You should backup all your important data and be prepared to change the harddrive. You can run this diagnostic. It will give you a good picture of the harddrive. If it's a grinding noise, it sounds like a bearing is going bad.
Run hard drive diagnostics: tacktech.com
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: imgburn to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.
For Toshiba hard drives, see here:
Note : If you do not know how to set your computer to boot from CD follow the steps here
OK, I a bit confused with my options and if I did this right.
1) How do I know who made my harddrive? I thought I had a WDD, so I clicked on Western Digital. However, when I downloaded and ran it showed:
TOSHIBIA M3252GSK (IDE) capacity 320 GB.
On my computer, c drive it says I have 290 GB of memory.
So is the Toshibia my hard drive?
2) If it's a WDD or a Toshiba, which program should I click to install and run since each option has tons!
3) When I clicked "Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows v1.24 (July 2011)" I downloaded it, ran the short scan and it passed.
Should I run the long scan?
I never was asked anything on booting a CD?
Unrelated:
4) When I used my PC today GMAIL and Twitter where quite slow.
5) I have a cooling fan accessory board, would hooking that up to my PC help?
