computer geeks i need help with finding out if my hard drive is about to fail? - Page 2

My hard drive (toshiba hdd 5400 rpm) has the same problem. Except it survived long past it's "due date". I've also put it through an electromagnet and it still works, dropped it, still works. Unless the drive itself is defective, trust your instincts. Normally, I listen for hard drive noise. The hard drive noise is the easiest way to diagnose if your drive is going to fail. If it always goes like "kekekeke" like the drive is stopping, then i suggest you swap it out. I used Norton Ghost to pass on the information onto my new hard drive and it works fine. The old hard drive still works. I just need to reformat it because somebody decided to view porn on my computer and got my computer infected.

Get ready to get "ghosting" programs. I normally ghost my drive once every day to make sure if i lose my computer, i can just as easily start again. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by crayonhead 

My hard drive (toshiba hdd 5400 rpm) has the same problem. Except it survived long past it's "due date". I've also put it through an electromagnet and it still works, dropped it, still works. Unless the drive itself is defective, trust your instincts. Normally, I listen for hard drive noise. The hard drive noise is the easiest way to diagnose if your drive is going to fail. If it always goes like "kekekeke" like the drive is stopping, then i suggest you swap it out.

It's not a "due date" that sentinel or similar programs are actually giving you.  It's an evaluation of the SMART information your drive is storing based on it's own self tests and problems it runs into (such as bad sectors,  just as an example).  If you're hearing a sound it certainly is a precursor of death since it means you have a very serious mechanical problem (misalignment) of either the head or one of the platters,  but there are more than one way for a HDD to give out on you.  I mean no offense,  but you're suggesting something similar to "my car isn't backfiring; there must not be a problem".

The drive most likely will continue working for an undetermined amount of time,  but trusting it with data you value (and that is not replaceable) would be a rather poor decision, as paying a professional to recover said data would cost well over 10 times that of a new hard drive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcasey25raptor 

i haven't experienced any reading problems or corrupt files and my computer is still relatively fast. is this normal? i always thought reallocated sectors caused system slow down.

They don't necessarily slow anything down at all.  But it might just fail suddenly in the future when too many sectors get reallocated or if a mechanical problem gets really bad.  If you can afford to, buy an external hard drive and back everything up.

True.

I normally just listen for mechanical problems every once in a while. It also really depends on how old your computer is. Some hard drives just fail out of the blue. If you search around google, they have statistics on how much hard drives fail. Depending on your model and brand, it may be anytime. I just constantly update my backup system and not my computer, which means i'm still running with a 1.6 ghz pentium solo.