in the bud before it's too late and I lose everything,

regardless if it is failing or not, your best bet is to do a backup. when shit hits the fan you will be happy with your hunch that saved your ass. your legitimately worried about your data so what ever you do. back up first it would never hurt. its not like your just being lazy and dont want to be bother with reformatting etc. if you dont need a new drive you at least have a backup so in 3-6 your not in the same place with no drive.

do you scans, call the manufacture and get the drive replaced if you can. no need to keep a faulty drive when you can get one for free or the cost of shipping.

[Epical]

Is your drive a hitachi by chance? Sounds remarkably similar to a problem I had with one of their drives a few months ago.

Regardless, if the drive is under warranty and it IS failing, most manufacturers will want you to run their own diagnostic tool against the drive first...so head that off at the pass and get the tool now, should be able to tell you for sure if there's a problem.

It's a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11. Ran SeaTools, and it didn't pass the tests.

Not so sure it is the drive, but it could be.

What kind of system is it? Dell by chance, or did you build it?
Your hard drive manufacture website should have some sort of download tool to test the drive for faulty sectors.

Dell also offer a diagnostic software too which is pretty decent at finding hardware related failures.

In any case - are you backed up? The slightest hint of hard drive failure is a red flag to back everything up !

I use Gmail / Google Docs paid account to upload music, pictures and junk.

Custom built, backing up as we speak.

Here are some screens of HDD diagnostic tools:
http://i45.tinypic.com/zo7q8h.jpg
http://i45.tinypic.com/2wpjk0z.jpg
http://i47.tinypic.com/vynzhh.jpg
http://i49.tinypic.com/2hwg7l.jpg

[OWS_Tonx]

If it's a Dell I think you press f8 during post and run diagnostics. Write down the error codes you get etc and call them. I had a similiar issue just last week, programs freezing randomly, but not the machine itself. From the time I noticed the problems it took about 4 days before it completly failed (Wouldn't load my OS or safe mode). Can't stress it enough, get that image burned before it's too late.

EDIT - You posted as I was posting. ;/

[Kiine]

As much as it pains me (since my NAS manufacturer basically forces Seagate usage), Seagate drives are in a very, very bad place right now. Extremely large reallocated sector numbers, clicks of death, and other problems are in abundance. Granted those with problems will speak up more than those without (just look @ newegg or tiger reviews), but many people are seeing 10-40% fail rates on seagate drives these days. Especially the .11 revision. Back up your stuff now.

[Senji]

As much as it pains me (since my NAS manufacturer basically forces Seagate usage), Seagate drives are in a very, very bad place right now. Extremely large reallocated sector numbers, clicks of death, and other problems are in abundance. Granted those with problems will speak up more than those without (just look @ newegg or tiger reviews), but many people are seeing 10-40% fail rates on seagate drives these days. Especially the .11 revision. Back up your stuff now.

No.

They are not in a very, very bad place right now. They were a certain size, from a certain plant location, and a certain firmware, of outdated 11 series. All of which the OP's drive is not, but is however, already backed up.

[Minions]

No.

They are not in a very, very bad place right now. They were a certain size, from a certain plant location, and a certain firmware, of outdated 11 series. All of which the OP's drive is not, but is however, already backed up.

Can't say it's a good time for them right now. It sucks when you are selling 1TB drives for $30 since the failure rate is out the roof. I didn't even purchase one at that price due to the hassle of backing everything up constantly. So far I've only had a Toshiba HD (in a laptop of my parents), fail. Maxtor I bought in 2000 still running to this day, all my WD drives have not had any issues either. I consider myself extremely lucky.

PS. Don't get Hitachi Deathstars.


Also is there a way to view the health of a raid? The program he is using says:

The status of the hard disk is unknown.
The current disk controller driver does not provide full access to the disk itself to read all details. Please check if there is an updated driver available.

Hard Disk Summary
Hard Disk Number,0
Interface,SCSI
Disk Controller,Intel(R) ICH8R/ICH9R/ICH10R/DO SATA RAID Controller (RAID)
Disk Location,0
Hard Disk Model ID,Intel Raid 0 Volume
Firmware Revision,1.0.
Hard Disk Serial Number,?
Total Size,953867 MB
Power State,Active

[randomized]

anyone got me beat?

Power on time: 2046 days, 5 hours
performance 70%
health 96%