Windows 7 PC Suddenly Very Slow and Semi-Non-Functional

[conelrad6568]

Hello,

When I started up my computer today, it took much longer than usual to boot up and load the desktop. When I open "My Computer", at first all unused drives show up. After closing and reopening, the normal drives are listed, but my B: drive (on which I store all my precious documents, pictures, etc.) does not have the bar underneath showing the used/available space, and it is not accessible. I am able to access my other drives (A: and C normally. Sometimes, "Computer" just shows a blank screen while the green loading bar at the top slowly creeps along, never reaching the end, and when I open the libraries window, "Computer" does not even appear in the sidebar on the left. I have tried restarting the computer, to no avail. It seems that any time I try to do something that involves the B: drive, the program hangs up.

Looking at my system specs through Steam (the only way I could think of that I can currently access them), it shows "number of HDDs and SSDs" as "0", but also shows the total available hard drive space as 2021972 MB.

Windows Explorer and some other Windows applications that I have attempted to use—as well as my ESET antivirus—are also running very slowly, or not at all, and hanging up frequently when they do. Firefox and some other programs appear to work normally. At the time of posting this, I cannot get Windows Explorer and some other programs to open at all (even after restarting Windows Explorer); it seems like the processes might be running, but they will not open in a window. If I try to open or save any files in any program I am able to use (e.g. Notepad), the program stops responding.

The day before, it was working fine, but when I shut it down at the end of the day, it hung up for several minutes on the "Shutting down" screen, and only turned off after I pressed the power button (I must note that I did not hold the button down, and the computer stayed on for a few seconds after that before seeming to power off normally).

I built this computer myself some years ago, and it has served me reliably during that time. I can't afford a new one at this time, so I'm hoping I'll be able to get this straightened out somehow. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. If more information is needed, I am happy to provide it, but I didn't want to clog up the post with all the potentially unimportant details I could think of.

Thank you all for your assistance.

- - - Updated - - -

Update to the situation: I removed the problematic B: drive from the computer, and it started up like normal. I plugged it into an external hard drive enclosure, and found that most of my files appear to still be accessible. I am now in the process of copying what I can over to an external hard drive that I will hopefully be able to use to temporarily store my documents, pictures, etc. libraries until I can replace the failing drive. One of the folders (My Videos) is "corrupt and unreadable". Still, if anyone has any advice to offer on the current situation, such as potentially recovering the contents of the corrupt folder, I would appreciate it.

 

[samuria]

Welcome to the forum. Its very bad practice to give drive letters a + B as they are fro floppy disk/ Have you checked the drive it could be drive or cable thats the problem

 

[conelrad6568]

Thank you for your reply.

I haven't had any issues with my drive nomenclature in the decade I've had it set up the way it is, but I will take that into account going forward.

I have pretty much determined that hard drive failure was the cause of the problem. I have removed the bad drive from the computer, and it seems to be functioning as normal now. I plugged the drive into a USB enclosure, and copied as many files as I was able to save over to an external hard drive, where they will hopefully be safe until I can replace the failing drive.

The problem I'm facing now is the loss of and possibility of recovering my corrupted videos folder, which was unfortunately not included in my backup. Any tips or suggestions on how I might go about possibly recovering that folder would be much appreciated. When I look at the folder's properties, it still shows the correct size and all the files and folders inside, but if I try to open it, it says "the file or directory is corrupt and unreadable." Update: I managed to get into the videos folder by removing it from my Libraries, and am now in process of copying the contents over to the external hard drive.

 

[file3456]

If you have corrupt data, I'd use HDD Raw Copy Tool and clone the whole drive as a 1:1 clone to another drive of equal or greater size. Now you can use tools like Get Back Data et al.

Believe me when I tell you HDD Raw Copy Tool copies all. Even bad data or deleted data. It's all there. This is my primary cloning software, except I direct HDD Raw Copy Tool to create an image file and use HDD Raw Copy Tool in Hiren's Boot CD with Ventoy.

The more you play around with the bad drive the worse it will get.

 

[conelrad6568]

Thank you. I have downloaded it and will give that a look. At this point, I've copied over almost everything manually, so I'm not sure whether I'll need to use it, but I appreciate it nonetheless. It may very well prove useful when I get the replacement hard drive and begin migrating everything over to it.