Earlier today, my Windows 7 Professional HP Pavilion DM1Z 3200 automatically installed some updates. I postponed the reboot since I was using the computer occasionally to write some notes for a book I am reading. When i woke it from sleeping (after having already used it for a while a couple hours prior), the HDD activity light on the side was solid, the computer was locked up, and the hard drive was making a rhythmic vibrating/clacking sound quietly. I tried to reboot the computer, but that was nearly impossible because the whole thing was just unresponsive. I did a force shutdown, boot back into windows (the booting took a while because the HDD was doing the exact same thing), and started running a Malwarebytes full scan to make sure it wasn't a virus. During this time, the HDD was still misbehaving, so this process of getting the scan started took a while. Once it started, I let it run for a bit and checked out Resource Monitor, which showed the HDD "Highest activity time" constantly at 100%, and I'm not seeing any obvious signs of why it might be doing that. At random times, the activity will suddenly drop from 100% to normal (I think), which is like 40%-70% while that scan was running. Then, it bumps back up to 100. Note that although it is random for the activity to decrease, it is very rare and only lasts for a few minutes.
I let the scan run for nearly 5 hours, but it simply was not making much progress with the HDD using all its resources on whatever else is screwing with me. It had almost finished and had found nothing, so I was confident that it was not a virus.
No idea what to do. Can anyone help? This happened like once before about 3 weeks ago (got the computer about 4 weeks ago used), and I think it always seems to be around the time that Windows asks me to reboot because it needs to install updates. Last time, it just sort of went away by itself. Now that i know it is reoccurring, I'd like some advice. The computer has worked fine whenever it wasn't doing this.
The HDD is a 160GB Hitachi drive.
Last thing. I tried running a disk check when this happened the last time. When I did, it got to stage 4 (where it, I think, goes through all the files on the disk) and got hung up on one file and just sat there for hours, never making any more progress. During this time, I'm pretty sure the activity light was solid, and I AM sure that it was making that same rhythmic noise that it always makes when it gets stuck at 100% and locks up. I forced shutdown and rebooted to Windows. I guess I can try it again. I might try running it over night tonight.
ANY HELP IS APPRECIATED! I need this computer for school so I really hope I can get it fixed!
I let the scan run for nearly 5 hours, but it simply was not making much progress with the HDD using all its resources on whatever else is screwing with me. It had almost finished and had found nothing, so I was confident that it was not a virus.
No idea what to do. Can anyone help? This happened like once before about 3 weeks ago (got the computer about 4 weeks ago used), and I think it always seems to be around the time that Windows asks me to reboot because it needs to install updates. Last time, it just sort of went away by itself. Now that i know it is reoccurring, I'd like some advice. The computer has worked fine whenever it wasn't doing this.
The HDD is a 160GB Hitachi drive.
Last thing. I tried running a disk check when this happened the last time. When I did, it got to stage 4 (where it, I think, goes through all the files on the disk) and got hung up on one file and just sat there for hours, never making any more progress. During this time, I'm pretty sure the activity light was solid, and I AM sure that it was making that same rhythmic noise that it always makes when it gets stuck at 100% and locks up. I forced shutdown and rebooted to Windows. I guess I can try it again. I might try running it over night tonight.
ANY HELP IS APPRECIATED! I need this computer for school so I really hope I can get it fixed!