Is my Hard drive failing?

[JJ Webby]

- My computer occasionally starts without drivers and some programs don't work.

- The computer restarts when doing some hard drive related things.

- Makes a weird drilling noise and freezes, restarting the computer (Drilling noise seems to be coming for speakers).

I've made this thread because I was looking through my screen savers as I was bored. I came across the Avast one and found that it does scans while on the screen saver. I looked on the preview and found that the hard drive was making a more intense noise as it should then all of a sudden the whole thing just died.

So is my hard drive really failing?

[Oppy]

Yes.

[1solidsnake2]

Download the diagnostic software from the manufacturer's website.

[Dizzymagoo]

you can run a chkdsk on your harddrive and that will be a good indicator

[Zeke129]

I'd be scrambling to make backups before running any kind of diagnostic software as that'll just wear the drive down more.

[JJ Webby]

Is there any way of copying the whole drive and putting it onto another? I was thinking of getting another Spinpoint f3 for backups anyway then send the broken one in.

So can it be done?

[1solidsnake2]

Yes, it's called drive imaging.

CloneZilla is a free utility which can do this.

[JJ Webby]

Would this also copy the OS? or do I have to manually reinstall it?

[editline]06:27PM[/editline]

I used an upgrade disk that requires another Windows OS to be present, it would make things much easier.

[1solidsnake2]

[QUOTE=JJ Webby;22661736]Would this also copy the OS? or do I have to manually reinstall it?

[editline]06:27PM[/editline]

I used an upgrade disk that requires another Windows OS to be present, it would make things much easier.[/QUOTE]

It copies everything on the hard drive as is, so yes, it will also copy the OS.

[JJ Webby]

Awesome, thanks for the help guys. Very much appreciated.

[MTMod]

Chill the hard drive. I saw an article somewhere where this guy put his laptop in the fridge and the drive would boot long enough for him to make backups. Sound silly... but I figure it can't hurt anything so why not?

[kybalt]

[QUOTE=MTMod;22680514]Chill the hard drive. I saw an article somewhere where this guy put his laptop in the fridge and the drive would boot long enough for him to make backups. Sound silly... but I figure it can't hurt anything so why not?[/QUOTE]

As long as you keep it free from condensation, then it would be fine.

[Zolofto]

The condensation would put out the entire PC, I would just remove the harddrive, vacuum seal it, and throw it in the freezer. Freezing would be a temporary fix though, since the drive will heat up again.

and a chkdsk C: /f would do some amazing things. (C: would be the drive letter, so if its D:, use that.. etc)