So is the Raptor really failing?

[GhostGT]

Hey all,

Gonna make this short n sweet since I've got a midterm in a few hours and I gotta get some sleep.

A few weeks ago, my computer's main hard drive (150gb raptor) began to sound a little louder than usual and was performing EXTREMELY slow. Startup would take me 20 minutes, clicking on a folder took 45 seconds to open up, etc. I thought the hard drive was toast.

After 2-3 days of restarting the computer, trying different restores, etc, Symantec somehow did an autoscan and found a Trojan in my system. The file was quarantined then deleted, and the computer has been fine ever since.


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Fast forward to this morning. I decided to schedule a disk check (scandisk for Vista) and restarted the computer in order to initialize the scan.

The computer reached ~14% of one of the steps, when I realized that the hard drive was AGAIN a little louder. I also realized that there was a constant, loud ticking noise coming from the Raptor. I shined a flashlight into my case and saw the needle constantly "ticking" back and forth every .5 seconds or so.

Anyway, I left for school and came back to find my computer idle at desktop. I had forgotten about the disk check incident until I realized that my computer was acting slow again (although not as slow as before, but still very slow).

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I'm at a loss. The LED on my case is always on (just like it was before with the trojan) so I'm guessing something is being used 100% here. I'm running a full scan as we speak, but the scan has been stuck on a file for over an hour now. I'll leave it like this while I sleep and wake up in a few hours, and I'll drop another update.

Until then, what do you guys think is my problem? My first thought at the sign of the problem was the HD going bad, but the trojan seemed to be the issue there. Is it possible that the virus is back?

Thanks for reading,


Chris

 

[LambOfGod]

I would re-image/ or re-format.. possibly try a low level format on the drive.

Also run WD utilities on the drive and see the results..

Raptors have 5 year warranties so, make use of it if it is failing...

 

[DJ-CHRIS1]

Ticking = Failing

Get everything off of it ASAP

 

[Austinn1]

I agree. Id start backing up NOW and stop mesing with it before it crashes and you loose everything.

Also, if it does have a lifetime warranty, You should be able to get a new one.
Hopefully it has good support behind it, or WD my try blame it on you.

Good Luck!

 

[Cabbs]

I had mine die after a year, but it gave me no signs before it went

Get it to WD, they replaced mine without question.

 

[andrew26]

Ticking = Failing

Get everything off of it ASAP

Yup. My drives go tick tick tick tick *shutdown* about an hour before they die so I rush to a place to transfer my files to a new drive.

 

[2457]

TIC-TIC sounds sometimes can be repaired by flashing a new firware onto the drive.
Swapping the circuit board is okay to check if its a FW problem.
(be sure to use an identical board)

but honestly I would not mess with it, unless You DO know what are you doing.

My bet is samsungs now for relayable drives. Runs cold enough, not much noise.. verry relayable (my drive survived 2 blown PSU s..) and cheap enough.

If You are looking for a fast solution for.. say operating system drive (nothing else contained on it) go and buy 4 cf-sata adapters, a cheap 4 port sata raid controller, and 4 cf cards. Minimum speed is 233X I would recommend.

Some peeps told me it would fail fast.
NO, it does not. I got an AMD geode based mini ndutrial computer , I have added a nice usb hub, and card readers, and I use CF cards to download. I use this becouse it is absolute silent, and consumes verry little power. No moving parts, no fans.

I have it download torrent files and such, to be honest those cards have been written by a couple of 100 times, I think they are relayable, I have this "dirty ssd" in my computer too, and allso in my linux laptop.

Never failed, and IS fast.
I use xp sp2 on main computer, and DSL linux on laptop.

If You can not afford enough space with CF for vista, then set up a drive like this as SWAP files location. Speeeeds up things on ANY kind of computer, any kind of windows (xp, xp sp1, xp sp2, vista home , busines, prof, etc...cetc..)

 

[A True Folder]

Ticking is not good

Back up your data then go to the WD site and d/load the diagnostic tools, chuck the drive serial in while you're there to check warranty status.

 

[GhostGT]

Thanks for the replies.

Update: Got home from school today and realized that my computer was stuck on the motherboard boot screen. I hard restarted and chose the option to start windows with the last known "good" configuration. It took about 10-15 minutes to get to the desktop. All the while, the case LED was still on 100% of the time, yet the hard drive was only "grinding" and working maybe 1% of the time.

Just like my last scenario (see original post), the computer is extremely slow and takes a long time to do things. I get about 2-3 seconds of normal usage and then the computer will freeze for anywhere from 20-40 seconds. It isn't a complete freeze, either... it's just a stall. The mouse still moves, and I can still click on things, but they take a while to start up.

Anyway, I still think this might be a virus issue. After all, the last time I had the SAME EXACT symptoms, Symantec found the Trojan, took care of it, and the computer was back to normal with perfect performance.

I've downloaded AVG and will do a full scan tonight. But before that, I'll be doing the WD diagnostic.

Oh, and all files were backed up the last time this happened. Thanks for the heads-up, though.


Update coming.


Chris

 

[Austinn1]

Hope all works out man, Keep us posted!