Is my HDD on the way out

[theshedman]

Hi, when I turn on my PC a lot of the time it will not boot up and sometimes it will boot then it freezes. I turn it on and the red HDD comes on but it is a solid light and not a blinking one. Anyone got any ideas. I have had my PC for a number of years about 8 I think and about 18 months ago had new power supply, motherboard and graphics card. It is an 80 Gig HDD but not sure what make it is. If it is the HDD I would like to transfer some things to new one before it packs up altogether. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

[MarkRae]

It's highly likely that the drive is on the way out. These things don't last forever (Google MTBF), and 8 years is aeons in computing!

Fortunately, hard disks are extremely cheap these days, and can be easily swapped. Essentially, you need backup software which is capable of backing up the entire drive and then restoring it to another one.

I use this: http://www.amazon.co....qid=1269354750&sr=8-1

I do an incremental backup every night and a complete system backup once a week.

[theshedman]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I had an idea that it was on it's way out just wanted to check incase it was something else. Looks like I need to look for new one. As you say they are not too expensive these days. Thanks again.

[MarkRae]

Make sure that you get a compatible one. If your PC really is 8 years old, it may not have SATA connectors, so you'll need to get an IDE hard drive...

[ChuckFickens]

if it's an eight year old windows install I would take this opportunity to do a reinstall and only copy over what you want from the old drive, after 8 years there would have been so much unneeded rubbish installed and lurking on that drive that a reinstall is well over due.

Case space permitting you can fit both drives into the case to enable you to copy your personal documents over.

[Old_Geezer]

New power supply, motherboard and graphics card. You sure this is the same PC ? :-D

[theshedman]

Hi, thanks for all the answers. It looks like it will be a new harddrive then. Yes it is a IDE drive so I will get one the same. I have done a reinstall a few times in the past due to rubbish that collects over time so as you say Chuck I will just save the things I need first. Then put new drive in and just install things I want. Geezer it is the same PC, lot of new things but same old knackered Harddrive. It's been slow for a while a bit like me these days lol. Thanks again for the help.