What is wrong with my hard drive?

Your hard drive needs testing for sure. Try running a hard drive diagnostics test on it. You can use HD Tune or download an iso of Ultimate Boot. Ultimate Boot disk is my favorite tool disk of all time. Use that to do a test on the drive. It will let you know if S.M.A.R.T. is failing and tell you wants wrong with it. If all the tests pass then maybe a partition is a little messed up. You could try running chkdsk for the heck of it.

The one thing you DONT do if you suspect a drive is failing is what others have said.

The LAST thing you do is try to run any type of checking or diagnostics

The very FIRST thing you do is backup all the data on that drive as soon as you can, and you do NOTHING else with it until its backed up.

You only do diagnostics AFTER the data is safe.

think about it

You suspect its failing

For all you know the very next time you get it to work may be the LAST time it ever works

so what would you rather do while its working

Backup the data on it?

Or piss about trying to find out if anythings wrong then lose all the data on it when it fails.?

After you have backed up it continues to work?- all you lost is a bit of time. but if fails all your data is safe.

but if it AINT backed up - that data is lost.

Restart your computer and when you can see it, back it up.

Run a scandisk or chkdsk on the hard drive and have it check all of the sectors for bad sectors....fixing everything that it finds automatically.

Do it with any hard drive having problems.

It sounds like your hard drive is getting ready to die. One way to extend its life, is to enter the BIOS and disable the SMART extensions on the hard drives.

You should backup all necessary files from this hard drive.

Ouch.

Restart your computer and when you can see it, back it up.

Run a scandisk or chkdsk on the hard drive and have it check all of the sectors for bad sectors....fixing everything that it finds automatically.

Do it with any hard drive having problems.

It sounds like your hard drive is getting ready to die. One way to extend its life, is to enter the BIOS and disable the SMART extensions on the hard drives.

if its USB connected, then most likely that usb port simply cannot power it.

cures

1 insert a POWERED usb hub, and connect the drive to that instead.

2 usb ports are usually in pairs(one chip two sockets), remove any other device from the 2nd port

3 the usb cable may be suspect, replace it

4 your Earth may be POOR. this could be due to many things. eg bad mains socket, kettle lead not pushed in all the way, mobo incorrectly fitted, faulty extension cable. If its a laptop, the PSU could faulty and dangerous.

5 front usb ports are often weak(limited to approx 300ma for a pair instead of 500ma each). avoid using except for low powered things such as an optical mouse. use the rear ports instead.

6 front usb port are often incorrectly wired, and may partially work.

Check that the drive cable isn't loose, or try swapping cables. If that doesn't help, the drive may be failing.