Windows 7: W7 system: suddenly long boots and periods of ultra slow performance

All brands have had bad runs of various models, some worse than others. It'd be good to check some reviews for whatever brands/models you narrow it down to. Here's a diagram from Wikipedia that I think is fairly accurate regarding who's who in the HDD business:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...solidation.svg

But I would not go just by brand name. That guarantees nothing. I've never had a drive fail, and at least a dozen are almost a decade old (or older) and still going strong (of course any one could drop dead tomorrow). A mix of Fujitsu, Samsung, Seagate, WD, Hitachi, Toshiba, maybe a couple others as well. About the only brand I've shied away from for any length of time was Maxtor, but that wasn't from personal experience, it was more about the negative reviews/comments I had read during the time. It may not have been a truly legitimate denial.

For everyones benefit, could you please give us the model numbers of the particular Seagate and WD drives you use ? I got my Samsung Drives second hand on Ebay of which the seller said came out of Sky boxes. I have tended to stick to buying 250 Gb drives. If anyone is interested in getting one, the Model no is HD251HJ.

Since I dont like to carry all my eggs in one basket, I prefer to buy a few smaller capacity drives rather than a big one. I think the larger capacity drives are more prone to read errors due to higher density at which data is stored.

Whilst on the subject of drives, I was wondering if it possible to buy sata cables with extra clampage ? I find that the current bog standard cables are very prone to external vibration and come loose. Dust getting down the connection is also a problem. Due to these problems, you may find your computer locking up all of a sudden or Windows Explorer turning ultra slow.

There are in my system specs, your mileage may vary. Someone else who has a poor power supply (power supplies that are cheap and nasty are a leading cause of dead hard drives) may say otherwise. A clean and reliable power supply of a quality brand will pay for itself over and over again.
I have some SATA cables that came with ASUS MB that have clamps on them and have purchased them from new egg (US). I agree on larger hard drives but as they have become more comman I have gradually replaced 160 gb for much larger drives without problems so far. All of my machines have multiple hard drives the main 2 having 5 and 6 of various sizes.

I am going to mark this as solved. My local shop put in a new Seagate ST500DM002. I doubt it is super high end model. I ran the HD Sential program is the drive looks perfect and the system is operating fine.

Thanks to everyone who posted. I really appreciate your help more than you know.

Great to hear your local shop made good. Pleased to hear your issue has been resolved!

To IndianaTone. I agree a good PSU with voltage over protection is important. I think back to my Seagate drive which burnt cables and put my Sherlock hat on, I had a fan plate attached to the bottom with an extension attached to that power cabling line for the fan . It worked fine for a while. Later on, I opened it up and viewed that the drive underside was caked in dust, so I decided to unplug and remove the fan plate and clean the underside. On restarting, the power line to the drive just melted, I think that the power line had not reduced the voltage on that line with the fan removed. I just thought I'd let people know to beware extensions for safety's sake.

To recover my Seagate Drive I pulled off the burnt out TVS Diode and I could use the drive again. Later on, I decided to solder a new TVS Diode on. With the Diode on, I plugged it into an external Sata HDD dock. Suddenly it started smoking, so I switched it off just in time to save my HDD Dock - the TVS Diode had burnt off. So for safetys sake I dont recommend resoldering a TVS Diode. The problem with replacement TVS Diodes is they have markings on them so you dont which way round to solder them on. They have to be certain way round.

These days, I now use Dell E521s as the cabling is well clamped with right angled sata connectors(not to be confused with the other right angle on the joining connector bit itself). The machines are ultra quiet. With one behind my TV, I find I dont have to put up with fan noise blocking out the surround sound on my TV . I wish they built more computers like this-- alot of the custom builds you can do are noisy or have inadequate cabling tie backs.

Years ago, when I used to use ATA drives with the very solid connectors I never had a drive fail on me ever. I think most of the drive problems today are due to either poor PSU or inadequate cabling. If anyone is elephant footed in your house it can be a problem....