I'm thinking the boot drive in my computer is failing, so i figured I'd make a post here real quick just to be sure
PC specs real quick----
windows 7 Intel core 2 quad Q9450, O.C. to 3GHz
4GB of ram Geforce GTX 260
all SATA HDDs 3 HDDs total, C being the smallest and oldest
750 watt PSU ASUS formula rampage MOBO
My computer suddenly became much slower this morning and quickly became much slower throughout the day, while i was trying to find the problem. I first noticed that the hard drive was always in use, even while idling. no programs running, no updates going, the programs in the task bar doing background tasks. I have NOD32 antivirus and it had not reported anything yet. so used msconfig.exe to stop all startup programs and restart. still slower. uninstalled many programs that i've temporary stopped using. still slower. checked to see what was using the hard drive using resource monitor, mostly windows programs at the top of the list. noticed that only C drive was being active.
I've opened up the case, and i don't hear any unusual noises from the HDDs, if anything the HDDs don't seem to be making much noise at all compared to what the HDD light on the case is doing. programs were taking a long time to startup from boot. taking may minutes to appear on screen. examples: firefox, google chrome, minecraft, all took a long time to start.
I've booted my computer into safe mode now, which took more than 10 minutes to do, finally started coping important files off the C drive in hopes the HDD doesn't crash too soon. It's taking a very long time to copy the data. The computer is responding very slowly. I feel like I'm using an old windows xp computer that only has a 20GB hard drive and no space left. I'm currently on my much older laptop. because I can't get my computer to do much of anything. The hard drive has calmed down a bit in safe mode after quite a long time.
The hard drive in particular is a seagate 320GB sata drive. I've had it for about 5 years or more now. I'm almost possitive its the drive now, if so is there anyway to speed up the back up process, im almost afraid to shut it down now. I have a slightly older backup, but i don't want to what files that still need to be backed up, that cannot be recovered. some photos, videos, documents. those documents are on the failing drive, which is also the boot drive.
I have an older computer at my disposal with a windows xp on it.
Do you think i should throw the drive in there and backup the data using that computer instead?
