How long will a Harddrive last, and is mine about to bite the dust?

WutWuzDat · 09-23-06, 09:35 PM

Okay all you Hardware-Savvy subbers....

I have 2 HHDs on my system. On is a WD 40 Gig Main (Win XP home SP2), and the other is a WD 80 Gig. I've had the 40 gig and used it as my main for about 3 or so years (IIRC), and the 80gig for about 6 months.

So anyway, I noticed things were starting to bog down a bit, so I desided it was time for a reformat (It had been over a year... way over due for one). This made matters even worse. Well, I thought maybe I screwed something up, so I reinstall again. Still no help.

The HHD access light is on about 75% of the time the system is running.

For example, if I click on a MP3, it takes Windows media player or Real Player about 2-3min to load. Now I ran some "tests" by opening the Ctrl-Alt-Del windows task manager (and it took about 2 mins to load just now) and looking at the CPU usasge. It's very low (2-5%) while the media player is loading. So I really don't think it's a software problem. FF and other programs seem to take forever to load. But, once it's in the RAM, it runs smooth. If I open a playlist, it runs smooth once the player has loaded. Once FF loads, I can browse the net just fine.

I ran the Disk checker thingy and it didn't help any. I also checked defrag and it said it didn't need to do it.

I haven't had it corrupt any files or anything (yet).

I run ZA Pro, Spybot, Ad-Aware, and Avast. All clean.

I'm thinking of getting a 350 gig and using the 80 for the main. but do ya'll think that will fix my problem?

09-23-06, 09:35 PM	#1
WutWuzDat Planesman Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: I can't remember... In front of a PC? Posts: 185 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	How long will a Harddrive last, and is mine about to bite the dust? Okay all you Hardware-Savvy subbers.... I have 2 HHDs on my system. On is a WD 40 Gig Main (Win XP home SP2), and the other is a WD 80 Gig. I've had the 40 gig and used it as my main for about 3 or so years (IIRC), and the 80gig for about 6 months. So anyway, I noticed things were starting to bog down a bit, so I desided it was time for a reformat (It had been over a year... way over due for one). This made matters even worse. Well, I thought maybe I screwed something up, so I reinstall again. Still no help. The HHD access light is on about 75% of the time the system is running. For example, if I click on a MP3, it takes Windows media player or Real Player about 2-3min to load. Now I ran some "tests" by opening the Ctrl-Alt-Del windows task manager (and it took about 2 mins to load just now) and looking at the CPU usasge. It's very low (2-5%) while the media player is loading. So I really don't think it's a software problem. FF and other programs seem to take forever to load. But, once it's in the RAM, it runs smooth. If I open a playlist, it runs smooth once the player has loaded. Once FF loads, I can browse the net just fine. I ran the Disk checker thingy and it didn't help any. I also checked defrag and it said it didn't need to do it. I haven't had it corrupt any files or anything (yet). I run ZA Pro, Spybot, Ad-Aware, and Avast. All clean. I'm thinking of getting a 350 gig and using the 80 for the main. but do ya'll think that will fix my problem? __________________ - Adam ©1988 - 2008. All rights reserved. Life is like a roll of toliet paper, the older you get, the faster it goes!