Default Flickering HD light;; stuttering; Is it the Drive Failing?

[Nehmo]

HP Compaq Presario V2000 laptop running Windows XP Home SP2, Toshiba MK8025GAS 80GB Laptop Hard Drive

http://www.baber.com/drives/internal_hard_drives/laptops/toshiba_mk8025gas_specs.htm

I don't know what precipitated it, the machine started
a jerky behavior. Let's say when playing videos, the sound and pic would momentarily stop several times a minute. The hard drive light would light up at the same time as the hesitation, flickering. And it seems the CPU usage would go to a hundred percent off and on. Because of this hesitating, everything runs slow.

I'm running AVG free and it's up to date. I also have Windows Defender and I ran Ad-Aware as well. I come up clean.

I tried using CHKDSK (via device manager), and it found several errors and fixed them. But still the problem persists.

I have HDDlife Pro Version 3.0.140. I'm not clear about it, but it seems to say the HD is OK.

However, I suspect the hard drive is failing. I don't know how to read a SMART report, but I was told to be concerned about these two items:
C4 Reallocation Event Count 0 100 100 6 OK: Always passing
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 100 100 19 OK: Always passing

Is the HD failing? Is that the problem? Where can I learn how to understand this report?

I got the SMART report form Everest Home Edition. Here's the full SMART report:

Device Description
TOSHIBA MK8025GAS (264D8399S)
ID Attribute Description Threshold Value Worst Data Status
01 Raw Read Error Rate 50 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal
02 Throughput Performance 50 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal
03 Spin Up Time 1 100 100 1385 OK: Value is normal
04 Start/Stop Count 0 100 100 1997 OK: Always passing
05 Reallocated Sector Count 50 100 100 6 OK: Value is normal
07 Seek Error Rate 50 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal
08 Seek Time Performance 50 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal
09 Power-On Time Count 0 88 88 5195 OK: Always passing
0A Spin Retry Count 30 138 100 0 OK: Value is normal
0C Power Cycle Count 0 100 100 1909 OK: Always passing
C0 Power-Off Retract Count 0 100 100 30 OK: Always passing
C1 Load/Unload Cycle Count 0 87 87 130081 OK: Always passing
C2 Temperature 0 100 100 4294639662 OK: Always passing
C4 Reallocation Event Count 0 100 100 6 OK: Always passing
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 100 100 19 OK: Always passing
C6 Off-Line Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passing
C7 Ultra ATA CRC Error Rate 0 200 253 0 OK: Always passing
DC Disk Shift 0 100 100 8270 OK: Always passing
DE Loaded Hours 0 91 91 3750 OK: Always passing
DF Load Retry Count 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passing
E0 Load Friction 0 100 100 0 OK: Always passing
E2 Load-In Time 0 100 100 218 OK: Always passing
F0 Head Flying Hours 1 100 100 0 OK: Value is normal

What's my next step?
--
(||) Nehmo (||)

 

[countrypaul]

How much RAM do you have on the machine and how much is free before running your video. The symptoms you describe can be caused by paging or just the process of reading more video off disk.

Before running your video try shutting down everything you don't need (including AV etc. if you don't need the network to run your video).

Has this problem arisen suddenly - if so have you installed any new software/updates recently? Does the problem only show up when running video or at least appear much worse?

It could be your hard disk, but I would check out other possibilities as well.

 

[Nehmo]

1.12 GB RAM
I first noticed it when I went to

http://www.videostored.com/

but I don't think the site had anything to do with it.

It not only happens in videos but it even interrupts or flickers during Windows sounds, even the start up sound. The problem doesn't happen exclusively with videos.

I don't think any new software cause the problem.

Yes, I'd like to know for sure that it's a hardware problem before I change the drive. I'm beginning to think that's the case, though. The
" C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 100 100 19 OK: Always passing "
from the SMART report is what I'm relying on. Some people believe the "19" means a serious problem.

 

[Freestone]

Does XP's System Log show any type of errors?

Have you tried running any diagnostics on the drive? I've quickly browsed around and have read Toshiba offers no diagnostics for their drive but Hitachi/IBM diags will work:

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT

 

[jurgen36]

Unfortunately Smart Drive does not give you the full picture. Drives many times suddenly fail and the last smart drive gave full health. It can help but do not believe all it says. Regards

Jurgen

 

[countrypaul]

Since the problem happens with things other than video (sound during startup for example) it could be related to the hard drive, or the IDE bus. I had somthing similar on a desktop when the ide cable to the cdrom drive wasn't fully plugged in.

Not being familiar with the laptop, can you remove the cd drive and reset the harddrive and see if that makes any difference?

Have you got a decent backup of the system? I should have asked earlier, but if it is the hd you should make sure you have an upto date backup.

If you try booting off another medium (floppy or CD - WinXP install disk for example) do you see the same hesitations, or does everything run smoothly?

 

[Nehmo]

to countrypaul,
"reset the hard drive"? What does that mean?

Yes, I realize I need to back up everything. I'm going to get some blank disks today.

I don't have anything else to boot from. I don't have an install disk, and there's no floppy drive.

I'm going to take Ron Speed's advice and get another HD. He's doesn't like the SMART item:
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 0 100 100 19 OK: Always passing
He says 19 is bad.
I'll get an outside enclosure and clone the existing hd to the new hd. I just got True Image for the job.

--
Nehmo

 

[countrypaul]

Sorry, typo, I meant reseat the harddrive cables.

Without any other means of booting the PC, I think another hard drive is the safest bet also. You should be able to image the current drive to your new one and determine whether it is just the hard drive or something else.

 

[Nehmo]

I'm hesitant to do it because usually a computer problem is a software problem. But drives *do* fail sometimes.

I'm reluctant to spend the money too. But if the new drive still doesn't fix the problem, then I'll have an external drive to use. That won't be so bad.

--
Nehmo