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Is my hard drive dying?

Started by Andrew Gomez40 · · 👁 2 views · 11 replies

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Participants Andrew Gomez40goldenviper13Alex Johnson4Michelle Alvarez8shadoweagle13Jonathan Mendoza17
Andrew Gomez40 Andrew Gomez40 NewcomerOP
6 messages
joined Mar 2016
#1 ·
Man, my hard drive started acting incredibly sketchy yesterday.
It went from running perfectly fine to basically crawling through molasses in a single instant. That red activity light just went absolutely haywire, staying lit up constantly like it was possessed. Even opening the most pathetic, tiny little file takes like thirty seconds now, and folders are hanging for 15 seconds apiece. My boot time shot up to at least five minutes—and look, normally I’m booting in about 60 seconds because my macOS is installed on a Hard Drive, but clearly, this isn't the culprit here. It honestly feels like the thing is on its deathbed. Right this second, I'm frantically trying to move my most critical files onto a thumb drive, but I'm stuck with these agonizing speeds of maybe 208 KB/s.

Basically, the whole thing just chokes whenever I try to copy or load anything off it, though otherwise, it stays quiet and the light goes dark. Like I said, everything else feels totally normal since the OS is sitting on the Hard Drive, which is behaving itself just fine.

That drive is packed with everything under the sun, stuff I absolutely cannot afford to lose, so I'm begging for answers to a couple of things:
- Is it actually dead? This thing has been running pretty much non-stop for two years (I rarely shut the PC down, though it usually idles at night) without a single hiccup until now.
- Why on earth is the boot process so slow if the macOS is loading from the Hard Drive?
- How am I supposed to move hundreds of gigabytes over to an external drive when the transfer speeds are this criminally slow?

I'm not even losing sleep over the hardware itself. These things have a shelf life, and clearly, this one hit the expiration date. I'll just go out and grab a new one, easy peasy. But losing all my data? That would be a straight-up catastrophe, and right now, I have no clue how to rescue it when the speed is practically non-existent.
goldenviper13 goldenviper13 Active Member
53 messages
joined Feb 2016
#2 ·
Andrew Gomez40 said:Man, my hard drive started acting incredibly sketchy yesterday.
It went from running perfectly fine to basically crawling through molasses in a single instant. That red activity light just went absolutely haywire, staying lit up constantly like it was possessed. Even opening the most pathetic, tiny little file takes like thirty seconds now, and folders are hanging for 15 seconds apiece. My boot time shot up to at least five minutes—and look, normally I’m booting in about 60 seconds because my macOS is installed on a Hard Drive, but clearly, this isn't the culprit here. It honestly feels like the thing is on its deathbed. Right this second, I'm frantically trying to move my most critical files onto a thumb drive, but I'm stuck with these agonizing speeds of maybe 208 KB/s.

Basically, the whole thing just chokes whenever I try to copy or load anything off it, though otherwise, it stays quiet and the light goes dark. Like I said, everything else feels totally normal since the OS is sitting on the Hard Drive, which is behaving itself just fine.

That drive is packed with everything under the sun, stuff I absolutely cannot afford to lose, so I'm begging for answers to a couple of things:
- Is it actually dead? This thing has been running pretty much non-stop for two years (I rarely shut the PC down, though it usually idles at night) without a single hiccup until now.
- Why on earth is the boot process so slow if the macOS is loading from the Hard Drive?
- How am I supposed to move hundreds of gigabytes over to an external drive when the transfer speeds are this criminally slow?

I'm not even losing sleep over the hardware itself. These things have a shelf life, and clearly, this one hit the expiration date. I'll just go out and grab a new one, easy peasy. But losing all my data? That would be a straight-up catastrophe, and right now, I have no clue how to rescue it when the speed is practically non-existent.

Check the drive to see if any bad sectors have appeared. You could use a program like CrystalDiskInfo.
Andrew Gomez40 Andrew Gomez40 NewcomerOP
6 messages
joined Mar 2016
#3 ·
Alright, thanks, but what if they actually are? Look, I get it—a hard drive is just a disposable piece of hardware, but the data sitting on it? That’s priceless. Is there seriously no way to move my stuff without dealing with these pathetic, snail-like transfer speeds?
Alex Johnson4 Alex Johnson4 Newcomer
5 messages
joined Nov 2007
#4 ·
Andrew Gomez40 said:Alright, thanks, but what if they actually are? Look, I get it—a hard drive is just a disposable piece of hardware, but the data sitting on it? That’s priceless. Is there seriously no way to move my stuff without dealing with these pathetic, snail-like transfer speeds?

Just grab the essential files and pray the thing doesn't kick the bucket before you're done.
You’re supposed to back up your data while things are still working right, not when they're already falling apart. Consider this a "bonus" opportunity.
Michelle Alvarez8 Michelle Alvarez8 Regular
299 messages
joined Nov 2015
#5 ·
Andrew Gomez40 said:Man, my hard drive started acting incredibly sketchy yesterday.
It went from running perfectly fine to basically crawling through molasses in a single instant. That red activity light just went absolutely haywire, staying lit up constantly like it was possessed. Even opening the most pathetic, tiny little file takes like thirty seconds now, and folders are hanging for 15 seconds apiece. My boot time shot up to at least five minutes—and look, normally I’m booting in about 60 seconds because my macOS is installed on a Hard Drive, but clearly, this isn't the culprit here. It honestly feels like the thing is on its deathbed. Right this second, I'm frantically trying to move my most critical files onto a thumb drive, but I'm stuck with these agonizing speeds of maybe 208 KB/s.

Basically, the whole thing just chokes whenever I try to copy or load anything off it, though otherwise, it stays quiet and the light goes dark. Like I said, everything else feels totally normal since the OS is sitting on the Hard Drive, which is behaving itself just fine.

That drive is packed with everything under the sun, stuff I absolutely cannot afford to lose, so I'm begging for answers to a couple of things:
- Is it actually dead? This thing has been running pretty much non-stop for two years (I rarely shut the PC down, though it usually idles at night) without a single hiccup until now.
- Why on earth is the boot process so slow if the macOS is loading from the Hard Drive?
- How am I supposed to move hundreds of gigabytes over to an external drive when the transfer speeds are this criminally slow?

I'm not even losing sleep over the hardware itself. These things have a shelf life, and clearly, this one hit the expiration date. I'll just go out and grab a new one, easy peasy. But losing all my data? That would be a straight-up catastrophe, and right now, I have no clue how to rescue it when the speed is practically non-existent.

Check if it’s still under warranty—maybe you can actually get a replacement if it is?

Andrew Gomez40 said:Man, my hard drive started acting incredibly sketchy yesterday.
It went from running perfectly fine to basically crawling through molasses in a single instant. That red activity light just went absolutely haywire, staying lit up constantly like it was possessed. Even opening the most pathetic, tiny little file takes like thirty seconds now, and folders are hanging for 15 seconds apiece. My boot time shot up to at least five minutes—and look, normally I’m booting in about 60 seconds because my macOS is installed on a Hard Drive, but clearly, this isn't the culprit here. It honestly feels like the thing is on its deathbed. Right this second, I'm frantically trying to move my most critical files onto a thumb drive, but I'm stuck with these agonizing speeds of maybe 208 KB/s.

Basically, the whole thing just chokes whenever I try to copy or load anything off it, though otherwise, it stays quiet and the light goes dark. Like I said, everything else feels totally normal since the OS is sitting on the Hard Drive, which is behaving itself just fine.

That drive is packed with everything under the sun, stuff I absolutely cannot afford to lose, so I'm begging for answers to a couple of things:
- Is it actually dead? This thing has been running pretty much non-stop for two years (I rarely shut the PC down, though it usually idles at night) without a single hiccup until now.
- Why on earth is the boot process so slow if the macOS is loading from the Hard Drive?
- How am I supposed to move hundreds of gigabytes over to an external drive when the transfer speeds are this criminally slow?

I'm not even losing sleep over the hardware itself. These things have a shelf life, and clearly, this one hit the expiration date. I'll just go out and grab a new one, easy peasy. But losing all my data? That would be a straight-up catastrophe, and right now, I have no clue how to rescue it when the speed is practically non-existent.

What even counts as "slow" these days? My hard drive takes about 30 seconds to boot up—and honestly, I know it should be hitting those speeds way faster than that!

Take a look at your Disk Management—you really want to check where that little "System Reserved" partition ended up. It should actually be sitting right there on your Hard Drive, you know? Go ahead and run it! So, you're looking at msconfig? — Honestly, it’s such a lifesaver when things get wonky! Have you tried playing around with those boot settings yet?Hey, why don't you take a look at how your Boot settings are looking? Just curious! So, I was poking around in System Properties \ startup and Recovery—you know how it is when you start digging through settings?—and I started wondering... does anyone else find this part of the OS a little overwhelming? Just a thought! Check which one you have set as your default OS—it might be worth a look! You should probably dive into your BIOS and check the boot order; that Hard Drive really needs to be ahead of the old Hard Drive. Honestly, who knows? Maybe something is trying to read from that busted drive during startup and it's just dragging the whole boot process down with it.


Andrew Gomez40 said:Man, my hard drive started acting incredibly sketchy yesterday.
It went from running perfectly fine to basically crawling through molasses in a single instant. That red activity light just went absolutely haywire, staying lit up constantly like it was possessed. Even opening the most pathetic, tiny little file takes like thirty seconds now, and folders are hanging for 15 seconds apiece. My boot time shot up to at least five minutes—and look, normally I’m booting in about 60 seconds because my macOS is installed on a Hard Drive, but clearly, this isn't the culprit here. It honestly feels like the thing is on its deathbed. Right this second, I'm frantically trying to move my most critical files onto a thumb drive, but I'm stuck with these agonizing speeds of maybe 208 KB/s.

Basically, the whole thing just chokes whenever I try to copy or load anything off it, though otherwise, it stays quiet and the light goes dark. Like I said, everything else feels totally normal since the OS is sitting on the Hard Drive, which is behaving itself just fine.

That drive is packed with everything under the sun, stuff I absolutely cannot afford to lose, so I'm begging for answers to a couple of things:
- Is it actually dead? This thing has been running pretty much non-stop for two years (I rarely shut the PC down, though it usually idles at night) without a single hiccup until now.
- Why on earth is the boot process so slow if the macOS is loading from the Hard Drive?
- How am I supposed to move hundreds of gigabytes over to an external drive when the transfer speeds are this criminally slow?

I'm not even losing sleep over the hardware itself. These things have a shelf life, and clearly, this one hit the expiration date. I'll just go out and grab a new one, easy peasy. But losing all my data? That would be a straight-up catastrophe, and right now, I have no clue how to rescue it when the speed is practically non-existent.

Just gotta be patient—and maybe throw some Robocopy into the mix? Works like a charm!
Check this out—I found some great examples here! http://social.technet.microsoft.com/...-examples.aspx
Andrew Gomez40 Andrew Gomez40 NewcomerOP
6 messages
joined Mar 2016
#6 ·
Great, now my USB drive is acting up too. Just when I’m in the middle of moving some files, it suddenly throws a fit and tells me the destination folder on the drive doesn't even exist anymore! It’s like the computer just decided to lose its mind mid-transfer.
I’m starting to wonder if this might actually be a motherboard issue? Because honestly, I don't see how a failing hard drive could possibly mess with a flash drive.
shadoweagle13 shadoweagle13 Member
22 messages
joined Jun 2017
#7 ·
Try plugging that Hard Drive into a different computer. That way, you can see if you're actually able to access your files at a normal speed.
Andrew Gomez40 Andrew Gomez40 NewcomerOP
6 messages
joined Mar 2016
#8 ·
Look, I honestly didn't even think of that, it completely slipped my mind! 😁
Thanks.
shadoweagle13 shadoweagle13 Member
22 messages
joined Jun 2017
#9 ·
Andrew Gomez40 said:Look, I honestly didn't even think of that, it completely slipped my mind! 😁
Thanks.

Stay safe. Let me know how it turns out.
Andrew Gomez40 Andrew Gomez40 NewcomerOP
6 messages
joined Mar 2016
#10 ·
Man, my drive just totally died during some data transfer. It’s throwing an I/O error at me. That’s pretty much it, right? Is everything gone, or is there actually some way to save my files?
Jonathan Mendoza17 Jonathan Mendoza17 Member
34 messages
joined Feb 2019
#11 ·
You might want to try swapping out that SATA cable first—it’s entirely possible the cable itself is acting up rather than the drive being the culprit.

Or you could give this a shot:

HDD Regenerator

Though, if I'm being honest, I wouldn't go pinning all your hopes on that. Especially since, from what you've described, this doesn't really look like a classic case of bad sectors to me.
Andrew Gomez40 Andrew Gomez40 NewcomerOP
6 messages
joined Mar 2016
#12 ·
Man, I probably should’ve just swapped out the cable right from the jump, you know? Now I’m sitting here kicking myself because I’m worried it might already be too late to fix this mess.

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