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[Solved] Failing HDD?

Last response: in Storage
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Ive had my Seagate 2TB HDD for about 2 years now. I used it for storing games and movies etc.

Lately files off this HDD seem to stutter. Movies rather frequently stop, picture and audio, and may start up again in a minute or so. Games do the same thing, appear to freeze every so often, and then catch up.

I have been trying to do scans with seatools over the last few days.
the long generic test estimated it would take 6:50, but ended up taking around 20 hours, coming back with a pass (and a popup saying its taking a while)
the fix all long was basically the same

Since i have no errors coming back, my local IT place says they cant do anything about it, so i basically want to know what could be happening and if there is anyway to fix it?

[EDIT: ohh, forgot to mention that sometimes when trying to transfer large amounts of data on/off it, it sometimes has a fit, and seems to disconnect itself. It then no longer shows up in my computer, sometimes only appearing after a few restarts. ]

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ultimatum said:
Ive had my Seagate 2TB HDD for about 2 years now. I used it for storing games and movies etc.

Lately files off this HDD seem to stutter. Movies rather frequently stop, picture and audio, and may start up again in a minute or so. Games do the same thing, appear to freeze every so often, and then catch up.

I have been trying to do scans with seatools over the last few days.
the long generic test estimated it would take 6:50, but ended up taking around 20 hours, coming back with a pass (and a popup saying its taking a while)
the fix all long was basically the same

Since i have no errors coming back, my local IT place says they cant do anything about it, so i basically want to know what could be happening and if there is anyway to fix it?



Defragment?
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terryd75 said:
Defragment?



Make sure you drive is not failing as if it is defragmentation would only make things worse as that limited spin/operating time needs to be spent on backing up your data
Thus google 'signs of a dying hard drive' to know if you have to backup asap
But based on your comments it is not looking good,when my 1TB WD EADS HDD was dying my loading light stayed on for extended periods once I open a folder on the drive (wasn't my main drive) and games also stuttered and any activity took a lot longer game loading and even booting windows 7 so your symptoms seem like a possible impending failure I would advise you to begin backing up now!

terryd75 said:
do u have another computer you can try the drive in?


I dont at the moment, but since its started to play up, i have replaced my motherboard, and the performance of the drive remains unchanged.


Ray Charles said:
Make sure you drive is not failing as if it is defragmentation would only make things worse as that limited spin/operating time needs to be spent on backing up your data
Thus google 'signs of a dying hard drive' to know if you have to backup asap
But based on your comments it is not looking good,when my 1TB WD EADS HDD was dying my loading light stayed on for extended periods once I open a folder on the drive (wasn't my main drive) and games also stuttered and any activity took a lot longer game loading and even booting windows 7 so your symptoms seem like a possible impending failure I would advise you to begin backing up now!



I have backed up all my info on this drive, so its come down to if i should be using it at all anymore.

My local IT store says they wont replace it unless seatools brings back an error :( 

How full is the drive? how much space is used? If it's really full........that will slow it way down. HDDs need room to work. The old rule of thumb used to be ....More than 50% full, time to up-grade. I don't know if that same rule is still used.......
I do know that i fixed a laptop a few days ago, simpply by deleteing a lot of old unused fils, and freed up some space on his hdd. he had a 100gb hdd with 97 gb used. When i got it back down to about 39gb free, it started working great.

terryd75 said:
How full is the drive? how much space is used? If it's really full........that will slow it way down. HDDs need room to work. The old rule of thumb used to be ....More than 50% full, time to up-grade. I don't know if that same rule is still used.......
I do know that i fixed a laptop a few days ago, simpply by deleteing a lot of old unused fils, and freed up some space on his hdd. he had a 100gb hdd with 97 gb used. When i got it back down to about 39gb free, it started working great.



The drive has over 600GB free
Ive always had a 75% kinda rule with drives.

ohh, forgot to mention that sometimes when trying to transfer large amounts of data on/off it, it sometimes has a fit, and seems to disconnect itself. It then no longer shows up in my computer, sometimes only appearing after a few restarts.

At this point, even though the Seagate tools didn't show any errors..... based on what I have seen here, I'd strongly recommend making darn sure I had it all backed up. I think you've got a bad drive, but can't prove it. Sure does sound like it though. Do you have any other drives on the computer? They are working ok?

terryd75 said:
At this point, even though the Seagate tools didn't show any errors..... based on what I have seen here, I'd strongly recommend making darn sure I had it all backed up. I think you've got a bad drive, but can't prove it. Sure does sound like it though. Do you have any other drives on the computer? They are working ok?


I have 3 other drives in my PC, another 2TB Seagate, a 1TB WD, and a 500GB WD. All others work fine.
I got the other Seagate just to backup the sketchy drive, so thats all good on the data front.

I was kinda hoping after 20 hours seatools would have at least given me something :( 

That definitely sounds like a failing drive. Cant prove it though. But the drive sounds like its getting kinda old, even though drives can hold up to 6 years with the right use, it sounds like your drive might be starting to failure.
This failure mostly comes from small things inside the drive itself which begin to stop and some may fall of (that's why you can hear bumping sounds if it has happened)
I don't have that much expertise, but try listening for bumping sounds or anything.

If you can't hear anything try to take the drive out of the computer, and shake it a little bit. If there still ain't coming any bumping sounds, it must be a digital failure in the drive it self. Sometimes formatting could help, but try to wait with that, cause I'm not sure that will help you.
I't could also be virus, what kind of anti-virus programs do you use? And do you have any programs like for example Malwarebytes, which you scan like once every second week or something?

ultimatum said:
I dont at the moment, but since its started to play up, i have replaced my motherboard, and the performance of the drive remains unchanged.





I have backed up all my info on this drive, so its come down to if i should be using it at all anymore.

My local IT store says they wont replace it unless seatools brings back an error :( 

You could check the power cables, they could be loose, I had a 250 GB HDD with the plastic side near the power adapter that broke and the power cable couldn't stay fixed, windows would freeze or computer wouldn't boot, you could have a similar problem, or you could switch the cable/adapter

If you backed up all of your data, do a quick format, I'm sure it will help, if not, do a full format. I had a similar issue regarding transfer speed that came down to 26 kbps to freezing (partition to partition on the same HDD) and after deleting all partitions on the HDD (500 GB Samsung), repartitioned and quick formatted, it worked like a charm (i partitioned during win7 install - 100 GB, 250, 125).

bloodandbon3s said:
That definitely sounds like a failing drive. Cant prove it though. But the drive sounds like its getting kinda old, even though drives can hold up to 6 years with the right use, it sounds like your drive might be starting to failure.
This failure mostly comes from small things inside the drive itself which begin to stop and some may fall of (that's why you can hear bumping sounds if it has happened)
I don't have that much expertise, but try listening for bumping sounds or anything.

If you can't hear anything try to take the drive out of the computer, and shake it a little bit. If there still ain't coming any bumping sounds, it must be a digital failure in the drive it self. Sometimes formatting could help, but try to wait with that, cause I'm not sure that will help you.
I't could also be virus, what kind of anti-virus programs do you use? And do you have any programs like for example Malwarebytes, which you scan like once every second week or something?



i run AVG, AdAware, and Spybot.
Will try and have a listen to it closely soon




liviu81x said:
You could check the power cables, they could be loose, I had a 250 GB HDD with the plastic side near the power adapter that broke and the power cable couldn't stay fixed, windows would freeze or computer wouldn't boot, you could have a similar problem, or you could switch the cable/adapter

If you backed up all of your data, do a quick format, I'm sure it will help, if not, do a full format. I had a similar issue regarding transfer speed that came down to 26 kbps to freezing (partition to partition on the same HDD) and after deleting all partitions on the HDD (500 GB Samsung), repartitioned and quick formatted, it worked like a charm (i partitioned during win7 install - 100 GB, 250, 125).


Power cables are all fine.
Have done a full format of it in the last few days, still seeing if the issue crops up.

masterofall said:
you can actually create a case at seagate.com and use this seatools test code C5CB9DAA (poor performance) to claim RMA.



cool, will try that if the issue presents itself again.

After long format, the drive in question seems to be ok. I have only been trying to run movies off it for the past week odd, but so far so good.

I appreciate everyones help and hopefully the drive stays healthy for sometime still :) 
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