Hard Drive Problem?

[iPoke]

Well I bought a laptop and it is a Toshiba S55-B5280, the laptop was a display model but it was almost like new since it did not had anything wrong (that I could see).
Then after I reformat it and installed Windows 8.1 again and I test it out everything was working great but as soon as i put my files from my other laptop it got super slow (I could not even open paint because it would take minutes to open it.
After getting frustrated and feel like if I got ripped off I delete all my files and the computer began to work fine again. So here is my question. Was that a hard drive problem?
Because I deleted everything and installed Windows 8.1 for the second time and it worked great but after I downloaded a bunch of my steam games on the laptop it got super slow again.
(The second time I did not put any of my old laptop files on the new laptop).

Also, is there a way to test out another hard drive as if it was the internal one to see if it works and identify if that is the problem?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH community, iPoke!

If it worked okay after the clean install, it's most probably a software-related issue. I do understand your hardware concerns, though. There are numerous HDD diagnostic tools you can use to monitor your hard drive's health and SMART status. However, it's highly recommended to turn to the HDD manufacturer's website for their brand-specific testing tool.

If the HDD tools show concerning results about your drive's health, I'd advise you to contact the laptop manufacturer's customer support. Since the notebook is relatively new, you should be able to RMA it and get a hardware replacement from them.

Keep me posted with the SMART results & good luck!
SuperSoph_WD