Life time for hard drive?

IncredibleHulk

How long should a hard drive last? I bought my Western Digital in Feb 2005 and I have a feeling it is failing. My XP Home PC is slow, sometimes unresponsive and even the start menu will not respond. I do not think I have virus/spyware as I have up to date AV/antispyware etc and I have done several scans including PREVX CSI. I cannot find anything except a few tracking cookies now and then. Also the ssstars.scr saver is running dozens of time as a process in task manager.Can't stop it even though disabled that screensaver.

Yesterday I got some mesage about a hardware problem. But when check disk iit says devioce working properly. And the SMART status reads as healthy

If I get a Vista Home Premium machine will I be able to open files saved on XP on it. I was looking at a friend's Dell Inspirion 1501 I think it is. Has any one any experience of this.

PC just does not seem well and could need a week in St Megabytes Hospital for Sick Computers;) or St Gigabytes Cemetery even....

Thanks for any response

AlmightyCushion

I doubt there is anything wrong with the hard drive from what you say. It sounds like the windows install is just full of crap. Try getting rid of some of the things that come on at startup. If I were you, I'd just format and re-install windows.

What anti virus software are you using?

10-10-20

You have either a virus, malware or spyware.
A hard drive in the correct meaning of the term (and not a system box) does not slow down to this extent with a hardware problem. They typically just fail - dead.

IncredibleHulk

If I were you, I'd just format and re-install windows.

I would have to use the recovery disks can't reinstall windows alone, but that would be OK if thought it would work

What anti virus software are you using?

Norton 2007 and that took 3 hours to scan last week

IncredibleHulk

You have either a virus, malware or spyware.

Well I can't find it

A hard drive in the correct meaning of the term (and not a system box) does not slow down to this extent with a hardware problem. They typically just fail - dead

I don't agree my last disk same thing happened, then it just died

AlmightyCushion

IncredibleHulk wrote: »

I would have to use the recovery disks can't reinstall windows alone, but that would be OK if thought it would work

That will set the pc to exactly how it was when you first bought it. All files programs and the like will be gone. So back up if you plan on doing this.

IncredibleHulk wrote: »

Norton 2007 and that took 3 hours to scan last week

Well if you don't want to re-install I recommend you get rid of norton and put on either avast or avg.

anthony4335

life time of a HDD is depending upon a lot of things, such as use and abuse. For a PC powered on all day every day I would expect it to be 3 to 4 years. But for one that is only powered up for a few hours a day ,I have seen them last past 5 years. Pc's will slow down over time as it gets loaded with all sorts of crap including anti virus. I find it is always good to format it once a year and start over. Alway keeps it fast and forces you to back up waht you do not want to loose and delete what you don't need. You should start with downloading a hard drive test software ,usually can be found on the manufactures website (like maxtor and western digital) the one I use I think came from western ,it is called HD TACH from simpli software. As for the question of your files been opened in Vista, I assume that you mean files like, word documents and pics, yes is the answer. Burn them off onto a DVD or put them on an external drive to transfer.

IncredibleHulk

That will set the pc to exactly how it was when you first bought it. All files programs and the like will be gone. So back up if you plan on doing this.

I know how to do that thanks

Well if you don't want to re-install I recommend you get rid of norton and put on either avast or avg

My NAV is out in about a month, I may go for AVG,to be honest am a bit iffy about a free AV, though I know its good

AlmightyCushion

IncredibleHulk wrote: »

My NAV is out in about a month, I may go for AVG,to be honest am a bit iffy about a free AV, though I know its good

I'd get rid of it now. Don't worry about the free anti-virus software, it's better than the likes of norton. I wouldn't put norton on my laptop if you paid me to. If you want to buy an anti-virus software, go with nod 32, it's meant ot be great.

IncredibleHulk

You should start with downloading a hard drive test software

I have one and it says disk is healthy

As for the question of your files been opened in Vista, I assume that you mean files like, word documents and pics, yes is the answer.

Yes that is what I meant, thanks

Burn them off onto a DVD

Can do