# Need help! Super slow boot time and HDD problem



## xkm1948 (Dec 23, 2012)

The entire dilemma started a week ago when my 5 yrs old Seagate 7200.11 500GB crap out. I lost 90% of data. Good thing is my PC has 2 hdds. Second hdd is wd black 1.5tb which I bought in 2011 to expand storage.

So i went ahead and used my WD to install system. Things runs fine for 3 days. Until this morning my PC again refused to boot up like normal. It took almost 20 mins to boot up. HDD activity light was constantly on. But I cant hear the drive operating like usual. When it finally boot up. I couldn't access one of my volumes on the HDD. Used HDTunerPro and get a SMART warning of "Current Pending Sector" The value is 15. My system is super slow.

So my question is, how can both HDDs fail at about the same time? Or is it my power supply that is failing which caused the HDD problem? 

For the SMART warning, should I RMA the drive? Is "Current Pending Sector Warning" fixable or unfixable?

Thanks guys!


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## Jetster (Dec 23, 2012)

You will need to use the WD warranty Drive testing tool
http://support.wdc.com/warranty/index_end.asp
If your thinking about RMAing the drive. Really doesn't latter what HDtune says for a RMA. If the results were yellow then its most likely good. 

As far as your problem now. You probably have a problem with your install if not a clean install or you have a peace of hardware that's causing the hang at start up. 

Did you do a clean install on your WD ?  

First run the WD tool on your current drive. Then try a clean boot see if that helps

I don't think your PSU has anything to do with this problem

BTW the Seagate 7200.11 is a bad drive with a high % of failures. Im surprised it lasted 5 years


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## xkm1948 (Dec 23, 2012)

I checked my HDD's serial number. It says I am out of limited warranty. WTF? Newegg says it has 5 year limited warranty!  I read some reviews and it seems this drive is known for having failing after a year of service. And WD is going to do is basically tell its users to f*uckoff.

I did a super clean installation. Used Windows 7 SP1 installation DISC downloaded from MSDNAA. All partition were reformatted prior to install. I used all WHQL driver. I really dont understand this. 

And yes. I am also surprised my 7200.11 last that long. I did have to update the firmware once though


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## xkm1948 (Dec 23, 2012)

Also, there is no download for the link you give me. Can u give me a direct link? I only saw warranty statues check.


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## 95Viper (Dec 23, 2012)

xkm1948 said:


> Also, there is no download for the link you give me. Can u give me a direct link? I only saw warranty statues check.



Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows

Warning - Read the Instructions section on the web page!


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## drdeathx (Dec 23, 2012)

Throw in a new sata cable.


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## xkm1948 (Dec 23, 2012)

Tried 2 different cables. Problem still exists. Used HDTune full scan. I get multiple bad sectors. Total bad sectors are about 400MB on my E volume(which I cant access any more)

Data Life Guard shows 4 drive health warnings:

Current Pending Sectors
RAW Read Error 
Spin-up time
Relocated Sectors Error

Is this drive about to die?


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## Jetster (Dec 23, 2012)

Yep...sorry


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## xkm1948 (Dec 23, 2012)

Well I kinda expected that.

Gonna go ahead and RMA it. I just figured I put in the wrong number for the serial check. So I do have warranty until 2016.  Seems like a good time to pick up a SSD as well.

Do you guys have any good suggestions! Thanks in advance!


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## AsRock (Dec 23, 2012)

xkm1948 said:


> I checked my HDD's serial number. It says I am out of limited warranty. WTF? Newegg says it has 5 year limited warranty!  I read some reviews and it seems this drive is known for having failing after a year of service. And WD is going to do is basically tell its users to f*uckoff.
> 
> I did a super clean installation. Used Windows 7 SP1 installation DISC downloaded from MSDNAA. All partition were reformatted prior to install. I used all WHQL driver. I really dont understand this.
> 
> And yes. I am also surprised my 7200.11 last that long. I did have to update the firmware once though



Yes WD lowered there warranty some time back , maybe you can get lucky and complain to Newegg that you got the drive of them partly due to the warranty and that you just found out that there site was \ is? incorrect about this..

Try make them understand how angry you are but with out insults or raising voice and that you will think twice about using or even recommending newegg to others.

Others have gave other options i would try and if it just a bad part of the disk a full format might fix all the errors if the area is not growing which anyways makes it unsafe for your data till you know more.

You could try another sata cable too.

Good Luck..


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## Jetster (Dec 23, 2012)

I havnt seen any SSDs on sale resently. What size you want? Budget?


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## xkm1948 (Dec 23, 2012)

Will be using it for system drive only. 160GB~240GB will be perfect.

I have never used any SSD before. This thing is completely new to me...


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## xkm1948 (Dec 23, 2012)

AsRock said:


> Yes WD lowered there warranty some time back , maybe you can get lucky and complain to Newegg that you got the drive of them partly due to the warranty and that you just found out that there site was \ is? incorrect about this..
> 
> Try make them understand how angry you are but with out insults or raising voice and that you will think twice about using or even recommending newegg to others.
> 
> ...



Thanks man! I called WD and it turns out I put in the wrong serial number. I do have a RMA case going on right now. All I wish is they DON'T send me a refurbished drive. Because I fear that will continue the drama.

I am going to order some new SATA cables from newegg now. And a SSD hopefully. My rig is really old. 5yrs old! X38+QX9650. I just wish it can hang in there it a little longer without me spending too much. It surely costs a lot to build a new one from ground up.


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## drdeathx (Dec 23, 2012)

SSD's will increase your boot time drammatically. There are sales all over on SSD's. You can get a 60G as low as $60 but most get 120/128/256G drives. The best way to utilize a SSD is put your OS and most common used programs on it and use a platter drive for data storage. I got a PCIE 256G Revo SSD drive which is much faster than a sata SSD but also more expensive. You can find a great 128G sata SSD OCZ Vertex (4 VTX4-25SAT3-128G 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)) for as low as $140 US.... and it has some great read and write speeds.

Performance  

Sustained Sequential Read
Up to 560 MB/s

Sustained Sequential Write
Up to 430 MB/s

4KB Random Read
Up to 90,000 IOPS

4KB Random Write
Up to 120,000 IOPS

Seek Time
0.1 ms

MTBF
2,000,000 hours


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## xkm1948 (Dec 23, 2012)

drdeathx said:


> SSD's will increase your boot time drammatically. There are sales all over on SSD's. You can get a 60G as low as $60 but most get 120/128/256G drives. The best way to utilize a SSD is put your OS and most common used programs on it and use a platter drive for data storage. I got a PCIE 256G Revo SSD drive which is much faster than a sata SSD but also more expensive. You can find a great 128G sata SSD OCZ Vertex (4 VTX4-25SAT3-128G 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)) for as low as $140 US.... and it has some great read and write speeds.
> 
> Performance
> 
> ...



Nice. That is some good spec there!

I am looking for something larger. At least it needs to be 160GB. I will check around! Thanks for telling me the model. Gonna look for some OCZ SSD now.


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## drdeathx (Dec 23, 2012)

xkm1948 said:


> Nice. That is some good spec there!
> 
> I am looking for something larger. At least it needs to be 160GB. I will check around! Thanks for telling me the model. Gonna look for some OCZ SSD now.



Vertex4 is available in 256G model too


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## xkm1948 (Dec 23, 2012)

Well on second thought I give up. I might as well save the money towards my next rig built. This pc is too old to invest a SSD in it. Thanks for all your suggestions!


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## drdeathx (Dec 23, 2012)

xkm1948 said:


> Well on second thought I give up. I might as well save the money towards my next rig built. This pc is too old to invest a SSD in it. Thanks for all your suggestions!



SSD can be migrated to new rig FYI. Your biggest bottleneck with your Q9650 is the platter drive.


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## xkm1948 (Dec 23, 2012)

drdeathx said:


> SSD can be migrated to new rig FYI. Your biggest bottleneck with your Q9650 is the platter drive.



I know. I just dont have that much money for a SSD drive right now. I will leave this build as what it is now. My next rig will be getting SSD for sure.


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## drdeathx (Dec 23, 2012)

xkm1948 said:


> I know. I just dont have that much money for a SSD drive right now. I will leave this build as what it is now. My next rig will be getting SSD for sure.



Awesome. You will love it.


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## Frag_Maniac (Dec 23, 2012)

If it's a pretty old system you probably won't get anywhere near the advertised speed out of the SSD anyway. I have an ASUS P6X58D-E MB that was popular when the Nehalem CPUs were all the rage, but it came out when SATA 3 was just trickling into MB tech. It's Marvell SATA 3 controller cripples my write speed to slower the the Intel SATA ports, so I just put it on SATA 2.

My SSD is a Plextor M5P 128GB, which just got a firmware update that increases 4k reads and writes. Even with the crippled speed I can do a full reboot in as low as 35 seconds now, whereas with my old WD Raptor 74GB it took at least a 1:15. This drive also has very consistent speeds at all times due to a proprietary firmware it uses.


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