IT Advice needed

[Trancendental]

Some of you may be aware that my Hard Drive is dying, dying as we speak soon to cut out and leave me computerless untill the new one arrives in the post.

Problem is I'm not sure its the Hard Drive anymore.

My Doubts came when I disconnected from the Internet and all the ticks, tocks, scraps and beeps went away.

I have not had time to test my suspicions fully but when disconnected there is definately an improvment in stability.

Stability is at its poorest when all computers in the house hold are actively using the internet. This computer I am using is the host and shares out the Internet to the other computers.

Could it be that the Hard Drive is being overloaded with request or is running too fast? maybe too hot?

Is there something I can do in Windows or the BIOS to restrict the Hard Drive from trying to kill itself?

When I've finished drying my hair I'm going to look at the other computers in the house to make sure they aint infected with anything which could be contributing to or causing the problem.

Any suggestions would be appreciated

EDIT: Has anyone suffered similar symptoms or had similar a similar experience?

 

[custard]

didnt you try a HD from one of the other pc's?

 

[Trancendental]

didnt you try a HD from one of the other pc's?

Can't do that. 2 of them are Laptops

The other one me lil bro has all his A-Level work on so if it does for some reason go bonkers and fook up then he is fooked and there is no where for him to back it up nor can I leave him without a H-disk while one is ordered in etc

The other disk in this computer has no OS on it and no room to install one either

When the new Disk comes obviously I'll use that but the problem seems strange to say the least.

I thought a Hdisk life would have been much longer then only 4 years. And it died kind of, all of a sudden

 

[ChrisUK]

Ive seen this before and its the first stage of complete hdd faliure, well done on ordering a new disk . Basically it will get more and more unreliable as it uses the rest of its spare sectors until they are all used up then its unusable. It's just done it on my other halfs grandads PC ive just replaced it and reinstalled his OS and all his software for him.

 

[Jai]

When I've finished drying my hair

dont take too long, your HD may be dead by then.....

 

[Trancendental]

Well all the other computers in the house have now been switched off and the chug chug chuggin has gone

I think......

EDIT: Spoke tooooo soon Nah tis still chug chug chuggin. I'm offline for a bit gonna test my theory on if it is Internet Traffic causing the problem, then off to find a Tamper Proof Bit.

 

[rallycinq]

I've has similar symptoms when a stick of ram went gaga. Computer got hot, dry joint (I presume) chucked it. Compuer tried to compensate by using the hard drive as memory until it got a headache.

Cheers

D

 

[Trancendental]

I've has similar symptoms when a stick of ram went gaga. Computer got hot, dry joint (I presume) chucked it. Compuer tried to compensate by using the hard drive as memory until it got a headache.

Time for a Full Ram Check me thinks, been saving time on Boots by enabling Fast Boot. Takes too long to check a gig of ram. I'f im not back in means comp never wanted to turn back on

 

[ArcticBeast]

i would recommend getting a router as well and stop the other computers using yours to connect to the interent as this will be using up resources on your pc making it seem slower.

yes I have suffered those symptons also and have replaced my drives but i didnt do it soon enough and am finding i have lots of corrupted files now which isnt good.

check your drive isnt too full as this can cause it to chug along.

 

[Hellcat]

Yes, a router is a good idea. Provides a hardware firewall too which is always good for protecting you from nasties..

Setting a custom size page file can help speed things along - means the page file won't get spread over a large area of the drive as windows adjusts it.

 

[Trancendental]

If I had maybe looked in Event Viewer earlier Prior to this all the others were:

EVENT 51: An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation.

EVENT 11: The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D.

EVENT 7: The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.


But the final Straw

EVENT 52: The driver has detected that device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 has predicted that it will fail. Immediately back up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent.

 

[ChrisUK]

Exactly what I said but no one listened as usual .

 

[Trancendental]

Exactly what I said but no one listened as usual .

I knew it was the Drive but I thought seeing as I don't have a time limit to inspect it fully and get it repaired/replaced I might as well rule out everything else and to be fair, I haven't lost no Data yet as the drive is still running and I'm using it now (Touches something wood)

I used the Hitatchi Disk Utility and it said 'S.M.A.R.T' Failed, no suprise there but I also found out that I can Disable Smart on the Drive itself

I have one more option after this to fix it... that is to Erase it completely and hope for the best and maybe to dismantle it and spray some WD40 on it.

The new drive should be here by Monday, Tuesday the latest. The computer is actually useable now (Touches something wood) so I'll keep those interested in hardware failures and resolution techniques updated on how not to fook things up and maybe even fix them

 

[4RL]

Time for a Full Ram Check me thinks, been saving time on Boots by enabling Fast Boot. Takes too long to check a gig of ram. I'f im not back in means comp never wanted to turn back on

Use memtest to do a proper test for your ram, burn this iso to cd. Boot and go.
http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.2.iso.zip

If your really sure its just your HD, you could also diagnose around by using a Linux boot disk like Knoppix (theres loads out there now). Could use that until your new HD arrives, only problem would be i-net on a linux bootdisk if your using a usb modem.

 

[4RL]

I have one more option after this to fix it... that is to Erase it completely and hope for the best and maybe to dismantle it and spray some WD40 on it.

Yeah do that, 60% of the time, it works every time.