[dba-Tech] hard drive failure - maybe - diagnostic

[Ed Tesiny]

Not knowing much of what these knowledgeable folks are suggesting, as a
light weight, I would back up everything you can and shop for a new
machine...Prices are good now and will get better as the Holiday approaches.

On Sun, Nov 12, 2017 at 3:50 AM, Gustav Brock <gustav at cactus.dk> wrote:

> Hi Tina
>
> If you regularly can defrag the drive, there is probably nothing wrong
> with the harddisk.
>
> Make a backup of the user data and reinstall Windows to get rid of all the
> old stuff - you could even upgrade to Windows 10 to get a speedier machine.
> And replace the harddisk with an SSD If you wish to spend some good money.
>
> In no normal user scenario Windows Firewall should be left switched off.
>
> /gustav
> ________________________________________
> Fra: dba-Tech <dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com> på vegne af Tina N
> Fields <tinanfields at torchlake.com>
> Sendt: 11. november 2017 22:41:36
> Til: Off Topic; dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com
> Emne: [dba-Tech] hard drive failure - maybe - diagnostic
>
> Is Spin-rite still a good tool to use to diagnose potential hard drive
> failure, for a Win 7 laptop?
>
> My son-in-law has a Win 7 Dell Vostro 3500, vintage 2010. It has
> recently become extremely slow, taking upwards of 10 minutes to boot,
> and over 5 minutes to launch programs. Malware-bytes finds no threats.
> It's been routinely defragged. Until sometime in the recent past, it was
> using a VPN to remote into the home office out in Beverly,
> Massachusetts. The company switched to putting everything in the cloud
> sometime in the last couple years (I think).
>
> I had installed Vipre on it from my subscription, but the IT guys in the
> home office wanted everyone to have the same anti-virus tool, so they
> uninstalled Vipre and installed their AVG. They also controlled all the
> Windows updates.
>
> I looked at this computer yesterday, and found no anti-virus protection
> on it, the Windows update feature disabled, and Windows Defender
> firewall off. I think this box has been left unprotected since the
> company put everything in the cloud. My son-in-law believed that the IT
> guys were still taking care of his protection and updates. Since they
> are no longer connected via VPN, I'm thinking that just isn't true.
>
> So, I looked through the processes running and the start-up items. There
> were three identical Intel entries in the start-up; I unchecked two of
> them, which did speed up the boot process a bit. It had been over 15
> minutes before.
>
> As slow as it is to launch a browser, once the browser is up, accessing
> web pages is right up to speed.
>
> We did download and run Malware-Bytes, which found no threats.
>
> I discovered he didn't have a recent backup of his data, so, he spent
> yesterday evening and some of today doing that.
>
> I'm noodling away on this and wondering if the problem is a failing hard
> drive.
>
> So, any other thoughts? And is there any other diagnostic software I
> should bring to bear on this problem?
>
> Thanks
>
> --
> Tina Norris Fields
> 231-322-2787
> tinanfields-at-torchlake-dot-com
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