Possible HD failure?

When I started using my laptop a few hours ago, I noticed it was kind of sluggish, where some applications that run fast take time to load, and another issue that songs sometimes skipped for several seconds while I was listening to them.

Since I had used it previously this afternoon with no issues, I assumed that something was wrong with the hardware. I did recall installing Visual Studio, Pidgin and Left 4 Dead on my laptop the previous day, but it worked fine with no problems at all until recently.

So I decided to see if there was something wrong with my hard disk, and firstly I ran a tool that was provided by Asus along with my laptop:

Shot at 2009-12-07

Somehow I wasn't satisfied, so I launched SpeedFan to see if nothing is wrong.

And I found this:

Shot at 2009-12-07

Well, naturally I was shocked when I saw the fitness bar completely empty, and when I tested it again, it came out with this:

Shot at 2009-12-07

just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.

Out of curiosity, I checked the "Exotics" tab and I found this:

Shot at 2009-12-07

I decided to reboot it, and then, when I ran it back, it came out with the same results, the first time SpeedFan says there's no error but the second time it also came back with read failure.

Does this mean that my laptop hard disk is dying now? Or did SpeedFan neglect certain features in my hard disk that made it came to the conclusion?

I'm a bit panicky now since I've been using it mainly for schoolwork and for coding and gaming, and although I've recently backed up, it still seems quite an effort to do it again.

I can get the retailer I bought it from to replace it, I just bought it with a two-year warranty with proof of purchase, but I do feel kind of ripped off atm.

Have you tried using a boot disk and running tests to see whether it works fine? If it does your hard drive may possibly have corrupt data on it and a reformat may solve the problem. I had a similar problem with an old laptop that I currently use for programming, and reformatting helped it (at least for a year or so and then it died again and I had to buy a new hard drive). But anyway, best to be as sure as you can be of the source of the problem before investing time into a solution.

That's a Seagate Momentus drive you have. Download SeaTools from seagate's site, Run the test, it will repair any bad sectors and check the drive head and consistency. I don't think so but check if there is a firmware update for that drive also.

Yep I agree with above. Also be aware that most computers do come with an onboard diagnosis and can be access by entering the boot menu at start.

Assuming you are running windows, goto run > cmd > and at the prompt type sfc.exe /scannow This will check for any bad sectors/errors at the hard drive.

Also under My Computer > C:\ right click to properties and go to tools and select Check Now under Error-checking. Be sure to select both boxes.

The proper command is sfc /scannow and it does not check the hard drive for errors it only checks for errors in windows protected files as does error checking. To test the drive integrity itself run the tools I mentioned.

In most cases if System File Check which checks for system file errors finds something, it will take care of your blue screen of death. Besides malware, RAM is the most common cause of BSoD. Make sure to update Malwarebytes and do a complete scan. At work I have Mcaffee Enterprice 10.01 installed, and viruses still get through. Not till I do a full scan with Malwarebytes with when Mcafee kicks in. If it is a harddrive error the blue screen should somewhat say so. or It will say something like memdump..

?Did I miss something the OP never mentioned anything about a BSOD.

He didn't, And the old wives tale about ram being the cause of BSOD is crap. The most common problem is 3rd party drivers. In all the boxes I've fixed over the years I think maybe a dozen had ram issues.

lol, i guess it did. I will bet you $100 that if you run System mechanic, from iolo.com, it will make your laptop work crazy fast. Try it. I am not joking it really works.

If you install a third party driver and get a blue screen of death. I means the driver is trying to access a memory location that it's not suppose to

Fuser's sleeping now, but I talked to him on msn before he left. Here's some more details in case anybody here has any more ideas: He's dual booting Windows XP and Fedora. He hasn't yet tried safe mode or booting into fedora or a live disk. He also hasn't tried a virus scan. He said chkdsk didn't find any bad sectors.

I suggested he boot into his other partition first to see if it still has problems.

I would have assumed he did the basics but run a virus and malware scan that should be the first thing you do in any situation like this.I'd be curious to see how fedora runs though.

alright guys, the first thing I did today after waking up was to actually do what ynori suggested, so I decided to run Fedora first, and even in Fedora it lagged after 5 minutes of use, and I couldn't even play music (which I stored in the Windows partition), so I thought it was a lost cause.

Then I went to college, and when I got back I decided to start XP under safe mode, and then run MalwareBytes and AVG from there. MalwareBytes managed to pick up some sort of Malware, while AVG didn't find anything.

The results:

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.42 Database version: 3303 Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 (Safe Mode) Internet Explorer 6.0.2900.2180

12/8/2009 7:48:26 PM mbam-log-2009-12-08 (19-48-19).txt

Scan type: Full Scan (C:\|) Objects scanned: 206167 Time elapsed: 1 hour(s), 19 minute(s), 13 second(s)

Memory Processes Infected: 0 Memory Modules Infected: 0 Registry Keys Infected: 0 Registry Values Infected: 0 Registry Data Items Infected: 0 Folders Infected: 0 Files Infected: 1

Memory Processes Infected: (No malicious items detected)

Memory Modules Infected: (No malicious items detected)

Registry Keys Infected: (No malicious items detected)

Registry Values Infected: (No malicious items detected)

Registry Data Items Infected: (No malicious items detected)

Folders Infected: (No malicious items detected)

Files Infected: C:\Games\Counter-Strike\platform\Admin\AdminServer.dll (Malware.Packer) -> No action taken.

Then I restarted my laptop, and I decided to boot to Fedora first, and to my surprise it ran smoothly like before. Still on the cautious side, I decided to boot to Windows, and much to my own surprise, it was running smoothly like before, and I can use it as long as I like, playing games (resource-intensive ones, not lightweight ones) without a hitch.

This is pretty weird, since firstly, I've never heard of a malware that can affect both Windows and Linux partitions at the same time.

BTW, when I ran SpeedFan, it still showed the same "No Errors" result, but the Fitness bar was still zero. I should point out, though, when I re-ran it, it still produced a "No Errors" result, so can that be considered an improvement?

Should I give SeaTools a try, and maybe update the firmware as well? Would it help?

Cross-OS? Hardware. Laptop? Overheating.

fuser Stated:
Then I restarted my laptop, and I decided to boot to Fedora first, and to my surprise it ran smoothly like before. Still on the cautious side, I decided to boot to Windows, and much to my own surprise, it was running smoothly like before, and I can use it as long as I like, playing games (resource-intensive ones, not lightweight ones) without a hitch.

Even though it's running fine now it wouldn't hurt to run Seatools on that drive. Those Momentus drives don't have a good track record for being reliable. I don't see a firmware update for the ST9320 series. So just run the Seatools for dos (bootable) just to be safe.

ran Belarc Advisor as well today, and I found this:

also there's a Windows version of the SeaTools, can I try that instead of the DOS version?

And if I choose the DOS version, what are the type of tests would you recommend I should try?

sorry if I sound like an idiot, I'm not used to doing my own hardware tests, so I'm a bit apprehensive on trying it out.

and maug, I didn't download Visual Studio from a torrent site, I just downloaded VB 2008, and since it's part of Visual Studio, I just said that I downloaded Visual Studio to save face.

It's always best to run any hardware tools in dos mode. You don't want windows (OS) or any programs running to give false results, You just need the bare minimum. When you run the test you'll have the options of a short test, long test or acoustics. Run the long test (It will take a while) to get the best results. If any errors show up you'll have the option to repair them. Don't bother with the acoustics test that's more for drive noises. Seatools can be run on any type of drive also not just seagates.

Just to hit on laptops and heat, most of the problems I get are dirt and lint build up in the heatsinks. Most of the time the laptops shutdown to avoid damage, But I've seen quite a few that melted the plastic around the heat pipes. It's always best to tear it down once a year and clean the fans, heat sink and blow it out with air. I have a DOA aspire 5520 right now that fried the graphics right out of it.

@maug > A very long time. ;)

I ran SeaTools last night, didn't take as long as I expected, only half an hour, and it did find a lot of bad sectors and fixed it. I couldn't save the log, since I didn't remember the drive letter used for my pen drive, and I don't have a floppy disk drive handy.

What I managed to write down:

SeaTools Test Code: A2E1D158 SMART Supported And Enabled SMART Has Not Been Tripped DST Is Supported Logging Feature Set Is Supported POH 193 Current Temperature 27

Standard Log Test 12/10/2009 @ 2:38.43 5VD0XMKM.log DST Completed without error Short DST Passed 12/10/2009 @ 3:02.44 DST Completed Without Error Short DST Passed Without Error @ 3:02.25 Long Test Passed After Repair 12/10/2009 @ 3:04.25

So I take it everything's fine now. thanks to all who posted in this topic for your help, except for regedit whose posts simply didn't make any sense whatsoever.

what makes you say that it might be a physical problem? I do hope you're being theoretical, not for real.

and thanks for the tip. I did recall one odd quirk XP has on my laptop though: after I had installed XP, I installed the drivers, utilities as well as XP hotfixes provided by Asus themselves, and it couldn't shut down properly. (During installation, it restarts normally)

When I ask it to shutdown, it just shows "Windows is shutting down" for a long time until I press the power button, before I discovered that if I initiated the shutdown sequence, and then close my laptop screen, it'll shutdown properly. Fedora doesn't even have this problem, it shutdowns immediately when I told it to.

Funny, my old laptop wouldn't shutdown if I closed the screen during shutdown sequence, now it couldn't shutdown when the screen is opened.

And no, my laptop doesn't have 173 gigs of storage, Belarc only read the XP partition of my laptop. I have around 320 gigs of storage, so I made a partition for Fedora as well. The remaining free space, is that after I installed XP, I installed the utilities and fixes Asus gave with the laptop (which are pretty good) and then I installed OOo, lots of games and VB, applications as well as music and some movies.

maug wrote: One way that you can tell if a drive is refurbished (means it failed the physical testing, was dusted off, and put back on the shelf), is that it will have an odd amount of storage space. Luckily, it sounds like it's just windows being windows ;)

Periodically back up your data (not RAID, an external something or other) and keep a repair disk around incase it manages to corrupt any system files.

Thanks for that info. Now I'll know if I've been ripped off. Just a question though: how am I gonna RAID a laptop HD? I have saved most of my files on DVD, although I am now considering online storage since I heard its more efficient. And I usually keep the XP disk with me at all times, it helps me in repairing my system files, although now with the SeaTools ISO as well, I guess I'm good.

fuser Stated:
I ran SeaTools last night, didn't take as long as I expected, only half an hour, and it did find a lot of bad sectors and fixed it.

If seatools found bad sectors and repaired them this is just a fix for now. It may last a week it may last a year it's hard to say but inevitably your going to need to replace it or send it back. If you want a damn good drive to replace it with, I suggest the Hitachi Travelstar HD20500, nice drive but pricey, Right about $110.00. I've had many drives I've fixed with Seatools to recover data but in the long run they fail again.

aww crud. the moment something good happens to me something bad invariably happens.

Thanks for the heads-up, but I should point out to you that my laptop's main weakness is that I can't upgrade my HD, so I can't use the HD you mentioned, the best I can do is to go to my retailer and demand a new replacement.

The good part about this is that I have a two-year warranty, so I'm good. The bad part is that I'm now quite attached to it, but oh well. Shit always happens to me all the time, that Murphy's Law isn't just a hardcore band, it's also an integral part of my life.

I'm also thinking of using DropBox or MediaFire to upload some of my files that are not on external devices. Does anyone here use DropBox?