Question My HDD Died Suddenly.

[HaroldTheUnseen]

My HDD was perfect until yesterday. It was as fast as it can get. But yesterday windows login screen took too long to successfully do its thing. I upgraded my GPU yesterday, i used official AMD driver remover to remove the old driver in safe mode and installed my new geforce driver. I did a lot of benchmarks i dont know if it affects, i also did HDD speed benchmarks cause i used Userbenchmark a couple of times. I dont know what triggered this but my HDD is 1/3 slower now compared to 1 week before. I checked if i did any windows updates (i remember windows told me that there were a few windows updates but i was removing my driver then so i didnt care about that too much and started my system in safe mod anyway) but there were no major updates. I checked Defrag to see if my HDD is okay and Defrag stats were perfect. I downloaded Seagate Tools (i have seagate barracuda) and checked if something is wrong with my HDD. Did SMART scan, and some more HDD scans in that program. Nothing seems wrong. My HDD just passed all of tests, i really dont understand whats wrong. Im downloaded win10 2004 update and its installing now (which is taking forever) im kinda scared update wont be succesfull.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, drives die.
Sometimes suddenly.

Often, there is no fix.

This is why proactive backups are essential.

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

Yes, drives die.
Sometimes suddenly.

Often, there is no fix.

This is why proactive backups are essential.

But none of the tests tells that something is wrong ? I dont know do you have any other way to know if drive is dead ?

 

[USAFRet]

What are the full specs of this system?

 

[mdd1963]

If it were a driver/OS/application-caused glitch, adopting a (hopefully enabled and available!) restore point from 2 days back might 'fix' it...

If the drive is failing, it will still be slow even during/after the rollback...

On the positive side, every one should be using an SSD for the OS drive anyway, and they are fairly inexpensive in 500 and 1000 GB sizes... right?

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

What are the full specs of this system?

GTX 1650 SUPER
Ryzen 3 1200 (soon upgrading)
MSI A320M
8 GB 2666 MHz Ram (Single slot)

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

If it were a driver/OS/application-caused glitch, adopting a (hopefully enabled and available!) restore point from 2 days back might 'fix' it...

If the drive is failing, it will still be slow even during/after the rollback...

On the positive side, every one should be using an SSD for the OS drive anyway, and they are fairly inexpensive in 500 and 1000 GB sizes... right?

I had to format my PC a couple of times last year and my biggest fear is now that some day im gonna have to format again. I cant do that. I created a restore point before i removed my old drive should i use it? Im going to have to remove it, download the new driver and install it which is takes some time.

 

[USAFRet]

"full specs" would include whatever drives are in this.

 

[USAFRet]

I had to format my PC a couple of times last year and my biggest fear is now that some day im gonna have to format again. I cant do that. I created a restore point before i removed my old drive should i use it? Im going to have to remove it, download the new driver and install it which is takes some time.

Why did you have to "format" last year?
Why would you have to "format again"?

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

Why did you have to "format" last year?
Why would you have to "format again"?

I had to format it last year cause of a virus problem i dont have to format it now of course but if my HDD dies i have to buy SSD which is a clean windows install and that is equals to format for me.

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

"full specs" would include whatever drives are in this.

Im really not experienced in HDD terms. Could you please explain it better?

 

[USAFRet]

I had to format it last year cause of a virus problem i dont have to format it now of course but if my HDD dies i have to buy SSD which is a clean windows install and that is equals to format for me.

And this is what proactive backups are for.

A bad virus? Click click, recover from a couple of days ago, before the infection.
Dead drive? Same thing.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[USAFRet]

Im really not experienced in HDD terms. Could you please explain it better?

Which drive? Make/model.
More than one?

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

Which drive? Make/model.
More than one?

Nope a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM HDD

 

[USAFRet]

OK.
Wait until the 2004 update finishes, and see what happens.

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

OK.
Wait until the 2004 update finishes, and see what happens.

After the major Windows Update its gonna take even longer to restore the system from restore point should i consider doing restore to see if something is wrong with software?

 

[USAFRet]

After the major Windows Update its gonna take even longer to restore the system from restore point should i consider doing restore to see if something is wrong with software?

You can't create a new Restore point midstream.
And generally, the semi-annual big updates wipe out previous Restore Points.

This is why I do NOT rely on those.

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

You can't create a new Restore point midstream.
And generally, the semi-annual big updates wipe out previous Restore Points.

This is why I do NOT rely on those.

I created restore point like, 4 days ago shouldn't i use that?

 

[USAFRet]

I created restore point like, 4 days ago shouldn't i use that?

If there are problems, and if that still exists after this OS update, then maybe.

 

[USAFRet]

But a Restore Point does not fix bad hardware.

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

But a Restore Point does not fix bad hardware.

I checked for problems in my disk via Windows's scanner, I checked for both C: and D: it could not find any problems. Is that possible that even if both Windows and Seagate Tool couldn't find any problems but my HDD is still dying?

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

But a Restore Point does not fix bad hardware.

I'm kinda scared to update the Windows since it took extremely long in Windows Update and I think that may apply to update itself too.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm kinda scared to update the Windows since it took extremely long in Windows Update and I think that may apply to update itself too.

So did the whole update finish?

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

So did the whole update finish?

Downloading is finished and preparing for update is almost finished but i stopped it to discuss this matter with the people in this forum. I was writing my messages from my computer all along. So no, i did not finished the Update preparetions because i was scared. If you think updating the windows is a good idea im just gonna continue windows update preparetions.

 

[HaroldTheUnseen]

This means if i restart my pc it wont do the update, i stopped updates for 15 days to stop windows update before i decide that its safe.