Is my hard drive dying?

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Zadeth

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Jul 5, 2014
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Hello.

Thank you in advance for whoever ends up helping with my issue.

Recently I've noticed some slow interactions on my desktop. When I right click to rename files, often it will lag for 20 seconds to a minute. When I open up DOTA 2, it freezes every time unless my PC has recently been turned on. Finally, when I click on the 'computer' tab in my explorer, it takes forever to load the screen that lets me access my hard drive (it's took around 5 minutes now). I am also trying to uninstall a program, Overwolf, and it's taking an abnormally long time (around 15 minutes now and it's not a large program).

I did a health check with SeaGate's SeaTools for Windows and it said my hard drive failed the short DST test and then got stuck on 90% when I let it run all night. I have no idea whatthis means.

My computer runs normally otherwise, and I have had no issues with booting/shutting down.

I understand that it is likely my hard drive is on it's way out, I've had it a few years. I'm at university, and my OS disc is at home. Is there any way that I can install Windows 7 on a new hard drive with just the serial number and no disc?

Thanks,
Zadeth

Edit: Windows Action Centre says I can "solve a problem with your hard drive controller", but when I click to do so it brings me to a "no information could be downloaded" page.

Edit 2: any HDD recommendations are welcomed, looking for something around 2TB. :)
 
Solution
D_Know_WD
Hi there Zadeth,

Just clone the failing drive onto the new one. Most of the HDD manufacturers have their own tools. Some third party ones would do the job as well.
Most probably, the system files are fine and it is just the failing drive that is causing some problems. Yet, you can't be absolutely sure. Just clone it, see if it runs well, perform clean OS installation if you are not happy with the results.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
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ss202sl

Glorious
May 23, 2012
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The drive may be on it's way out. The best thing you can do is make sure you have good backups.

Also you can take an image of your hard drive now, and if it fails, then you can put that image on a new HDD, and then restore the latest backup to bring your files current.

The only issue that may arise out of this is if your hard drive has any corrupted data on it(due to HDD issues), the corrupted data would be in the image.
 
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Zadeth

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Jul 5, 2014
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Is the advantage to this just saving time having to download everything with a new hard drive? I don't mind doing that, especially as it eliminates the possibility of corrupted data, and as for files I use dropbox for anything important so I likely won't lose anything I don't need.

 
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instyne

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Dec 2, 2015
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Creating an image of your hard drive or cloning it to another hard drive means you don't need an installation disk. Pretty much anything else means you need that disk you left at home.
 
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Zadeth

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Jul 5, 2014
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I see, thank you. Is there any way I can rule out any file corruption and ensure it is a hardware issue before cloning it?
 
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D_Know_WD

D_Know_WD

Judicious
Jul 30, 2014
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Hi there Zadeth,

Just clone the failing drive onto the new one. Most of the HDD manufacturers have their own tools. Some third party ones would do the job as well.
Most probably, the system files are fine and it is just the failing drive that is causing some problems. Yet, you can't be absolutely sure. Just clone it, see if it runs well, perform clean OS installation if you are not happy with the results.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD :)
 
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