Hard Disk whirrr

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ben Stevenson
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Ben Stevenson

Every now and then the hard disk goes off on its own whirrr sound and
everything comes to a stop. Nothing can be done. I have to wait for the
whirrr to stop before proceeding to anything else, and that could take up to
a minute. Anything I can do about it?
Thanks
 
Immediately back up your data.
Visit the hard disk manufacturers site & download their testing utility, as
its possible your hd is failing.
 
Ben Stevenson said:
Every now and then the hard disk goes off on its own whirrr sound and
everything comes to a stop. Nothing can be done. I have to wait for the
whirrr to stop before proceeding to anything else, and that could take up to
a minute. Anything I can do about it?
Click to expand...

A common cause of this is swap file activity. If you don't have enough
RAM for everything that you're doing to fit, then occasionally
something will have to be moved to the swap file and something on the
swap file moved into RAM before you can do what you want. This can
take many seconds. The swap file works but your disk just is not
anywhere as fast as RAM.

I use some RAM-hungry apps on my machine at work, which was originally
set up with 512MB of RAM. It wasn't enough. I'd click a menu and wait
thirty seconds while the disk whirred until the menu appeared. The
same thing happened when I chose a command from that menu. The problem
went away when my employer upgraded me to 2GB of RAM.
 
Ben Stevenson said:
Every now and then the hard disk goes off on its own whirrr sound and
everything comes to a stop. Nothing can be done. I have to wait for the
whirrr to stop before proceeding to anything else, and that could take up to
a minute. Anything I can do about it?
Click to expand...

Backup everything ASAP and then replace the drive
 
I tried to back up My Documents to my 2GB thumb drive. I dragged the My Docs
icon from the desktop to the thumb drive but all I got was a My Docs short
cut. I don't think I got that right. How should I go about it?
Thanks
 
I don't use any RAM hungry apps. Just view some websites. I have 512 MB of
RAM. It has always been OK till recently. I feel something has gone
recently. I viewed my Virtual Memory which has always been set to 1512 Meg
and it is still the same.
 
I don't know what brand and model number hard disk I have. How do I find
out?
Thanks
 
Ben Stevenson said:
I tried to back up My Documents to my 2GB thumb drive. I dragged the My Docs
icon from the desktop to the thumb drive but all I got was a My Docs short
cut. I don't think I got that right. How should I go about it?
Click to expand...

Try dragging with the right mouse button held down. You'll get a menu
when you release the button, you can tell it exactly what to do.
 
Ben said:
Every now and then the hard disk goes off on its own whirrr sound and
everything comes to a stop. Nothing can be done. I have to wait for the
whirrr to stop before proceeding to anything else, and that could take up to
a minute. Anything I can do about it?
Click to expand...

THE VERY FIRST STEP IS TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL YOUR DATA BACKED UP TO
SEVERAL CDS, AND MAKE SURE THE CDS WORK.
 
Ben Stevenson said:
There are just two items in the menu:
"create shortcuts here"
and "cancel"
Click to expand...

Ugh! have you tried opening a console window ("DOS box") and using the
xcopy command?
 
I don't know how to do that. Pls guide me and I'll do it. But isn't there an
easier way of backing up "My Documents"?
 
Ben Stevenson said:
I don't know how to do that. Pls guide me and I'll do it. But isn't there an
easier way of backing up "My Documents"?
Click to expand...


Start|Run, type cmd and hit enter. Now you have a console window. Type
"C:" (no quotes) to get onto the C: drive. Now navigate to your "My
Documents" folder. In my machine, I'd type

cd "\WINNT\Profiles\SLATTERY_T\My Documents"

This will vary depending on just how things are set up, but your My
Documents folder will be there somewhere. Once there:

xcopy *.* f:\ /s

assuming that "f:" is your removable drive. The "/s" tells it to copy
all the subdirectories. For a complete list of options, type

xcopy /?
 
cd "\WINNT\Profiles\SLATTERY_T\My Documents"
It says the system cannot find the path specified.
Back to my earlier question: Isn't there an easy way to copy/backup My
Documents?
Why is it that other folders can easily be copied/backedup, but not My
Documents?
 
Ben Stevenson said:
It says the system cannot find the path specified.
Back to my earlier question: Isn't there an easy way to copy/backup My
Documents?
Click to expand...

Start\All Programs\Accessories\System Tools\Backup then follow
directions from the Wizard to backup My Documents and Settings,
Everyone's Documents and Settings, All Information on the computer, or
your selection of folders and files.
Why is it that other folders can easily be copied/backedup, but not My
Documents?
Click to expand...
So that you don't accidentally lose the default directory where all of
your personal data should be stored.
 
Thanks for your response. In case you did not read my original question, all
I'm trying to do is to get My Docs to my Thumb Drive. I'm not trying to
backup in the original sense, as that may involve other and more steps that
may not be in line with my purpose. So how should I use your given steps
below?
Thanks
 
Ben Stevenson said:
It says the system cannot find the path specified.
Click to expand...

I said that location might vary. Different system setups put the "My
Documents" directory different places. It's on your drive someplace.
 
Highlight My Documents >> Edit >> Select All >>
Edit >> Copy to Folder >> (select the thumb drive)
 
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