going, going gone..

[sherpadog]

had a 20 gig seagate baraccuda HD that i gave to my sis samtime ago. i happend to use her pc just recently and found out the drive i gave her seemd to be very 'slow' already. do harddrives go slow over time?

 

[lunitic]

The drive is probably dying!!! A drive which is becoming very slow is often a symptom of a dying drive.
Actually you're quite lucky you are still capable of accessing the drive, oftentimes the fails completely.

First thing to do: back up your drive.
Then switch your computer off, run to the store, and buy a new HDD.

Actually, it is quite possible that you have another problem. The drive may be fragmented. Virusses, ad-ware and spyware may cause your system to slow down. Windows itself may become slow (depends on the version).
You can download a test utility from the drive manufacturer website to test your drive. If it shows errors your drive may die any moment.

 

[smitbret]

Check and see if it is in PIO mode instead of DMA mode. I had a 20gig Seagate Barracuda that had that problem. No matter what I did, I couldn't get it back into DMA mode. Finally had Seagate replace it under warranty. Sounds similar.
-Brettster