Storage Solutions Is my hard disk dying?

[varkey]

I have a Hitachi Travelstar 250 GB hard disk in my Laptop. SMART shows high values for Reallocation Sector Count and Reallocation Event Count.

HDD Sentinel says that it has 89 Bad Sectors and Reallocation of sectors has happened 17 times.

Anyway I never faced any performance issues till now, but from today evening sometimes the system gets very very sluggish, after few minutes it will be back to normal. When its sluggish, I tried restarting the machine, and even the initial Windows screen etc took a while to load and I could feel the delay etc.

When the system is normal, I tried copying files to pendrives etc and it was working just as usual.

Is my hard disk in its final stages? Or is it some other issue with the laptop itself?

 

[prabs]

I guess Yes because I had a slow dying harddisk as well just got it back from RMA yesterday. The worst thing about it is it makes no noise - simply dies gradually.

In my case I knew 3 months ahead of the hdd dying that it is going to die as Ubuntu gave me that warning so after booting into XP I installed and checked with HDtune and it did show it had a bad sector which was reallocated. Generally if bad sectors don't spread you can continue working with it (risky but still - RMA hassle) and I did that but a month back it finally began giving up. The hdd performance had become sluggish while reading or writing. Fortunately I was backing up my data at regular intervals after the warning so data loss was minimal as I was not able to copy some files at the last moment from the hdd.

Bottom line - Back up your data ASAP and get it replaced.

 

[varkey]

I don't have any important data in the hard disk but the issue is that its not under warranty. It came with my laptop and the 1 year laptop warranty is over.

I tried contacting Hitachi if they will accept an OEM drive directly for RMA, but they said it I can get it replaced through the OEM ie HP only.

Edit : Just noticed another thing, this happens only when the notebook is charging or connected to the Power Adapter. When running on battery its working perfectly. So guys please advice.

 

[prabs]

The hdd is no longer under warranty as the laptop's warranty is over so simply keep backing up at regular intervals if you need any data currently present on your system and play the waiting game. Once the hdd dies out get a new 2.5" hdd fitted from HP service centre (preferably) or you can get it done by a local engineer.

 

[varkey]

Please check my edited post above, now I doubt if its really an issue with the hard disk or something else.

Anyway if its the hard disk, will get one from eBay (with some coupon ) and change it myself. Getting the same hard disk from HP would atleast cost 3 times that.