Maxtor HDD problem - crash, subsequent poor performance

[sbdragon]

hi folks, well, got this strange HDD problem> not actually mine, but cousin's PC, .. nothing major was going on some programming, web browsing etc }no major HDD activity at that time.. then (then at least what cousin claims had happened) there was some strange noise (but not "clicking" possibly something like "scratching"). suddenly screen turned black with some error message about reading from HDD. We restarted the machine, HDD was detected properly, XP started to boot up but just before the logon screen it restarted....and it kept doing so after several attempts. I suggested running CHKDSK, so we did run a CHKDSK from windows installation CD recovery console .. 1st level of CHKDSK (without the checking for bad sectors) was completed, then we were able to boot up to safe mode with no apparent problems, booting up XP normally resulted in long loading time and then catastrophically slow performance (5minutes black screen, 5minutes black screen with cursor, 5minutes log-on screen...)...CHKDSK with bad sector checking attempted - froze several times after running slow for a while....HDD removed, plugged in another PC.... well, I actually managed to complete CHKDSK this time (still slowly)..HDD plugged back to the original machine...XP booting succesfull, but still slow performance ... I've measured the performance with the bench tool of PCWIZARD, and it showed poor values on both partitions. However, No actual data damage observed and the HDD is almost full.and no another strange noises since the crash, or any other problems except the poor performance (I actually ran defrag, it took whole night for 100gigs 65%full, didn't help...) ANy comments and suggestions will be appreciated, of course I've got some of my own (backing-up & formatting, so on... ) THNX ans sry for such long text

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Hard drive's dying. You're lucky that the data is still readable.

Get another drive now, copy everything to the new drive before you lose it.

 

[sbdragon]

New info:
almost full aforementioned HDD has been erased, now the performance seems to have returned to normal. There were two 100GB partitions, I formatted them, then cleared the partitions using "secure erase" option in Partition Magic (which means I think replacing all data with blank data), deleted partitions, created new ones, ran win scandisk including scan for bad sectors ... and nothing so far. there has been no other weird noises nor any damage to data since the crash. What do U think about it ?

 

[tamalero]

New info:
almost full aforementioned HDD has been erased, now the performance seems to have returned to normal. There were two 100GB partitions, I formatted them, then cleared the partitions using "secure erase" option in Partition Magic (which means I think replacing all data with blank data), deleted partitions, created new ones, ran win scandisk including scan for bad sectors ... and nothing so far. there has been no other weird noises nor any damage to data since the crash. What do U think about it ?

means your hdd still is diying...

when your hdd does that, means its triying to skip the DAMAGED SECTIONS of the HDD, once you hit the part that is damaged by data, it will again slowdown ( it willtry to reread many times the damage part and then report an error )
this is very usual on the post 2003 hdds, wich have this protection..

just buya new hdd.

 

[sbdragon]

OK, the HDD is still in the warranty period, should I return it ? or maybe should I try to fill it up with data again to try to hit the bad section and then return it ? Well I believe the HDD was faulty since it was manufactured, cause it was not filled up ever before.