hard drive grinding and grinding when opening certain programs at random times

[WeeHawky RIP Norm]

I'm wondering what the deal is after noticing this too often now. The system comes to a halt and then returns to normal after the program has opened. Usually it's Skype or Spotify opening that causes it.

Should I mark it down as something to say "eh" about it worry? Perhaps a format ?

I have 20 GBs of free space left on C.

Just regular specs: Athlon II X4 640 regular clocked, WD caviar black split in 2 sections (79.9 GBs C, 516 GBs D) , 4 GBs of RAM, 1 GB HIS 6750.

I'm not really sure what the cause is. Maybe it's swapping ?

I've noticed boot taking a while longer too.

[_I_]

how old is the drive?

it may be time to replace it

check its smart table with hdtune trial
http://www.hdtune.com/download.html

download/install/run it
check the health tab
look at the data column for current pending sector, and reallocated sectors
if they are more than 0 the drive is going bad
and formatting it will not help

if the drive is ok, then fresh install may help, but cleaning the dust out of an old pc may help even more

it could be crashing due to temps
make sure the fans are working , and use an aircompressor or cans of compressed air to clean it

[WeeHawky RIP Norm]

_I_ původně napsal:

how old is the drive?

it may be time to replace it

check its smart table with hdtune trial
http://www.hdtune.com/download.html

download/install/run it
check the health tab
look at the data column for current pending sector, and reallocated sectors
if they are more than 0 the drive is going bad
and formatting it will not help

if the drive is ok, then fresh install may help, but cleaning the dust out of an old pc may help even more

it could be crashing due to temps
make sure the fans are working , and use an aircompressor or cans of compressed air to clean it

The old case had it getting too hot (about 46C during gaming), but the new case keeps it about 38C at the most.

I don't see any "pending sectors".

http://picpaste.com/7f064cefcb29bd9e5060df6173cc1c2f.png

The age, well when I bought it, is the same as the machine.. About 3 years.

The 6750 was heating up to 85C and getting the old case too hot, it had dust caked up on it when I did the case swap which didn't help anything either.

[_I_]

current pending sectors, is 0 (4th from the bottom)

27k hours is around 3-4years of use
500 power cycles, you turn it off occationally

its still in good condition tho

try windows chkdsk

start -> computer -> right click on the drive -> properties
tools tab, error checking, check now
tick the boxes, and reboot, it will take an hour or more to scan

results will be in event viewer
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/96938-check-disk-chkdsk-read-event-viewer-log.html

[WeeHawky RIP Norm]

_I_ původně napsal:

current pending sectors, is 0 (4th from the bottom)

27k hours is around 3-4years of use
500 power cycles, you turn it off occationally

its still in good condition tho

try windows chkdsk

start -> computer -> right click on the drive -> properties
tools tab, error checking, check now
tick the boxes, and reboot, it will take an hour or more to scan

results will be in event viewer
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/96938-check-disk-chkdsk-read-event-viewer-log.html

I set them to check on reboot. So.. brb.

edit:


Checking file system on D:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is game.


A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
228864 file records processed. File verification completed.
6 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 0 EA records processed. 0 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
240812 index entries processed. Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
228864 file SDs/SIDs processed. Cleaning up 208 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 208 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 208 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
5975 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
554636480 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed.
Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

541242367 KB total disk space.
341514784 KB in 110201 files.
48564 KB in 5976 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
853491 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
198825528 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
135310591 total allocation units on disk.
49706382 allocation units available on disk.




Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.


A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.

CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
312576 file records processed. File verification completed.
716 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. 0 EA records processed. 60 reparse records processed. CHKDSK is verifying indexes (stage 2 of 3)...
375338 index entries processed. Index verification completed.
0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (stage 3 of 3)...
312576 file SDs/SIDs processed. Cleaning up 5052 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 5052 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 5052 unused security descriptors.
Security descriptor verification completed.
31382 data files processed. CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
35006328 USN bytes processed. Usn Journal verification completed.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

83783679 KB total disk space.
56755076 KB in 148975 files.
90500 KB in 31383 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
421115 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
26516988 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
20945919 total allocation units on disk.
6629247 allocation units available on disk.



edit2:

Wonder what the Cleaning up 5052 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 5052 unused security descriptors. is about ?

[Azza ☠]

The "unused index entries" are referring to files that no longer exist on the system, either been deleted incorrectly or corrupted/damaged. Security Descriptors are where the permissions are stored, these permissions control who can and who cannot get access to the 'object' in question. Unused security descriptors means just that, descriptors that are not used. Previously "CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the volume bitmap." which means something was deleted but not marked off correctly as free space to be used again, so it's fixed that issue. You don't have any bad sectors, so no physical damage at least.

Control Panel > Performance Information and Tools

Select "Advanced tools" on the left bar.

Under that you want to use the "Disk Defragmenter" on your Hard Drive, that might take a little while. Let it do it's thing, it will straighten out your files and stop the drive from thrashing around to find the parts.

Then "Generate a system health report". This should give you a pretty good idea.

Finish with a "Windows Experience Index" re-rating of the system. A standard hard drive should get a score of 5.9, I believe. SSD or RAID drives can only get higher.However, if your HDD is rated really low, then it might be damaged and in need of a replacement.

If all is well, check for malware with Spybot or similar (anti-rootkit). Incase it was something malicious attempting to disable/corrupt your system security.

[_I_]

the drives are fine

all spinning drives get a 5.9, all ssd will get a higher score
wei doesnt look beyond that on drives

10k raptors could outperform the first ssds, and they still got a 5.9

[WeeHawky RIP Norm]

everything scored 7.3 besides the hard disk at 5.9.

[L0WHAWK]

Defrag the drive

[WeeHawky RIP Norm]

L0WHAWK původně napsal:

Defrag the drive

Already done. Also isn't it supposed to run on it's own like it says ?

[L0WHAWK]

I manually defrag once a month..

[_I_]

defrag doesnt help much, mainly with sequencial reads, like for videos or copying large files between drives

id say fix the problem that caused the 90+ improper shut downs

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

watch the reads and writes in performance monitor, spawns from task manager.
Perhaps exclude certain processes which access files constantly from the real time av monitoring.
Boot time defrag with ultradefrag
Force copy the entire contents of the problem programs directories into a new directory so its using a different section of disk, delete original directory then rename the new one to match the old. Basically forcing the program onto a new section of disk just incase there are some dodgy sectors there.
Harddrives don't reallocate bad sectors on reads, only writes. So unless a defrag actually moves the problem file, it doesn't get fixed. Or you can use spinrite...

[WeeHawky RIP Norm]

_I_ původně napsal:

defrag doesnt help much, mainly with sequencial reads, like for videos or copying large files between drives

id say fix the problem that caused the 90+ improper shut downs

Buy an UPS ?

[L0WHAWK]

Everytime you erase a file. it is still on the hard drive. You can recover deleted files because of this.. When you add more files to the hard drive you will eventually be placing the new files into non sequential areas of the drive.. The clusters can become so bad, that it can cause the system to slow down on loading programs, and give a grinding noise, because it is seeking all over the place to complete a file load.. If you back up a file that is fragged to a cd-r or dvd-r, etc.. It can give you a currupt file burn, even tho the burn says it is complete and error free..
But, seeing as the drive is 3+yrs old, I'd say it is time for a new one, if this is the main system drive.. Or the drive has possibly over heated and when it gets hot the platters don't function correctly..
Myself, if a drive clicks, I say it is time to replace asap..

[MA☝Omgwtfbbqstfu™]

L0WHAWK původně napsal:

Everytime you erase a file. it is still on the hard drive. You can recover deleted files because of this.. When you add more files to the hard drive you will eventually be placing the new files into no sequential areas of the drive.. The clusters will become so bad, that it can cause the system to slow down on loading programs, and give a grinding noise, because it is seeking all over the place to complete a file load.. If you back up a file that is fragged to a cd-r or dvd-r, etc.. It can give you a currupt file burn, even tho the burn says it is complete and error free..
But, seeing as the drive is 3+yrs old, I'd say it is time for a new one, if this is the main system drive.. Or the drive has possibly over heated and when it gets hot the platters don't function correctly..
Myself, if a drive clicks, I say it is time to replace asap..

Erm, not exactly, file systems fragment but its an easy fix with a defragmenter. Its not like its ruined by phantom files...