Laptop freezing frequently (most probably due to bad HDD)

Hi,

My 3.5 years old HP laptop (Core i7 2670QM @2.2 GHz, 4GB RAM, 1GB AMD graphics, Windows 8.1 x64) has been freezing a lot since past few weeks. Initially it was always freezing while using Chrome with flash content. I had to always restart thru power button. Lately, it is freezing more frequently.
Last week, it started automatic start up repair with Disk checking stuck at 57% and rebooting to loop.

I reinstalled Windows 8.1 after formatting HDD. But now it is still freezing.

Task manager shows Disk around 100% most of the time (even when nothing is running).
Chkdsk says no error.

I guessed HDD problem, so ran Hitachi WinDriveFitnessTest. On ext test, ReadErrorCheck - Pass, SmartSelfTest - Fail - Read Element Failure.

I ran Speed Fan SMART analysis. Below is the result:

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Troubled attributes:
Attribute Airflow Temperature failed in the past. Its current value is 58, the worst value was 40 and the threshold is 45. According to the manufacturer, this is an advisory condition.

SERIOUS ISSUE : your hard disk has 14432 (it was 14368 30 mins. ago) reallocated sectors. Hard disks do have spare sectors (usually from 256 up to 2560) used to replace bad ones. This remapping operation is transparent to the end user. Anyway, this can lead to degraded performances (because remapped sectors are in different places of the disk than the original ones and the head needs additional moving). If reallocated sectors grow over time, you might encounter some serious troubles. A backup of the most important data is suggested anyway.

BLOCKING ISSUE : your hard disk has 1040 (it was 1024 30 mins. ago) pending sectors (this value is very large and your hard disk should be replaced). Those are sectors that couldn't be properly read and that the hard disk logic is waiting for a write operation to try to remap to a spare sector (if available). According to the Reallocated Sector Count attribute, your hard disk seems to have available spare sectors. A simple disk surface scan won't be enough to force the remap operation. You need a read/write surface scan to remap the sector. The best option should be a tool that knows about what should be read from that sector so that it has some option to apply the best fix to the missing data.

NOTE : your hard disk Power On Hours Count attribute current value (79) is below the normal range (81 - 100) reported for your specific hard disk model. Basically your hard disk was powered on for more than the maximum time the average user did. This means that either all of the reports collected are from hard disks that were not powered on for too long (this is realistic for recent models) or that your hard disk is becoming old. Usually this is not considered as a pre-failure advisory, but you should check whether you want to replace the hardware or keep an eye on its performances over time.

The overall fitness for this drive is 0%.
The overall performance for this drive is 45%.

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Please can anyone advise me if this is genuine hard drive problem. Do I have to replace the HDD? I am really losing a lot of time (and patience too) because of this freezing and infinite system restart lately, which is affecting my studies.

Any kind of help will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance. :):):)

"your hard disk has 14432 (it was 14368 30 mins. ago) reallocated sectors" - means the drive is dead if correct. Though, no idea why SMART shows only 19.

Thanks GokAy. So it's time to back up everything. I will take this to some service center tomorrow to change HDD. Just I am curious to know, is it possible to replace this HDD with a SSD (may be around 80-160 GB)? Is it worth?

You will benefit most with an SSD upgrade. Best thing you can do really.

I guess you can only find 120 or 256GB in that range(?).

It should be easy for you to change yourself, perhaps some screws in the way. No need to pay for that. Up to you of course.

Run AS SSD benchmark if you go with an SSD and post here, lets see how good is it with your laptop. :)

Thanks GokAy. Ordered Samsung 850 Pro SSD 256GB from Amazon. Will run benchmark after I install it and will post it here. :)

Thanks Arc. I will try disabling the hardware acceleration, once my PC is up (Thanks for this suggestion. This has bugged me since a long time). Since yesterday, it is booting up to repair the disk errors automatically and it is stuck there forever. Guess I have to prepare for the disk's funeral.

Another weird thing I noticed lately that one/two of my installed softwares are not executing. (For ex., I double-click on CCleaner and nothing happens. Ever!! Not even ccleaner.exe pops up in the task manager). I wonder, is it because the OS not able to read the sectors in HDD where CCleaner is stored?

Thanks Arc. Already ordered Samsung 850 Pro SSD 256GB from Amazon yesterday after GokAy suggested to get an SSD (also I wanted to get an SSD since long time :P). Will install Win 8.1 for now, but will jump to Win 10 once it gets released.