Is my HDD failing?

[Sheenthesheeps]

Hello, I have a friend who takes a lot of pictures and uses the standard Windows photo editor to tweak the brightness.  Recently, however, the editor will crash when he tries to open it.  I did a diagnosis test and the hard drive is pinned at 99% when he tries opening the editor until it crashes.  Also recently it won't show some pictures in the folder, rather it will show the generic photo icon.  They're still there, but not all are showing the image.  Is the hard drive failing, or is something with Windows not installed properly, or what?

[edwbob]

3 minutes ago, Sheenthesheeps said:

Hello, I have a friend who takes a lot of pictures and uses the standard Windows photo editor to tweak the brightness.  Recently, however, the editor will crash when he tries to open it.  I did a diagnosis test and the hard drive is pinned at 99% when he tries opening the editor until it crashes.  Also recently it won't show some pictures in the folder, rather it will show the generic photo icon.  They're still there, but not all are showing the image.  Is the hard drive failing, or is something with Windows not installed properly, or what?

Have you ever heard the hdd making a clicking noise? Also, if you have 2gb of ram and an old processor, this could do it. What are the specs of your system?

 

[Darel321]

check with this https://www.hdsentinel.com/

no need to buy it.. just use the trial version.. anyway.. save the data asap because the hdd its probably dying

[quiffghtyu]

4 minutes ago, Sheenthesheeps said:

Hello, I have a friend who takes a lot of pictures and uses the standard Windows photo editor to tweak the brightness.  Recently, however, the editor will crash when he tries to open it.  I did a diagnosis test and the hard drive is pinned at 99% when he tries opening the editor until it crashes.  Also recently it won't show some pictures in the folder, rather it will show the generic photo icon.  They're still there, but not all are showing the image.  Is the hard drive failing, or is something with Windows not installed properly, or what?

It might be worth checking to see if there are any errors on the drive? Do you know how to do this?

[ProjectBox153]

Check the health with something like CrystalDiskInfo.

[Sheenthesheeps]

It's got an i3 4170, 4GB RAM, it doesn't seem to be making noises.  Actually I just did the test again for the first time in a week and got completely different results. This is while opening the editor

[quiffghtyu]

Try this:

Open file explorer.

Right click your drive.

Select properties.

Go to the 'Tools' tab.

There should be an option called 'Error checking'.

Press 'Check' and follow the instructions.

[Sheenthesheeps]

2 minutes ago, Sheenthesheeps said:

It's got an i3 4170, 4GB RAM, it doesn't seem to be making noises.  Actually I just did the test again for the first time in a week and got completely different results. This is while opening the editor

Actually that last one must've been a fluke cause it's back up there

[Sheenthesheeps]

3 minutes ago, DiscoDuck101 said:

Try this:

Open file explorer.

Right click your drive.

Select properties.

Go to the 'Tools' tab.

There should be an option called 'Error checking'.

Press 'Check' and follow the instructions.

No errors found

[Septimus]

The issue only occurs with that photo software? 

[Sheenthesheeps]

1 minute ago, Septimus said:

The issue only occurs with that photo software? 

Yeah it's just the editor in the standard Windows photo viewer.  Also sometimes a photo in file explorer won't load it's own personal icon and instead load the generic one.  When that happens the photo tends to stay pixelated and doesn't load to full red properly.

[Septimus]

Just now, Sheenthesheeps said:

Yeah it's just the editor in the standard Windows photo viewer.  Also sometimes a photo in file explorer won't load it's own personal icon and instead load the generic one.  When that happens the photo tends to stay pixelated and doesn't load to full red properly.

Sounds more like a hardware issue than a software issue to me. I'd back up the drive and then get a new one.

[Sheenthesheeps]

21 minutes ago, Darel321 said:

check with this https://www.hdsentinel.com/

no need to buy it.. just use the trial version.. anyway.. save the data asap because the hdd its probably dying

Just ran it.  Says the health is at 7% with 603 bad sectors and 113 weak sectors.  So I'm guessing that's the problem is a dying hard drive?

[Sheenthesheeps]

Follow up question, what is the best way to back up an entire drive?

[Septimus]

Get another drive with as much or more space than you're currently using on that HDD, and then backup that drive using File History (built into Windows). The way I've done it is to just straight up clone the drive with Acronis True Image. 

[Sheenthesheeps]

9 minutes ago, Septimus said:

Get another drive with as much or more space than you're currently using on that HDD, and then backup that drive using File History (built into Windows). The way I've done it is to just straight up clone the drive with Acronis True Image. 

Thanks!