Trying to determine if my hard drive is about to die - Memory problems
I don't know if this is a hardware or a software issue, so I put it in this section. I'm really worried that one of my hard drives is failing, but I don't know for sure. Here's the story:
Fed up with Windows 8.1, I decided to go back to Windows 7 Pro. So I copied all my personal files onto my second drive and wiped out the main drive with diskpart and the Clean command. I installed Window 7, then did all Windows updates, installed all drivers and all my programs. After that, I proceeded to copy all the files from my second drive to my user folder in the main drive. I left that working overnight knowing it would take a while because it was over one terabye.
This morning I had to go out and I didn't come back until 12 or so, and I didn't turn on the monitor until then. When I turn it on I see a message that the computer is low on memory and that I might want to close some programs to make space. Well, no matter how large the copy operation is, my computer has 32 GB of RAM, so this shouldn't happen.
But even more weird is that I try to launch Task Manager and the screen goes blank; the computer is sending a signal to it, but it's completely blank. Then a moment later it stops sending a signal so the screen turns off. Then it comes on again, but with a blank signal. This keeps on going on and on. I turn on the second monitor to see what is doing, and it's the same thing.
I figure I let it work, but after several minutes I get fed up and I press the power button. So I hear that the hard drive starts working harder, and I think, great, now it's going to do the shut down process. But no. So far it's been an hour of the hard drive working hard and the screens were turning on and off, but now the main screen is on with an almost blank signal, except in the middle there's the "busy" round cursor, and the start orb is also there, but nothing else.
After having one hard drive die on me over a year ago I'm really worried that this might be a sign that this one is about to die. A computer with 32 GB of RAM should never run low on memory just for a copy operation, in fact I never had any computer over the years do this to me, even on computers with 4 GB of RAM.
So what do you guys think?
Update: shortly after writing this, the main screen started showing up in pieces, and eventually Task Manager came up and it was showing that Windows Explorer was using 32 GB of RAM. After a minute, it closed task manager and the two windows explorer windows, probably because of the shutdown that I had triggered by pressing the power button, but for the past twenty minutes the screen has been blank except for the mouse pointer.
I don't know if this is a hardware or a software issue, so I put it in this section. I'm really worried that one of my hard drives is failing, but I don't know for sure. Here's the story:
Fed up with Windows 8.1, I decided to go back to Windows 7 Pro. So I copied all my personal files onto my second drive and wiped out the main drive with diskpart and the Clean command. I installed Window 7, then did all Windows updates, installed all drivers and all my programs. After that, I proceeded to copy all the files from my second drive to my user folder in the main drive. I left that working overnight knowing it would take a while because it was over one terabye.
This morning I had to go out and I didn't come back until 12 or so, and I didn't turn on the monitor until then. When I turn it on I see a message that the computer is low on memory and that I might want to close some programs to make space. Well, no matter how large the copy operation is, my computer has 32 GB of RAM, so this shouldn't happen.
But even more weird is that I try to launch Task Manager and the screen goes blank; the computer is sending a signal to it, but it's completely blank. Then a moment later it stops sending a signal so the screen turns off. Then it comes on again, but with a blank signal. This keeps on going on and on. I turn on the second monitor to see what is doing, and it's the same thing.
I figure I let it work, but after several minutes I get fed up and I press the power button. So I hear that the hard drive starts working harder, and I think, great, now it's going to do the shut down process. But no. So far it's been an hour of the hard drive working hard and the screens were turning on and off, but now the main screen is on with an almost blank signal, except in the middle there's the "busy" round cursor, and the start orb is also there, but nothing else.
After having one hard drive die on me over a year ago I'm really worried that this might be a sign that this one is about to die. A computer with 32 GB of RAM should never run low on memory just for a copy operation, in fact I never had any computer over the years do this to me, even on computers with 4 GB of RAM.
So what do you guys think?
Update: shortly after writing this, the main screen started showing up in pieces, and eventually Task Manager came up and it was showing that Windows Explorer was using 32 GB of RAM. After a minute, it closed task manager and the two windows explorer windows, probably because of the shutdown that I had triggered by pressing the power button, but for the past twenty minutes the screen has been blank except for the mouse pointer.
My Computer
At a glance
Windows 7 64 bit Home PremiumQ67008 GB OCZ PlatinumRadeon 4850 1 GB of RAM
- Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
- Self Built Computer
- OS
- Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium
- CPU
- Q6700
- Motherboard
- Intel D975XBX2
- Memory
- 8 GB OCZ Platinum
- Graphics Card(s)
- Radeon 4850 1 GB of RAM
- Sound Card
- Motherboard
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Envision 9110
- Hard Drives
- Western Digital Caviar SE 1 TB, 640 and 320 GB.
