Why is my computer so slow? Hard drive failure?

[wizkid6959]

My laptop recently crashed. I rebooted it back up and it worked fine for a bit. But now when I turn it, it is so slow to load up windows. When I sign on to my user account, it takes around 10 minutes to fully load my desktop. Is this because my hard drive is failing? Is there any other possible cause for this? I had my hard drive failed about 6 months ago and that one lasted for 2 years. It's kind of weird that the hard drive would fail so quickly, so I am suspiciously it could be another cause. This laptop is 3+ years old. .

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there wizkid6959,

The most probable reason for your computer being/booting slow is a hard drive issue. I would advise you to check out what brand is your HDD and test it with brand specific testing tool. This will show you the overall health status of the drive.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[wizkid6959]

Hi there wizkid6959,

The most probable reason for your computer being/booting slow is a hard drive issue. I would advise you to check out what brand is your HDD and test it with brand specific testing tool. This will show you the overall health status of the drive.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

Thank you for your reply. I downloaded WD lifeguard diagnostic program and ran the test for my hard drive. However, the results showed that my hard drive was fine, but my computer is still slow.

 

[D_Know_WD]

You can one again troubleshooting the hard drive with the Windows error checking option. Keep in mind that this may make the data on bad sectors(if any) unrecoverable.
Apart from that, here are the most common causes of slow OS booting: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001131.htm

Windows error checking: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/check-your-hard-disk-for-errors

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[wizkid6959]

I am still unsure if my hard drive is bad. All the tests says it is fine, but my computer is so slow. It takes about 5 minutes to load windows, and everytime I open up a program it takes about a minute to open up. I believe that this is due to hard drive issues? When I check resource monitor, my disk utliziation is 100% most of the time while my CPU usage is below 5% and RAM is around 60%.

I also read that link and it says that you should have at least 250gb free or it may slow it down. I have only 220gb free, but I don't think it should slow down my computer that considerably like it is now. Am I correct? I don't want to buy a new hard drive unless I am absolutely sure it is a hard drive problem. I also saw on that link that I can format my disk. If I back up all my files, format the drive, and reinstall everything, Should it work fast again? If it is still slow, does that mean that the hard drive is failing?

Edit: Also I don't know if this is related, but my laptop battery has been dieing more quickly now. I use to be able to use it for 2-3 hours before charging. Now it lasts for only 30 minutes - 1 hour. This might be due to the high disk usage?

 

[D_Know_WD]

Slow booting issues are most of the times related to hard drives. In order to check out this is the case(or rule out the hard drive as a possible cause), you can just back up all the files and format the drive.
Regarding your second question, I think that your laptop's battery lasts less due to its age but not the HDD usage.
Apart from that, what is your Windows version?

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[wizkid6959]

I am running windows 7 64 bit.

I will format my drive and see if that works. If not, I will have to buy new hard drive. Weird that it passes all the diagnostic testings, yet still seems to be failing.

 

[kenrivers]

Have you checked to see what might be running in the background? Have you checked to see what is running at Startup? What Processes with Disk Activity are showing under the Disk tab in Resource Monitor?

 

[Helious]

Sounds to me like you're being raped by a virus/malware.

As kenrivers said, check Task Manager and Resource Monitor and it should become obvious, very quickly.

edit: derp, i need to read thoroughly before commenting. At any rate, your symptoms are screaming infection and LOL @ needing 250GB free space. I have 6 physical discs in my machine and they're all 95% full and everything is running absolutely fine.

Malwarebytes
Spybot S&D

Could do a "msconfig" via Run/Search and tick the box under the General tab that says "Diagnostic startup" - would be interesting to see how your pc performs under that startup regiment

 

[wizkid6959]

Thanks for all the replies and advice.

Have you checked to see what might be running in the background? Have you checked to see what is running at Startup? What Processes with Disk Activity are showing under the Disk tab in Resource Monitor?

When I ran resource monitor, the sources that utilized most of the disk usage was System, svchost.exe, sppsvc.exe, and firefox.exe

This all started when my computer suddenly crashed and a blue screen appeared stating that there was a hard drive error and that was the reason why it crashed. Ever since then, my computer was so slow to boot up.

I think I got it to run better now. I defragged my hard drive (it was 7% fragmented) and it seems to improve the speed. It used to take about 5-10 minutes to fully load windows when I logged into my user account. Now after the defrag, it takes about 1 minute. It is still slower, but not as slow as before and a bit more tolerable.

I didn't reformat my drive yet. Do you think doing that will help it speed up more?

 

[kenrivers]

That all depends on whether or not there is an actual problem with the hard drive. Have you run any diagnostics on the drive? If yes, what are the results?