Well, it was pretty fragmented. Cleaned that up and we'll see how it runs. I'll get Norton if I'm still having probs. Thanks guys, Jay
Jayford...I hope the defragging works. However, since there is a chance it could be dying, make a backup of your important files or your entire hard drive immediately (if you haven't already done this). It could die tomorrow, or ten years from now...you never know. Norton Ghost is one option for an entire HD backup to CD. If you want to buy the Norton Utilities mentioned above, you may want to go ahead and buy Norton System Works Professional since it includes AV, Utilities, Ghost and other useful progs.
By *Crunching* do you mean crunching data or making noise? If it's crunching data then, there have been some good suggestions made here already. If it's crunching = making noise. There have also been some good suggestions made already. My 2 cents: Get another drive and a copy of 'Norton's Ghost'. Copy the old hard drive to the new as soon as possible. I've had good lasting performance out of "Western Digital" drives, but any brand name can croak at any time. Personally, I keep my PC running all the time - in the belief that the hardrive will last longer, the less it has to start up. I base this assumption on having watched many lightbulbs blow out when I turn them on and the power hits them, instead of when they are already on. I might be wrong about this. It's only a hunch, but it seems logical. My fancy screensaver consists of turning off the monitors manually and letting the pc run. Is it cost effective to let the pc run all the time (power bill)? Heck if I know. But I am running a 3 year old HD and it's running smooth. It'll probably puke this week, now that I said that. Cheers and good luck!
Your assumption about the drive taking less punishment by staying on is correct. If you have the drive in the power saving mode, your energy use is at the optimum also. So the energy bill should not be increased by any noticeable amount. At any one time I have at least seven computers running. My backup server has run consistently now for over six years.
Better do a back-up immediately!! You wont know what a hassle it is to have a hard disk crash until it happens. It happened to me. pretzel
The defrag worked. Its a new PC, so I wasn't worried about the drive too much. Oops, market just opened. Gotta run. Jay
Another useful hint: if you are windows 2000 or better, use the disk performance counters. If a disk is going bad you will often see large spikes in write time performance counter numbers. Disks often dont fail all at once and they may fail over a few hours or days: often the first sign is spikes in read and more often, write times. If you suspect a bad disk, backup up first, then check the counters, then defrag. .....