Solved Random stuttering of whole system from time to time

[Insanitic]

Hey guys, I have this problem where from time to time, my whole comp stutters, from the cursor, to the audio. I assume its because of the HDD because of two things:
1. My HDD light in my desktop stays constantly on for a second and this is when it operates fine. Then right after, it turns off for a split second and this corresponding second causes the whole comp to stop/ stutter. It will then start again. This cycle happens for sometimes 10 minutes or more, making the comp unsuable.
2. After one of these events happened, I looked at event viewer and saw in the problems this: "The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because of an IO failure on volume C: source: volsnap".
I assume I have bad sectors and volume shadow copy is amplifying the problem, but even after I scanned the HDD with the built in chckdisk, the problem still happens from time to time. Anyone have any ideas? I have a seagate 750 gb 7200 rpm drive.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Yep mate run the HDD test from Seagate - SeaTools | Seagate

another if that comes up empty is the surface test with Partition Wizard Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

 

[Insanitic]

Yep mate run the HDD test from Seagate - SeaTools | Seagate

another if that comes up empty is the surface test with Partition Wizard Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

Is seagate's RMA warranty lifetime?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

I don't expect so Insanitic but you could ask.

 

[Britton30]

Seagate's warranty is 2, 3 or 5 years depending on which model and when you bought it. They in the past couple of years dropped 5 year warranty on consumer drives, i.e. Barracuda.

They have a page you can check warranty status of a drive.
Warranty Validation

 

[Layback Bear]

What I recommend at this time is do a backup of everything you want to save.
Do this before any testing. If a hard drive is shaking a computer the speculation is over. It is dying. The hard drive might go kaput while testing.

 

[Insanitic]

its not shaking the computer if you mean vibrating really hard, but it makes the computer stutter whenever windows tries to do a volume shadow copy. Is it really the harddrive? or maybe the motherboard, just to make sure

 

[Layback Bear]

It still sounds like a hard drive to me. I would still do a backup and then do what ever testing is necessary.

 

[Insanitic]

It still sounds like a hard drive to me. I would still do a backup and then do what ever testing is necessary.

As a backup, is it fine, despite the bad sectors, to clone/image the hard drive in question to another drive?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Mate I would be a) trying a new cable b) checking the board at the SATA connection c) do as Layback says and just replace it.

 

[Insanitic]

Ok thanks guys will try all of those options. Especially changing/reconnecting the SATA cables first since I've heard of people having HDD problems with the cables to blame. But I'm still wondering whether its safe clone/mirror a drive thats kinda on the fritz?

 

[ICIT2LOL]

I'd be getting of what data I can and really need my friend and just ditching the thing.

 

[Layback Bear]

Lets keep in simple Insanitic. DO your backups if their is data you want to save.
If you don't want to save anything then don't do the backups.
Then do what ever testing you want to do.
If you want to test the hard drive and all the cables that fine. You might find something.
How well a backup will be on a hard drive that is in question you won't know until you try.

My first understanding of your problem was the hard drive was physically shaking. Then you pointed out that wasn't so. That just all operation were shaking ie. video, sound, ect.
It still smells like a hard drive but it cost nothing to test it.

 

[Insanitic]

Lets keep in simple Insanitic. DO you backups if their is data you want to save.
If you don't want to save anything then don't do the backups.
Then do what ever testing you want to do.

Its just that I have hundreds of programs and games that are mostly a pain to reinstall again and I just don't have the time with my job. So again, I'm wondering, will it be problem to mirror a drive that has bad sectors? I'm thankful for your suggestions, but I choose to mirror the drive.

 

[Layback Bear]

Let me see if I can find somebody with more knowledge than I to explain things better.

 

[Insanitic]

Let me see if I can find somebody with more knowledge than I to explain things better.

Oh no layback bear, you're explanations are fine. You tell me to just backup the most important files instead of the whole drive since its more complicated. However, I want to do it my way, which is mirror the drive just because I have a lot of data and programs that are laborious to install.

 

[Layback Bear]

Well you surly can do it as you choose but I would suggest you hold off a little longer. Others will be by to give you more information.
Mirroring is not always the best option.

 

[Insanitic]

Well you surly can do it as you choose but I would suggest you hold off a little longer. Others will be by to give you more information.
Mirroring is not always the best option.

Ok I'll wait for more input then. Thanks for your help though layback.

 

[gregrocker]

What are the results of Seagate Seatools bootable CD long scan? This will tell you the condition of the HD.

If it passes test HD also with Disk Check.

If those absolve the HD then run through the other Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

 

[Insanitic]

What are the results of Seagate Seatools bootable CD long scan? This will tell you the condition of the HD.

If it passes test it also with Disk Check.

If those absolve the HD then run through the other Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

Oh yes, forgot to tell the status, it said the long generic test failed. I wasn't using Seatools dos though, but the windows version