3 Signs That Your Hard Drive Is Failing There are many different signs that your hard drive could be failing. It is useful to be clued in to them so you can recognise when something might be about to go haywire and potentially stop it before it does. Besides, backing up is easier than recovering. Sometimes there will never be any warning, but keep your eye out for any of the following indicators and you might just save yourself a load of trouble. Remember the golden rule: as soon as you think your hard drive is failing, back up all your data somewhere else as soon as possible (if you’re not already performing regular backups, which is highly advisable).

	Your computer is slowing down and crashing A slow computer can be caused by a whole assortment of different things, such as an overload of programs running on your computer or a dodgy operating system. However, if a fresh installation of Windows doesn’t speed things up again, then it could be down to your hard drive. If you can’t even launch a folder or file without it lagging for an eternity then you may have a physical disk problem on your hands. It’ll be especially noticeable in larger files as the data is spread out and the hard drive may be having trouble locating the sectors. Also, if your computer is unexpectedly restarting itself or crashing to a blue screen, especially in times when your data is being accessed (such as during the boot up sequence) then the root of the problem may lie in the hard drive.
				Odd noises coming from your computer case You might be hearing sounds coming from inside your case and dismiss it as the normal whirring of a computer, but it is useful to be aware how a failing hard drive sounds. If there is a mechanical failure with the drive then it will usually produce a clicking noise. This is often referred to as the click of death and occurs due to the disk’s read-and-write head not moving as it should. Any sort of grinding means that physical parts of the hardware are beginning to fail. Sometimes when you hear a dodgy noise it can be too late, so don’t delay. You don’t want to be operating the computer if the hard drive broken, so be sure to backup your data, turn it off and get it inspected as soon as you hear anything odd.
	Files are vanishing and error messages appearing When trying to launch a program you may receive error messages saying that data has been corrupted or that it cannot access a file. You may also notice that some of your documents, pictures and music files have vanished and can’t be found anywhere. This is another tell-tale sign of a failing hard drive (although it could point to other unrelated issues, like a virus infection, so don’t automatically assume). The problem is only going to get worse over time, so back your files onto an external drive as soon as you notice anything going awry.
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