Need help on Laptop problem

[dracons]

My laptop suddenly slowing down tremendously. I have a Sony Vaio, PCG-Z1WA and it takes so long to start up and loading up Windows OS. Once i got windows loaded, a simple process takes alot longer than normal. I have checked in Windows Manager and there was barely any resources being used but the hard drive light is blinking rapidly. My hard drive might be damaged. I have occasionally used up all my space in my C drive, do you guys think that is the case that caused the problem? I am thinking of reformating my drives. Do you guys have any other suggestions?

Thanks alot and appreciate it

[glc]

Before you do anything, run diagnostics on the hard drive. If it's damaged, there's no point in trying to clean it up. If it tests okay, then I concur with a reformat, you undoubtedly have a ton of corrupted and fragmented files and a reformat/reload will be faster and easier than trying to clean it up.

[thefultonhow]

If the hard drive is continuously throashing, it may be going bad, or it may just be stuck in PIO mode:

http://forum.pcmech.com/showpost.php...34&postcount=4

It's happened to me a couple of times on my ThinkPad.

[TallTravel]

I had precisely the same problem a few months back, and began thinking " the worst " had happened to the hard drive. In fact it had been a very, very time long since I had defragged the hd, and each time I tried to defrag it got caught in a loop which it could not get out of. Hence, it seemed to be constantly accessing the hd, light almost always on, etc, etc.

I used a third party defragger to get it out of the loop (I may have done this in safe mode, cannot recall) rather than the Win Xp defrag software, and the hd was fine when it completed a true and complete defrag.

During that time virtually everyone I communicated with assured me the hd was " fried ", or was on its last legs. It was not.

[glc]

This is why I am suggesting diagnostics FIRST.

[dracons]

Originally Posted by thefultonhow If the hard drive is continuously throashing, it may be going bad, or it may just be stuck in PIO mode: http://forum.pcmech.com/showpost.php...34&postcount=4 It's happened to me a couple of times on my ThinkPad.

Yeah, the hard drive makes a noise like it was thrashing. Can you please show me steps by steps of how to do a diagnostic step? One thing that i've forgot to mention is that on the boot up mode, Win XP tried to check the disk and it displayed the message : "Stop: c00021a hard error" and the laptop can't go further after displaying the message. Thanks alot

[glc]

Hard error sounds like a failing hard drive. What you need to do is use a hard drive diagnostic package to confirm this. If you can determine the brand of the hard drive, download the diagnostics from the manufacturer. If not, the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test can identify the drive and do basic diagnostics on any brand drive. It can be downloaded as either a boot floppy maker or as a bootable CD image.

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