Possible HDD going bad-maybe?

[Sonik Wiz]

Also for Jeff to compare what ever his HDD performance is to a real world SSD:

 

[steelydave]

I was also gonna say, if you're relatively tech savvy, you can do the HDD to SSD clone and swap yourself.

When I did my hard drive swap, I bought a Crucial SSD from amazon.com, and it came with a piece of software called Acronis True Image, which allows you to do a bit-perfect clone from one drive to another. You also need to buy an external USB to SATA adapter and a USB key. The software creates a bootable USB key with the Acronis software on it - once you do that, you take out the old HDD and replace it with the new SSD, and then boot off the USB stick with the old HDD also connected to the machine via the SATA to USB adapter. Then with the Acronis software, you clone the HDD to the SSD - when it's done you disconnect all the external USB devices and presto, you're now running from your new internal SSD drive.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

No problem with SSD on older machines: when you have a sata port you're set

Yeah bonus, looks like a SATA and 7200 rpm also, hopefully another 20K hours life - just need to weed out the disruptive app I believe at this point.

I was also gonna say, if you're relatively tech savvy, you can do the HDD to SSD clone and swap yourself.

When I did my hard drive swap, I bought a Crucial SSD from amazon.com, and it came with a piece of software called Acronis True Image, which allows you to do a bit-perfect clone from one drive to another. You also need to buy an external USB to SATA adapter and a USB key. The software creates a bootable USB key with the Acronis software on it - once you do that, you take out the old HDD and replace it with the new SSD, and then boot off the USB stick with the old HDD also connected to the machine via the SATA to USB adapter. Then with the Acronis software, you clone the HDD to the SSD - when it's done you disconnect all the external USB devices and presto, you're now running from your new internal SSD drive.

But, I do want to go to SSD, much faster 🏎- My NUC with SSD processes audio files maybe 4-6x faster than this old Dell.
Been a computer user since the 386 days, but not much on doing the nuts and bolts type Tech work you're describing Dave, probably just hire a guy local (and watch him like a hawk -LOL)
You guys are all awesome

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Yeah bonus, looks like a SATA and 7200 rpm also, hopefully another 20K hours life - just need to weed out the disruptive app I believe at this point.

But, I do want to go to SSD, much faster 🏎- My NUC with SSD processes audio files maybe 4-6x faster than this old Dell.
Been a computer user since the 386 days, but not much on doing the nuts and bolts type Tech work you're describing Dave, probably just hire a guy local (and watch him like a hawk -LOL)
You guys are all awesome

I'll tell from experience it can take quite a long time to clone one drive to another and if you have a ton of media to migrate think in terms of hours. That's quite a long time to watch someone like a hawk.

At least give it chance & research how to do it yourself. As has been pointed out before it's wise to clone every now & then even if things are good because tomorrow never knows.

And again get a 2nd drive put in for data. If a virus should get the C: drive at least all your hard media work & other stuff will probably be safe.

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I'll tell from experience it can take quite a long time to clone one drive to another and if you have a ton of media to migrate think in terms of hours. That's quite a long time to watch someone like a hawk.

At least give it chance & research how to do it yourself. As has been pointed out before it's wise to clone every now & then even if things are good because tomorrow never knows.

And again get a 2nd drive put in for data. If a virus should get the C: drive at least all your hard media work & other stuff will probably be safe.

Maybe... I do have multiple Back ups in different ways, from DVD, USB SSD and even Cloud for my important data.

 

[ubertrout]

So, I'm in the process of swapping out a Windows 7 drive for a newer one in my HTPC - The 10 year old 40 GB SSD really wasn't big enough for anything but Windows and foobar (I play everything not on disc off my NAS), and I just nabbed a 120GB HP SSD for $6.46 at Staples (the deal isn't being advertised, but you can try to get it in-store by checking inventory here: HP Internal Solid State Hard Drive S700, 120GB 2.5" SATA III 3D NAND - Staples Inventory Checker - BrickSeek).

I'm using Macrium Reflect (free) plus a $10 USB3-SATA 2.5 cable. I'm doing the transfer using another PC because it's simpler that way. Note that if you're using a desktop drive you're going to need a cable that can handle both 3.5 and 2.5 SATA drives (2.5 is laptop size but all SSDs are 2.5 as well).

 

[HomerJAU]

I was also gonna say, if you're relatively tech savvy, you can do the HDD to SSD clone and swap yourself

This is what I’d recommend too Dave. It’s pretty easy with the free software that comes with most SATA SSDs. Just clone your original drive to the SSD, then swap to SSD in for you old drive. It’s done.

 

[steelydave]

This is what I’d recommend too Dave. It’s pretty easy with the free software that comes with most SATA SSDs. Just clone your original drive to the SSD, then swap to SSD in for you old drive. It’s done.

Agreed - honestly speaking, I was a little nervous when I did mine, but it couldn't have gone more smoothly.

It's almost a zero-risk process (presuming you have some grasp of what you're doing) because worst-case scenario is that if the clone doesn't work, you can just put your old HDD back in the computer because the cloning process doesn't modify or delete any data on the source drive.

 

[Marplot]

If cloning, you can also move data to a usb stick first to reduce the amount of slower, low level copying required. Just move it back when you are done. It will shorten the overall duration.

 

[timbre4]

Yes it is an XPS 9100 model
I'd purged all of McAfee
Only time will tell, but yeah would love to go to a much faster SSD.

I looked up that 9100, what a nice beast! My radar came on in 2012 when the 8500 was new; came with 256GB SSD and a Seagate 1TB HDD (their worst model; died in 18 months; recovered everything - replaced with WD 3TB). I chose Win7 Ultimate and kept it there until 4 months ago. All boxes here on WIN 10 now. McAfee ain’t what it used to be, so better off I’m sure.

 

[NYMo]

Had similar problems in the past ....turned out to be faulty ram !

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Had similar problems in the past ....turned out to be faulty ram !

I'd like to hear your story on that @NYMo and is there a program that checks for bad RAM?
It seems my issue becomes more frequent as I use more open programs, so I had also considered that a possibility.

 

[Marplot]

if that is the case it could be failing RAM, or because of memory pressure, increased swapping to a failing area of the drive.
I would set it to run a chkdsk at boot to take advantage of bad sector checking and block allocation

It has been awhile since I have done Win7 but open a cmd prompt as administrator, run CHKDSK C: /F /R and reboot.
That should force a check at reboot, attempt to fix errors and attempt to recover any information in bad sectors.

chkdsk /?
CHKDSK [volume[[path]filename]]] [/F] [/V] [/R] [/X] [/I] [/C] [/L[:size]] [/B]


volume Specifies the drive letter (followed by a colon),
mount point, or volume name.
filename FAT/FAT32 only: Specifies the files to check for fragmentation.
/F Fixes errors on the disk.
/V On FAT/FAT32: Displays the full path and name of every file
on the disk.
On NTFS: Displays cleanup messages if any.
/R Locates bad sectors and recovers readable information
(implies /F).
/L:size NTFS only: Changes the log file size to the specified number
of kilobytes. If size is not specified, displays current
size.
/X Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.
All opened handles to the volume would then be invalid
(implies /F).
/I NTFS only: Performs a less vigorous check of index entries.
/C NTFS only: Skips checking of cycles within the folder
structure.
/B NTFS only: Re-evaluates bad clusters on the volume
(implies /R)

The /I or /C switch reduces the amount of time required to run Chkdsk by skipping certain checks of the volume.

 

[winopener]

I'd like to hear your story on that @NYMo and is there a program that checks for bad RAM?

https://www.memtest86.com/
Been using that by decades...

 

[Guy Robinson]

I have found that after a few years things usually don't run as well so time for a full reformat and reinstall. This also helps to get rid of all that stuff you are no longer using.

 

[jimfisheye]

If any of you aren't already cloning your system drive to create a backup, start doing that today!

Grab a portable USB 2TB for $60.
Grab one of the cloning apps. Macrium as mentioned should work. I've been using Carbon Copy Cloner for years but I think it's still Mac only.

Clone your system drive.
Now boot off the clone. There's your identical cloned system booting and looking like it always does.
Now boot back off your primary drive. You're back!

Now you'll have gone through the motions and be prepared when actually swapping in a new drive after a failure. (Or simply an upgrade.)

Having extra copies of your system kicking around that boot is the way to be.
Computers tend to have two use modes: Computer and Paperweight
Backups are a good thing. You hopefully save some your files already. Start saving your OS installs.

 

[MidiMagic]

The same symptoms happened to my Dell. But a capacitor in a circuit board had blown up and spattered corrosive liquid on most of the electronics I had to replace the computer, not the drive.

 

[Guy Robinson]

If any of you aren't already cloning your system drive to create a backup, start doing that today!

Grab a portable USB 2TB for $60.
Grab one of the cloning apps. Macrium as mentioned should work. I've been using Carbon Copy Cloner for years but I think it's still Mac only.

Clone your system drive.
Now boot off the clone. There's your identical cloned system booting and looking like it always does.
Now boot back off your primary drive. You're back!

Now you'll have gone through the motions and be prepared when actually swapping in a new drive after a failure. (Or simply an upgrade.)

Having extra copies of your system kicking around that boot is the way to be.
Computers tend to have two use modes: Computer and Paperweight
Backups are a good thing. You hopefully save some your files already. Start saving your OS installs.

I back up all folders that I add to myself regularly, like "Documents". Everything else is expendable. Actually in all the years that I have been using hard drives (I have around 30 of them right now), I have never had a crash. I'm sure it's coming at some point. I actually believe that every few years you should start anew by reinstalling the operating system.

 

[jimfisheye]

I haven't had too many drive failures. I have had a couple though over the last 30 years. I was shown to make backup clones early on. Drive failures were thus an inconvenience. As opposed to what might be soul crushing for someone!

I build new systems every so often too. Goes without saying to keep your old/current ones though. And retired systems are saved as a disk image (just the OS/apps/libraries). Why would you throw something out you spent time building, right? And something that you can simply boot back into in a pinch if there was something older that you still needed.

As far as choosing what's important to backup and keeping only those documents and such. That's a good way to lose things. Better to curate your files and then clone entire volumes. I said I was trained early on with cloning... I have lost a couple things in the past. It followed relying on manually backing something up every time. I screwed up! Don't invite Murphy. Clone your drives. Especially system drives but data drives too. Use the safety net feature as drive space permits.

 

[winopener]

Computers tend to have two use modes: Computer and Paperweight

You made my day!