Question from user
Hello.
Out of the blue, my laptop started to slow down - the hard drive light on it kept on coming on. It slows down, can freeze for a long time, then comes to life for a few seconds, and then again. If you open any program or game at such a moment, then everything works very slowly, you may not wait for it to open...
I formatted the HDD completely and reinstalled Windows - it didn’t help (by the way, the installation took a very long time). I checked the computer with Dr.Web Cureit (+ Kaspersky) - it also did not help. Hard drive temperature 30-35 degrees.
Good day!
And I’m increasingly noticing that someone has replaced my hard drive...
In fact, a slow hard drive is not that uncommon, and it’s not always easy to make a “diagnosis.” The reasons can be either hardware (for example, if the hard drive is damaged) or software (for example, uTorrent can load the disk by hashing). In the article I will try to indicate how to find and eliminate the cause (I will analyze the most popular ones). So...
❶ HDD brake analysis
In some cases, you can almost exactly determine where to look for the cause of slow disk operation. Therefore, the very first thing I want to start with is observation and analysis. Below I will give a series of questions that will make it clear where I am going:
1) Does the hard drive make clicking noises when applying the brakes? Are you hearing knocking noises? Are there any suspicious sounds that weren't there before? (I must warn you here that many serviceable hard drives emit a “light” grinding noise. I’m talking here about those sounds that have not previously arisen during operation) ?
Similar sounds may indicate a problem with the mechanics of the disk. In this case, the cheapest option is to replace the disk with a new one ();
2) Does it happen to you that files become “broken”, or do errors appear about the integrity of files when opening them? How long does the process of copying and reading files take? Does Windows take a long time to load? Positive answers to these questions may indicate bad blocks. (you can try to cure it, more on that below) , the fact that the disk was dropped (hit), file system errors;
3) have you tried to run Task Manager and see if there are any programs that "rape" your hard drive, loading it to 100% (for example, it could be uTorrent)? To open the task manager, press the Ctrl+Shift+Esc buttons.
It happens that the task manager shows the load at 50-100%, but the programs that do this are not displayed. In this case, try using a third-party monitor, such as .
Performance monitor - what is loading the disk // Advanced SystemCare 10
4) how strong are your brakes: it’s just a slight delay of 0.5÷1 sec. in the game, there seems to be a short freeze (once every 15-20 minutes), or they are so strong that you can’t even start that same game - you wait for 3-4 minutes. Until it loads and the first menu appears? It’s just that in the first case it’s often a matter of power supply settings, in the second the range of problems is much wider;
5) Was there a power outage? The fact is that after such an “abrupt” shutdown of the PC (laptops are usually saved by the battery), you need to run the utility chkdsk(more on this below), and check the disk for file system errors (which, by the way, Windows itself often does).
❷ Checking the disk for errors and bad blocks. SMART readings
Perhaps one of the main steps to start in the fight against freezes and slow disk operation is to check if there are any file system errors on the disk (and if there are, fix them), and if it has started to crumble - if bad problems have appeared -blocks.
These topics are quite extensive and I will not go into detail in this article (fortunately, there is a separate instruction, I will provide a link to it here).
Many users often neglect to check the fur. component of the disk, and yet in vain. If the disk slows down very much, then I recommend that you definitely check whether everything is in order with it. In many cases, the problem can be identified almost immediately once the S.M.A.R.T readings are reviewed. (hard drive self-diagnosis system).
By the way, the S.M.A.R.T. readings can be found in “simple” utilities than Victoria (which is discussed in the article linked above). For example, in the same CrystalDiskInfo utility (I talked about it in this article -).
To find out S.M.A.R.T. and assess the condition of the disk - you just need to run the CrystalDiskInfo utility. Then, within a few seconds, the utility will independently evaluate your disk and make a verdict - an example in the screenshot below (both good and bad).
❸ Drive power mode. Power supply
There are two points to this point. The first is - are the cables inserted well and tightly into the hard drive sockets? It happens that the cables do not fit tightly, which is why the power supply to the hard drive may be unstable (this is not good).
And, the second point, in the power settings of your computer (most often laptops are guilty of this)- can be supplied economical mode. Because of this, if there is no access to the disk for some time, it stops. But then, when you contact it, it needs time, and as a result, you experience a slight freeze of 0.5÷1.5 seconds. This is especially noticeable in games, editors, and other applications.
1) So, first open: \Hardware and Sound\Power Supply
Then in the list of extras. parameters expand the tab "Hard disk/Disable hard disk via" and set your time. To prevent the hard drive from turning off at all, set the time - 0 . After that, save the settings and restart the PC.
Also pay attention to one more point. Often laptop manufacturers install additional features on their devices. software designed, for example, to save battery power. And for what? Due to monitor brightness, screen blanking timer, etc. Among other things, there are options that, in addition to Windows, help stop the hard drive...
In general, the message is simple - check if you have such manager programs and, at least for a while, try to set the performance in them to maximum.
❹ Disk operating mode - PIO/DMA. AHCI mode
If you have a fairly old computer, then you may encounter the fact that Windows (due to some errors) has switched the hard drive out of operation mode DMA(allowing you to work directly with RAM) to the old one PIO- due to which all actions are performed through the CPU. As a result, the speed of work drops, and drops very significantly!
How can you find out what mode the disk is in:
Also be sure to pay attention to another thing - Advanced Host Controller Interface - AHCI. If you have this mode disabled in the BIOS ( and, for example, you could turn it off yourself when checking the disk, say, because some old utilities refuse to work in this mode) - then the disk will slow down a lot.
To check if everything is in order, go to the BIOS, then, usually, you need to open the tab Configuration. The links below will help you.
ACHI mode enabled || laptop bios
And one moment.
When you install Windows, it usually installs the SATA AHCI driver automatically (at least modern OSes). In many cases this is, of course, good, but in some cases the disk behaves unstable. The message here is simple - find out the motherboard manufacturer and download the SATA AHCI drivers from the official website. site, and reinstall them!
To help! How to find out PC specifications (including motherboard manufacturer) -
Driver Booster - installing SATA AHCI drivers
In some cases, you can try to update drivers via : to do this, just open the tab "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" , then right-click on "...SATA AHCI...", in the context menu select "Update drivers...", and follow the wizard's instructions.
Device Manager - SATA ACHI Driver Update
Important!
For mat. boards on Intel chips - be sure to install the driver "The Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology". Usually it comes included on a disk with your laptop/PC (also available on the manufacturer’s website). And he will also find it Driver Booster(screenshot above).
❺ Hard drive temperature analysis
In general, the optimal operating temperature for a hard drive is considered to be approximately 30÷40°C. When the temperature goes beyond these limits, pay close attention to the cooling system (in general, many hard drives can operate relatively quietly at 50°C (degrees Celcius), but their service life is significantly reduced!).
To help! Hard drive temperature: tell me what to do, the HDD heats up to 49-54°C. How to reduce HDD temperature -
To find out the HDD temperature, use some utility to determine the characteristics of your computer. For example, I usually use CrystalDiskInfo, Aida64, Speccy (link to article with utilities below).
To help! Utilities for viewing PC characteristics -
How to lower your temperature:
❻ Cleaning the hard drive from debris. Defragmentation
No matter how careful the user is, over time a large amount of “garbage” accumulates on the hard drive: various temporary files, erroneous shortcuts, browser caches, “tails” from old deleted programs and games, etc. All this affects Windows performance. From time to time this “good” needs to be cleaned.
The best utilities for cleaning your computer can be found in this article -
Guide to cleaning your computer/laptop to speed it up -
A few words about defragmentation(I explain clumsily...)
If your Windows behaves somewhat slowly when opening files from disk ( note: slower than usual), then this could be due to fragmentation (scatter of "pieces" of your file on disk that need to be collected and read before the file is shown to you. The stronger the fragmentation, the higher the spread, and the more time it takes to find all the "pieces")
Defragmentation is a process of optimizing the storage of information on disk, necessary to ensure a continuous sequence of clusters (so that all the “pieces” of the file are in one place). In general, if we step back from unclear terms, then after defragmentation your disk starts working faster: reading and writing files speeds up. Thanks to this, your programs become more responsive, and it becomes more pleasant to work on such a PC!
❼Disable disk indexing
Can load the disk quite heavily indexing(a special thing in new Windows that makes it easier to find files). In fact, a very small part of users constantly use file search, and therefore indexing, in principle, is unnecessary for them!
To disable it: just go to "This computer" ("My computer") and go to the properties of the desired disk.
Disable disk indexing
Finally: if the above did not help, try installing a different version of Windows (just not different collections -), change / update drivers,. Perhaps this is too banal advice (which many people already do before looking for advice on blogs and forums like mine), and yet, in some cases, the reason lies precisely in them...
When a computer or laptop is slow, most users turn their attention to the graphics card or processor. While the hard drive has a bigger impact on PC performance, even more significant than the above mentioned components.
Often, users will find out that the hard drive is slowing down by an LED that blinks or just glows and does not go out, and this is accompanied by a freeze in the task being performed or its execution is too long.
In this case, the hard drive can make the following sounds: , crackling, grinding. This tells us that the computer is actively interacting with the drive and a significant decrease in performance is associated primarily with the HDD. Let's look at the most popular reasons when this device slows down and find out how to fix them.
Disabling the Indexing Service
Quite heavily, especially older hard drives with an IDE interface, can be overloaded by the indexing service (it allows you to search files and folders faster). Those users who do not use search very often can disable it, since in principle they do not need indexing.
To disable it, you need to go to “My Computer,” right-click on the desired section and open its properties.
In the “General” tab, uncheck “Allow indexing...” and click “OK”.
Disk cleanup using standard OS tools
First of all, when the hard drive and, accordingly, the computer begins to work very slowly, you need to clean the disk of unnecessary files and other garbage. This can be done in a variety of ways, but we will consider the option of cleaning without using third-party software.
To do this you need:
Cleaning with CCleaner
The main advantage of this program is that it performs a deeper cleaning compared to standard Windows tools. In addition, it also finds and corrects errors in the registry, maximizing system performance. Has a free version. In addition, if the previous method did not help you and the hard drive is still slow, it is recommended to perform a cleanup using it.
So, let's look at everything step by step:
Defragmentation
Drive fragmentation is an inevitable process when you actively use your computer. It is because of this that programs and games can slow down, which is why it is recommended to regularly defragment it, which will optimize the hard drive and improve the performance of the entire system. You can also do this using standard Windows tools:
After this, the HDD will stop slowing down and start working faster.
This method is discussed using Windows 7 as an example, but it will be completely similar in other versions, Windows 10 and 8.
Virus check
Often, a slow hard drive can be caused by viruses entering the system. That is why, before moving on to the next steps, check it for threats, even if you already have an antivirus installed.
After all, as you know, no antivirus can provide 100% protection against all types of threats, so you need to additionally check your device with special ones.
Checking for errors
You should also diagnose the hard drive for errors. Since their presence directly affects its performance.
You can launch it in one of two ways:
Thus, you can quickly check for errors and, if found, promptly correct them.
We discussed several more effective methods in the previous one.
Victoria utility - checking for bad blocks
If your entire computer slows down, the reason for this may be damaged (inaccessible) read / write sectors, the so-called "bad blocks". As a rule, in this case, at the first connection, the hard drive freezes, information is copied or read for a long time, files disappear, strange sounds appear.
That is why you need to check the disk using the Victoria utility. Previously, detailed instructions on how to use it have already been written, so I will not repeat myself.
Changing the operating mode
Sometimes it happens that the OS, due to some errors, changes the HDD mode from UltraDMA to PIO (an older version) and is characterized by a slower speed.
To find out what mode the disk is in, do the following:
What should I do if PIO is specified in the operating mode settings, and how can I change it back to DMA? Today there are several options:
Two cables are connected to the HDD - IDE and power cord. The first one is quite wide and has a red or blue vein. When opening the system unit, pay attention to whether there is a parallel connection of this cable with any other device other than the hard drive. If detected, disconnect it from the parallel component.
- What else could be the reason? Perhaps the problem is with the motherboard, namely outdated driver versions. To fix this, you need to update the software. In some cases, it will be useful to use special programs that comprehensively check the PC for updates.
If your computer freezes a lot and this problem is related to connection modes, now you know what to do in this situation and how to fix it.
HDD temperature
As everyone has already learned, the entire computer can slow down due to the hard drive, however, the main reason for this can be not only errors or an incorrect mode of operation, but also a strong one. The optimal temperature for its operation is 30-45C. When the temperature rises above 45 degrees, measures should be taken to reduce it. Let's take a closer look at the issues surrounding this issue.
To measure the temperature of the drive, regardless of whether it is an external hard drive or an internal one, we will need the help of third-party software. To do this, we will use the free version of the AIDA64 utility:
In the window that appears, you can see the HDD temperature indicator. If it exceeds the recommended number, then most likely its slow operation is due to this. Now let’s move on to action.
Cleaning from dust and dirt
The first step is to clean the system unit from accumulated dirt and dust. This factor significantly affects the temperature of not only the hard drive, but also other components. It is recommended to do thorough cleaning regularly, at least once a year. If you have a laptop, then this will help you.
Cooling system
If cleaning does not bring the desired effect and the hard drive still overheats, works slowly and slows down the system, then you should think about either purchasing and installing an additional one. It will blow and cool the space around the disk, which will significantly reduce the temperature.
In summer, the storage tank heats up the most. In this case, you can simply open the system unit, place a home fan in front of it and turn it on to cool the PC.
When the drive does not work well on a laptop and overheats significantly, you can purchase a special cooling pad. It will provide a temperature reduction of 5-7 degrees.
Several hard drives
If your computer is equipped with two hard drives that are mounted next to each other, then you can try distributing them in different places. Or turn off one of them completely, which will reduce the temperature by 5-10 degrees.
I would also like to note that when working with laptops, it must stand on a hard, flat surface. Many users place it on a bed or sofa, which blocks the ventilation holes and causes the laptop to overheat. And the person cannot understand what’s wrong, why the hard drive takes a long time to load and the system is incredibly slow.
Another solution is discussed in this video
youtu.be/mJu1ryZAmVA
Updated: 2017-09-30
Professional help
If you are unable to resolve the problems yourself,
then most likely the problem lies at a more technical level.
This could be: a failure of the motherboard, power supply,
hard drive, video card, RAM, etc.
It is important to diagnose and repair the breakdown in time,
to prevent failure of other components.
Our specialist will help you with this.
Leave a request and receive
Free consultation and diagnostics from a specialist!
Many users are scared to death by rebooting their computer.
This process should be easy and user-independent, but sometimes it can take a minute or two or seem like an eternity.
This is a rather controversial topic, since much of what is known about booting a computer is a myth.
But still, the operating system should not boot longer than 90 seconds. If the user is forced to endure more, it is worth starting to take action.
Computer diagnostics
Very often the user becomes nervous for no reason.
Diagnosis takes a lot of time. Although the reason may lie in the most common things.
Tip: If you use your PC frequently, you can leave it on or set it to hibernate when you press the power button. In this case, there is no point in turning it off every time. Then the user gets rid of the need to deal with slow loading.
It's all about organizational skills and discipline. Take this example: very few software installations require regular reboots.
Some changes require a forced reboot while others simply “prompt” you to reboot now or later.
And let's be honest, sometimes users want to save time, which means they choose to reboot later... and sometimes that “later” happens much later.
And then several updates, patches and ignored reboot requests just pile on top of each other.
The system gets confused in the update order, and delays occur that are not visible to the eye of the average user.
After such a long-awaited reboot, the device takes some time to process all these changes. This is normal, but can still be annoying for most users.
Many do not even wait for this necessary download, and reboot the unfortunate device again. Then all updates are reset. This cannot be done.
Disable autostart programs
Programs that are loaded at startup remain active in memory.
Hence, they are one of the main reasons why Windows boots slowly. Disabling programs that the user is not using may work.
To manage startup programs, you can install a very interesting tool, Mike Lin’s Startup Control Panel.
With its help, the user can easily remove unused programs from the list of resident programs and startup programs.
Scandisk and Defrag program
Using Microsoft Scandisk and disk defragmentation, you can make sure that your hard drive is working without errors.
These programs are also necessary to ensure that data is stored in the most efficient way.
Even experienced users run both of these programs at least once every few months.
Yes, they take some time to use. But it’s better to spend it once than to painfully wait for the download every time.
Not enough free space on your hard drive
For a personal computer to work optimally, it must have at least 250 MB of free space on the hard disk on which the operating system is installed.
If the amount of free space is less, the overall performance and loading time can be significantly reduced.
The operating system itself takes up a lot of space, but in addition, the extra space is used to temporarily store files needed during operation.
Determining free space on your hard drive.
In order to determine the availability of free space on the hard drive, you need to open "My Computer".
In the window that opens, there will be a column "Devices and drives", then you need to right-click on Disk C. And select the "Properties" option in the drop-down menu.
The new screen will show the total volume, free volume and used space. It is necessary to check the data on Disk C, since the operating system is most often installed on it.
If there is not enough free space, you need to delete temporary files, clean the system of unused programs and recheck the free space.
Update Drivers and Windows
Custom, incorrectly installed, or outdated drivers can lead to a number of different conflicts.
It is necessary to regularly update operating system drivers, the Windows operating system itself, and also update the software used on the device.
This is the only way to guarantee that software problems will not arise.
All of the problems listed above are not yet related to hardware faults. This is a completely different layer of problems.
Updating the operating system to a new version
Still running Windows 7? Upgrading to Windows 8 or 10 will seriously speed up boot times.
Not every operating system update will necessarily be faster, but the jump from 7 to 8 was huge.
How to update the Windows operating system.
In order to obtain the necessary operating system updates, you need to go to the Control Panel.
If the necessary updates are found, the system will offer to automatically install the latest updates.
The user can only wait for the installed updates and reboot the device.
Cleaning the registry
If the user has already followed all the previous recommendations from this list, but the long-awaited result has not yet arrived, you can clean the system registry. To do this, you can install any program from the Internet.
The process of cleaning the registry itself rarely depends on the user. Most programs work automatically.
Reinstalling Windows
Although this may require time and a free removable drive to save important files, it is one of the drastic solutions.
Additionally, the process itself can be a bit labor-intensive, requiring you to completely erase all data and reinstall Windows.
This process will result in the user's computer operating the same way it did when it was new.
Equipment modernization
Improving the hardware
This is a hardware method to solve the problem. There are more financial costs here than time and moral ones.
Of course, this is one of the most effective ways to increase performance and reduce loading times.
You just need to call any company that deals with modernization or upgrades and order the appropriate service from them.
You can also upgrade your computer yourself by replacing outdated components with new ones.
Adding RAM
Installing additional memory (RAM) for your computer helps increase the overall speed of the computer, and in some cases can reduce boot times by several times.
If your unit runs on less than two gigabytes of RAM, you should think about upgrading or expanding it.
Adding an SSD
A solid state drive is the most effective way to improve overall system performance.
On desktop and laptop computers, you can move Windows from a regular hard drive to an SSD. This will significantly reduce loading times.
Solid state drives are faster, more reliable, more resilient, and more stable. At the moment, this is the best choice among hard drives.
Resetting BIOS Settings
When you first set up your computer in BIOS Setup, the administrator may have disabled some settings.
In order to check what is disabled there, you need to press the del key for a long time when starting the computer.
This is the most common key that motherboard manufacturers assign to enter BIOS Setup.
If it doesn’t work, you should look on the Internet to find out how to enter BIOS Setup by selecting a specific motherboard model.
Once in the BIOS, you can enable the “fast boot option” mode and move the hard drive to the first place in the boot priority list. You also need to turn off "Logo" when loading.
Thus, the computer will not waste time displaying a beautiful picture, but will spend all its energy launching the operating system.
Disable unused hardware
When you first start any computer, it loads a lot of drivers, even though some of them are not used.
You need to go to Device Manager from the Start menu search bar.
There you need to find everything that is not used on the computer, for example, Bluetooth and third-party controllers, modems, virtual Wi-Fi adapters and other hardware that is not in the system. Right-click on the entry you want to disable and click “disable.”
Don't forget to double-check that all other peripheral devices are still working. If the computer is part of a wireless network, virtual Wi-Fi adapters should remain enabled.
Antivirus software
This is considered to be an obvious fact, but it is still worth noting separately.
To keep your computer running quickly, you need to install a good antivirus program, keep it up to date, and run regular scans.
This is more of a preventive measure than a real solution to the problem of long loading times. But very often it is viruses that cause the computer to take a long time to boot.
Plus, any antivirus program will ensure that your files remain intact.
Unused fonts
Since time immemorial, loading additional fonts at startup has slowed down system boot times.
This is less of a problem now than it used to be, but can still be frustrating.
Windows 7 loads more than 200 fonts at startup; even more if you have Microsoft Office installed.
Chances are you use very few of these fonts, so you may want to hide them to speed up the process.
In Windows 7, you need to open the Fonts folder from the Start menu search bar and check for all the fonts that you don't need. Next, click the “hide” button on the toolbar.
This way, if you want them, you can get them back, but Windows doesn't load them at startup.
Please note that by simply removing a few fonts you will not see a noticeable difference.
For the results to be noticeable, you need to get rid of several hundred unused fonts.
There is more of a patience factor here; when you can mark more than a hundred fonts, everything will not seem so funny. And you will understand why they slow down the loading of your operating system so much.
Replacing the motherboard
Changing the motherboard
This is one of the very drastic decisions, since it most often entails replacing the processor and RAM. But this will seriously reduce the computer boot time.
Sometimes the motherboard still works, but the hubs on it are already swollen. Which significantly reduces the speed of its operation. And only a specialized specialist can determine whether it can be repaired.
Again, these are not the only things you can do to reduce your computer's boot time, but they are some of the most well-known, reliable methods.
It is important to understand that by speeding up your computer's boot time, you want to achieve benefit, not harm.
Currently, it is much easier to transfer various records, documents, files and other objects not to disks and flash drives, but to external hard drives. This is due to the high speed of copying to such media compared to other drives.
Also, when using external HDDs, it is very easy to record information, as well as an unrealistic number of times. The user is not limited in the implementation of deleting and writing data. Moreover, you can easily transfer dozens and hundreds of different files at once without any problems. This will not negatively affect the drive you are using.
What’s also very important is that such plug-in storage media can hold a lot of information. Some can record up to 6 TB. But at the same time, the size of such elements is quite small. So this drive can be stored in your pocket without getting damaged or scratched, which is typical for standard disks.
But sometimes it happens that the external hard drive still starts to slow down. However, it is extremely difficult to determine the reason for this behavior. It’s even difficult to imagine what users should do with the used drive in this case? But you still have to figure out the reasons in order to choose an effective method to eliminate the problem.
Working with external HDDs. The reason is outdated defragmentation
Some users note that difficulties with external drives may occur precisely because the disk and file system have not been defragmented for a very long time. To understand this problem, it is necessary to analyze it with an example.
In general, when working with Windows, information is placed not only as a whole file. If the user has uploaded an object of sufficiently large size, it is automatically distributed across several sections. The difficulty is that at the time of playing such a file, the operating system spends quite a lot of time searching and connecting all the fragments.
This is largely why the disk speed decreases to a large extent. In this case, the device being used will also slow down. Thus, fragmentation was previously carried out. But to correct the situation, you will have to perform defragmentation, which is the reverse operation.
First you will have to do a little work on cleaning the disk. That is, you need to remove all the debris that has accumulated on it. The defragmentation procedure is performed at a time when not a single program, application, service, game process, and much more is running on the device. So only if this condition is met will a positive result be achieved.
The procedure is activated when you go to the “My Computer” section. After this, a list of all available media with which you can work will appear. The user will need to allocate an external drive on which subsequent work will be performed.
Next, go to the properties of this object. You will need to open the “Service” tab, and then start the optimization process. Now a message will appear on the screen of your personal computer about how exactly defragmentation occurs. In some cases, this procedure does not need to be performed at all. So you should look at the message and focus on it.
The file system has a significant impact on fragmentation. So users will have to take this aspect into account. If the system is modern, then it is more susceptible to fragmentation. There is also one more condition - it does not allow you to place files on the disk whose size exceeds 4 GB.
The reason is the detection of bads and logical errors
Difficulties with the speed mode of an external hard drive can also arise for other reasons. In some cases, you may not even be aware of errors on a third-party drive, since they may not appear at all for a long period of time.
Such errors quite often arise for a rather banal reason: due to incorrect use of utilities downloaded to the device. Also, sometimes conflict situations arise with important components - drivers. Another reason may lie in a sudden power cut to the gadget.
In some cases, a problem with an external hard drive occurs because the user has been using it too much. That is, if the work is very active, then this affects the speed of processed requests. Sometimes the Windows operating system, after a reboot, independently launches a scan to identify errors.
The scan should be launched through “My Computer”. As soon as a partition opens with several disks that can be accessed, you need to select an external drive. Click on it, and then open the properties tab. As soon as you move to this section, you need to open the check function in the “Service” tab.
Now the scanner is activated, which will do the work to identify various errors in the file system. Difficulties also arise due to the accumulation of bad things. In small quantities, these unreadable sectors of the hard drive will be eliminated by the system.
But as soon as there are too many of them, the system is no longer able to cope with them. Thus, it is not possible to isolate them without negatively affecting the performance of a personal computer. This leads to difficulties in working not only with the PC, but also with an external hard drive.
Activation of several programs. Reason #3
This is why the device and working disks may freeze. If several applications are activated at the same time, this can significantly overload the PC. A heavy load affects absolutely all disks - internal and external.
Especially often the process of downloading various files leads to this. In some cases, the game process may also be launched and several other utilities enabled. And if a scan is performed by anti-virus software and at this moment the user is working with some utilities, then this will certainly negatively affect the functioning of the device.
The easiest way to find out the real disk load parameter at a certain moment is to contact the task manager. The user will need to evaluate all those processes that are active. Very often, the user may not even be aware of some running processes.
Hidden processes operate without unnecessary “noise” so that users cannot detect them. But it is still possible to identify these objects using specialized utilities. You can also go to the task manager and select the option to show running processes.
At the same moment, a list of all the elements that are currently activated will appear on the personal computer screen. You should immediately close all processes that greatly slow down the system, as well as those that are not needed at all. Then the problem will be fixed, if, of course, this was the reason.
Difficulty with nutritional deficiencies
This is another current reason for problems with the drive. It consists of a lack of power to the USB port. The thing is that different disks have different starting and operating currents. This means only one thing: files from the external drive will be recognized, but freezing will still occur.
It is also important to choose those ports on the device with which there are fewer problems. So it's better to use the ports on the back of the unit. It's best to check whether this is the reason or not. To do this, you may need special hubs with additional power, as well as elements that need to be connected on one side to the USB ports of the gadget, and on the other to the USB of the external storage device used.
In these simple ways, it is possible to identify the real cause, as well as quickly correct any problems that have arisen. Eventually all brakes will be removed. Such an easy-to-implement procedure will certainly help get rid of difficulties if this is the reason.
Bootloaders work
Another reason for difficulties with external drives can be called torrents. A huge number of users prefer to work with hard drives that are connected separately in order to load a huge amount of information onto them. Thus, the computer will not be heavily loaded, since its RAM will not be oversaturated with files.
But if you load objects of a sufficiently large size, this leads to difficulties in working with storage media. Many users use external hard drives to directly download files to them. However, the download speed can be significantly reduced if the disk is suddenly overloaded.
At the same time, a new notification will immediately appear on the gadget’s screen, in which users will learn about the overload. To avoid this error, you need to correctly configure the torrent download software. In this case, the work of the disk itself will also be adjusted.
The elimination of errors is facilitated by limiting the number of simultaneously downloaded torrents. So users should not download more than two files at once, even if the size of such objects is not too large. Reduced disk load has a positive effect on download speed.
You should also install sequential download. After installing one file, the download of the next object will immediately be activated. The user needs to configure the program only in this way. In the future, this will make it possible not to encounter various errors due to such banal reasons.
Difficulties due to media damage
The reason in some cases lies precisely in this. In this case, users need to urgently take measures to "save" the information that is stored on this drive. But first you have to check if this is true or not?
If suddenly the user notices that the connected disk makes strange sounds during operation, then this should be urgently paid attention to. In this case, various noises may appear. This happens at the time of an attempt to read data from this object.
You can also understand that damage has occurred if suddenly, when accessing the disk, the gadget starts to freeze. In this case, the device does not have to be heavily loaded with third-party processes. Users can check other aspects as much as they like, but they will not detect errors in them, since the problem is most likely related to the inoperability of the drive.
If the disk LED is off or the operating system cannot detect it, then this is also a consequence of media damage. The external HDD can be accidentally hit or dropped. In this case, the user may not pay attention to this, but the disk will already be faulty.