Hard Drive Replacement Questions

Lurch · Post by **Lurch** » Thu May 28, 2015 12:23 pm

Hi,

I hope I posted this is the right spot.

A few days ago my PC began to get unresponsive a few times and I had to shot it off with the on button in order to bring it back. Today, it got that way when I tried to copy some things on facebook.
I have a Dell dual core PC with 2 HDs. I think the main HD may be 4 or 5 years old now, a WD, and it may have been a refurbished one when I got it.

Could this be a sign that my main HD is dying?
I backed up my HD 1 today. If I get a new HD for it, can I transfer Win 7 to the new drive via the WD Elements backup drive?

Thank you very much.

Lurch

RaisinCain · Post by **RaisinCain** » Thu May 28, 2015 2:12 pm

Power the PC on and hit F12 and run the diagnostics. Sure you can as long as it is a WD HDD. If not, PM me.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Thu May 28, 2015 2:34 pm

Windows event viewer also shows disk related errors...often get results there before onboard hardware diags.

If in doubt, hard drives are incredibly cheap, and newer ones are faster and a great way to bring increased performance to a computer, and prolong its life.

Cloning your current drive to a new hard drive is incredibly easy and reliable with the specialized version of Acronis True Image that both Western Digital, and Seagate, offer as a download for free on their websites. You can "slave" your new hard drive to the current computer (swap out SATA connection with optical or second drive...doesn't matter)...install the TI software in Windows..and then clone away. Once done, remove original HDD, relocated new HDD there. Put back whatever drive you used to free up connection for new HDD in destination mode.

Lurch · Post by **Lurch** » Thu May 28, 2015 3:57 pm

Thanks a lot for this info.
I'll see what I can do now and will get a new HD just in case I need it.

Lurch · Post by **Lurch** » Thu May 28, 2015 4:04 pm

So, my WD Elements external drive I can put my files on a new HD with that?

Lurch · Post by **Lurch** » Thu May 28, 2015 5:17 pm

Both drives passed.
Looking for event viewer now.

Lurch · Post by **Lurch** » Fri May 29, 2015 8:30 am

Hi -

My 2 drives passed the test.

I ran Defraggler on them both and I think it's been a good 2 or 3 months since I have. PC now seems to run better.
Do you think this means my HDs are OK to keep running?

Lurch · Post by **Lurch** » Fri May 29, 2015 8:54 am

On Pirifom Defraggler, it doesn't seem to defrag as good as it used to.
On drive 0, when I started out, I had :

842 Fragmented Files (9.8 GB)
4,439 total fragments
23% fragmentation
After defragging, I had :

10 fragmented files
55 total fragments
20% fragmentation

Lurch · Post by **Lurch** » Fri May 29, 2015 8:57 am

On my spare drive I had before defragging :

51 fragmented files (57.0 GB)
4.956 total fragments
69% fragmentation

After Defraggler, I had :

4 fragmented files (56.2 GB)
115 total fragments
53% fragmentation

Do these sound OK?
Defragging used to remove a lot more, or even all fragments if I remember right, but that may have been with smaller HDs.

Post by **Philip** » Sun May 31, 2015 1:14 pm

You can turn off "indexing" from the drive properties in Explorer to speed it up a bit as well.
Degragging used to show more info in older OSes, it is usually set on schedule in Windows 7.. Do "Start > Search > Disk Defragmenter" and look a the schedule.
Installing SSD for the OS drive is a great idea as well, if you want to make sure you have a "solid" drive

But your PC just hanging could be other things like RAM, not necessarily only the HD.