Dead hard drive..

Djuntas · July 10, 2020

So...sigh. I know that it can happen, but its only 5 years old, and I have no bloody money to spend. So...sigh. Anyway, I have done all the troubleshooting that I could, but last 5 days it only got worse. Frequent 100% disk usage, and after another windows drive scan, it did not get better, could not even boot into windows, which I don't get because windows10 is installed on my 850 evo ? So what gives? Why do I have boot issues / very slow boot issues, if OS is not even installed on my dying HDD?

Anyway I need the space, so I think my choice will be a 860 evo 1TB, but I don't usually mess around with inside my desktop a lot - I know my H440 nzxt case has another "area" for 1 more SSD, but do I have another header for it as well on my motherboard? An Asus Z-97a, rather old hardware these days. Just wanna feel safe before I order, that I can easily install the SSD...So anything I should know? I guess its just reinstalling windows, make a partition to get the new drive recognized, and that should be that?

Thanks...so pissed, hate spending money and I just wanted to game this month or w/e...

Statik · July 10, 2020

a 1TB HDD is like $40. If it lasted you 5 years. That's 66c/month.

Try unplugging the HDD and seeing if you can boot into windows. If you're still having issues it's likely an issue with your SSD as well.

If you're planning on replacing the HDD with an SSD, there should be no issues as far as compatibility. Just take the HDD out and use the power/sata slot for whichever new SSD you choose. Also if your windows SSD is good, you shouldn't require a windows reinstall.

Electronics Wizardy · July 10, 2020

having a bad hdd can cause issues even if its not the boot drive as the os wants to read something and will wait till the drive returns data, and basically everything is waiting for that disk.

You can easily add anouther drive. and format it. Also if you want to save money get a mx500 or wd blue, basically the same drive but cheaper.

Djuntas · July 10, 2020

Thanks a lot guys, always good help here on LTT forum. I forgot my HDD, I can ofc just re-use its power and sata cable...not thinking straight since its 1 at night and I wanna go to bed, got home from parents at 21 and then my HDD died...so it's been one of those nights...:P

Will see tomorrow if I cant boot into windows, and if I unplug my HDD if it helps...Sure hope my trusty old 256gb 850 evo aint the problem - I managed to benchmark my drives 2 days ago and their read/write performance was normal...I did all the usual troubleshooting, but could not find any reason why my HDD was acting up...It got so bad I cant even open programs or copy files off my HDD - After the last boot up windows did not even recognize the drive, and I just gave up on booting into windows since it hanged for like 3 mins, when SSD was usually 30-40 sec (Which I had noticed had gotten much slower lately as well, which started 1 year ago or so, first few problems)...

Anyway I was hoping 2-3 days ago when problems started that my HDD just had bad sectors, cause yesterday my PC was pretty much all normal until tonight when I got home.

Thanks!