Slow hard drive

Check the power saving settings on the drive.

Run Check Disk.

Run Defrag.

Run a benchmarking utility, like ATTO.

i have checked the power settings but the hard drive is set to never turn off
there is plenty of disk space and i regularly defragment it
i will try ATTO but i don't think that will come up with any thing as the read and write speeds are OK, if the hard drive responds

THX a lot for your help i appreciate it!

i still need help though because i ran crystal disk and it says that the health status of my disk is "good"

try this boot into windows safe mode. run ccleaner to see if you have any damaged files also see if the hard drive is running faster. if it is then you have a damaged software or you loaded to anti virus software on your pc or two anti malware programs or have a virus. i would also download from seagate or wd depending on the model of your hard drive there drive tools. if windows is running faster in safe mode use the msconfig file and under the startup tab turn everything off. if when you reboot windows is running fine the there could be a damaged file. there also another cause that may look like a hard drive problem but it not is running out of ram. if you have an older pc with 2 gig or less in ram and too much loading it look like the hard drive is having an issue.

thx i tried that still didn't work

all i can say is it could be the drive controller that the issue or the one on the motherboard. if it easy to get at the hard drive on that all in one system or in under warranty i have them replace the hard drive.

thx smorizio i will keep that in mind luckily there are some you tube clips of people taking apart this PC but i don't want to risk it.i should send it off to a repair shop. please tell me if there is any other way because i have a work around this problem , however its not ideal. what i do is i keep a virus scan running in the background at all times so that then the hard drive keeps on working and never stops, but if the virus scan stops which it will at one point, the hard drive slows down and i have to wait for 5-10 mins.
if only there is a program which stresses the hard drive in the background whilst not stressing it too much so that then it slows down my entire system.pls tell me if u know of any program which can do this.