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Is my hard drive dying?

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  • Disk Read Error
  • Storage
  • Hard Drives
Last response: in Storage
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October 12, 2014 12:49:29 AM

I think my hard drive might be dying but I'm not entirely sure.

I have a Seagate 1TB 7200rpm HDD and I've had it for a few years. A few weeks ago something weird started happening. A torrent program I used would stop a download, saying there was some kind of disk error. Shortly after that, when I was downloading a game on Steam, I got a disk read error.

After that I kind of fell down a rabbit hole with this crap, looking at every single thing I could about what could be happening with my hard drive. I'm kind of a computer hypochondriac. Anyway, I downloaded three or four different HDD testing things like HD Tune Pro, CrystalDiskInfo, SeaTools, and maybe one other (I can't really remember). With Crystal and HD Tune, I would get cautions with a couple of things (reallocated sectors and one other I can't remember). With SeaTools it Passes a SMART test, but it intermittently Passes and Fails Short Generic Tests. I never got it to finish a Long Generic Test because it was weirding out my computer, and when I tried the Fix All options, both Failed.

If my computer was just acting weird, I could live with that. But it's also affecting my job. I do podcasts and video stuffs, and my computer acting has started affecting my ability to make them. I record gameplay with an AVerMedia Live Gamer HD and audio with Audacity. A couple of days ago I tried recording as per usual, but when I went to encode the video with Handbrake for editing, it made it about 12% in a stopped. No error message, it finished at 12%. I tried converting it with VLC, but it failed at the same point Handbrake stopped and popped up an error message saying saying something about bad sectors.

With podcasts I record using Audacity. When exporting them, Audacity will lock up my whole system for a few second five or six times. The audio exports fine in the end, but yeah.

I have no idea if this is a problem with programs or if my HDD is dying. If anyone can help me out, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

More about : hard drive dying

a b G Storage
October 12, 2014 12:53:51 AM

Have you scanned your system for viruses etc? Since you were using torrents?
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October 12, 2014 1:00:17 AM

Paul NZ said:
Have you scanned your system for viruses etc? Since you were using torrents?


I have Panda AntiVirus Pro 2015 and have been running it. It says my system is good.
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a c 360 G Storage
October 12, 2014 1:04:49 AM

Replace the hard drive if Seagate long test reports errors.

The other software you tested it with using Windows (eg HD Tune) is useless since you cannot properly test the Windows boot drive using Windows-based software, even SeaTools has to be the DOS version that loads from a boot CD. I'm surprised you apparently don't know that.

If in any doubt about the drive's state of health, err on the side of caution and replace it. That's a no-brainer.

Antivirus software does not test the drive!
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a b G Storage
October 12, 2014 1:05:41 AM

I would disable system restore since nasties can hide in the folders. Then use something like adwcleaner

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/adwcleaner/

Click on scan wait for it to finish. Then go thru the tabs and see if there are any strange files etc...Make sure theyre ticked. If you know for certain what something is, untick it

Then click on clean. Once it finishes it'll tell you to reboot

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17 minutes ago

Phillip Corcoran said:
Replace the hard drive if Seagate long test reports errors.

The other software you tested it with using Windows (eg HD Tune) is useless since you cannot properly test the Windows boot drive using Windows-based software, even SeaTools has to be the DOS version that loads from a boot CD. I'm surprised you apparently don't know that.

If in any doubt about the drive's state of health, err on the side of caution and replace it. That's a no-brainer.

Antivirus software does not test the drive!


My drive just failed SeaTools Long Generic Test. Didn't even get to finish it.
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