Thursday, April 18, 2024 1:59:09 AM
What to do when your hard drive is slow or seems "off"
- Posted: Thursday, May 28, 2020 11:12 AM
- Moderator
- 2
Okay so my hard drive has been slow the last few weeks or more. Nothing too strange about that, but tonight i turn my pc on and i get the message telling me windows can not be found. Is it possible windows missed a fault in my hard drive?
0
- Posted: Thursday, May 28, 2020 11:18 AM
- Moderator
- 2
Drives fail all the time.
This is an interesting service that backblaze provides. It shows the failure rate of the various HD's they use. because they use so many it is helpful to determine failure rates.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2020/
There are a few ways when you can tell if your hard drive is failing.
The most obvious is the smart reporting. Now days most storage devices have SMART reporting. This will tell your computer when things aren't working right and will usually give advance warning before a device fails. These reports are often missed by users, because they are buried in the event log. But if your drive is slow you should check the health of your drive.
Start with the easy stuff. Make sure your drive isn't more then 80%-90% full. Windows uses some of the space on hard drives to help things run better. If your drive is more then 90% full your entire system will suffer a performance hit.
I would use the drive space tool:
This PC > right click on the drive you want to free up space on and click properties. Click on the disk cleanup button. If you don't see the button have an admin login and run a disk cleanup on that drive.
The next step, and you'll have to forgive me here, I'm old school, and like to use the command window. I would open the command window as an administrator and type:
chkdisk /scan
This would check to make sure that your file system hasn't been damaged, and will repair it, or notify you if you need to take additional steps.
After you know you have room on your drive and have confirmed that there are no issues with your file system I'd go ahead and make sure that your hard drive isn't reporting any SMART errors. Open a command window as an administrator and type:
wmic diskdrive get status
Hopefully you see OK, but if not you need to move the data on that drive ASAP!
If none of the above solve your problem, you may have a damaged operating system.
Windows 10 has a built in repair system. Open a command prompt window as an administrator and type:
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
This will take a while, but should repair any damage to your operating files. You should reboot after this completes.
I also check the boot system of computers that get to this point. Open a command prompt and type:
sfc /scannow
again this will take a while. but should repair any damage to your boot files.
if things still aren't working great I'd run a windows 10 self diagnostic. Open a command prompt window as administrator and type:
perfmon /report
This should help you determine any additional issues. Anything other then a pass in the basic system checks is an issue.
If you were still having issues, I'd check the event log, and do a scan with a trusted virus scanner.
Finally if that hadn't cleared up the issue, I'd back up anything I didn't want to lose and do a full system reset.
Hope that provides a little insight. If your drive already isn't responding your options are limited. You can try and boot to safe mode if you can get that far, and try some of the options above.
I would connect it to another computer and check smart reporting and file system structure. If you are checking something other then the system disk the command is: chkdsk <drive letter> /scan. I'd also try a virus scan on the drive with a trusted virus scanner like BitDefender.
This is an interesting service that backblaze provides. It shows the failure rate of the various HD's they use. because they use so many it is helpful to determine failure rates.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2020/
There are a few ways when you can tell if your hard drive is failing.
The most obvious is the smart reporting. Now days most storage devices have SMART reporting. This will tell your computer when things aren't working right and will usually give advance warning before a device fails. These reports are often missed by users, because they are buried in the event log. But if your drive is slow you should check the health of your drive.
Start with the easy stuff. Make sure your drive isn't more then 80%-90% full. Windows uses some of the space on hard drives to help things run better. If your drive is more then 90% full your entire system will suffer a performance hit.
I would use the drive space tool:
This PC > right click on the drive you want to free up space on and click properties. Click on the disk cleanup button. If you don't see the button have an admin login and run a disk cleanup on that drive.
The next step, and you'll have to forgive me here, I'm old school, and like to use the command window. I would open the command window as an administrator and type:
chkdisk /scan
This would check to make sure that your file system hasn't been damaged, and will repair it, or notify you if you need to take additional steps.
After you know you have room on your drive and have confirmed that there are no issues with your file system I'd go ahead and make sure that your hard drive isn't reporting any SMART errors. Open a command window as an administrator and type:
wmic diskdrive get status
Hopefully you see OK, but if not you need to move the data on that drive ASAP!
If none of the above solve your problem, you may have a damaged operating system.
Windows 10 has a built in repair system. Open a command prompt window as an administrator and type:
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
This will take a while, but should repair any damage to your operating files. You should reboot after this completes.
I also check the boot system of computers that get to this point. Open a command prompt and type:
sfc /scannow
again this will take a while. but should repair any damage to your boot files.
if things still aren't working great I'd run a windows 10 self diagnostic. Open a command prompt window as administrator and type:
perfmon /report
This should help you determine any additional issues. Anything other then a pass in the basic system checks is an issue.
If you were still having issues, I'd check the event log, and do a scan with a trusted virus scanner.
Finally if that hadn't cleared up the issue, I'd back up anything I didn't want to lose and do a full system reset.
Hope that provides a little insight. If your drive already isn't responding your options are limited. You can try and boot to safe mode if you can get that far, and try some of the options above.
I would connect it to another computer and check smart reporting and file system structure. If you are checking something other then the system disk the command is: chkdsk <drive letter> /scan. I'd also try a virus scan on the drive with a trusted virus scanner like BitDefender.
0