Storage Extremely slow Computer, all of a sudden :(

Ok, so on Sunday, I defragmented my Hard drive as I analyzed it and it said something like 6%, so I thought I would get the most performance out of it by Degrag'ing it to increase the speed. While the operation was taking place *degrag*, i left my computer on until it was done--about 7 hours later, bearing in mind it was my storage drive, a Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB, basically that:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-336-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1953

But it was obviously 640GB, and I have about 50% of the space free on it. After it had finished I did a FULL virus check with "Microsoft security essentials" and got no virus' or malware detected. I then proceeded to launching Warhammer: Dawn of War II , on steam and I noticed it was running incredibly slow, aswell as taking excesive amounts of time to load the main screen, after about 10 freezes, 10 minutes later, which would usually take 10 seconds max to load up? I was extremely confused and frustrated. In the past, I have previously had several Blue Screen of Death's and was sort of thinking my Ram/Memory was the fault. Then all of a sudden, The game closed and came up with the follow error:

"A problem has been encountered and the program needs to close" ... so something similar to this popped up:

14:02:58.28 -- DOW2 Warnings Log --
14:02:58.28 c:\program files\steam\steamapps\common\dawn of war 2\dow2.exe started at 2011-07-06 14:02
14:02:58.28 OS NT 5.1, 3072 MB Physical Memory, 2221 Mb Physical Available, 1311 Mb Virtual Available
14:02:58.28 RUN OPTIONS: -logs
14:02:58.28 WORKING DIR: 'c:\program files\steam\steamapps\common\dawn of war 2'
14:02:58.28 USER: 'Owner'
14:02:58.32 MOD -- Initializing mod 'DOW2', version '2.6.0', locale 'english'.
14:02:58.35 APP - Multi-threading Enabled
14:02:58.35 XTHREAD: Detected 2 core(s) with 2 hardware thread(s)
14:02:58.37 ParentalControls: No Games Explorer found.
14:02:58.40 NetworkManager::Create - creating network manager
XLiveInitialize- Failed to initialize XLive (error = 8007013d)
-- FATAL EXIT --
d:\dow2-release\src\shared\network\internal\service\live\l iveservice.cpp-65 !:

I didn't have a clue what was happening so I decided to restart my computer. Then the next error occurred ... "disk read error occurred, Press alt, ctrl, del to restart. In which I did so and it decided to boot succesfully this time. I then proceeded to trying Dawn of War II again and it worked (success!!) but 10 minutes into playing it, the same error occurred. I was really Pi**ed off to know what was a matter with my beloved computer! I then tried several other games and they all ran quite slow aswell--Or at least slower than usual. Lot's of programs were going into "not responding" and I was extremely frustrated, So I am stuck to know what the hell is a matter?!??!!

 

You could try checking the disk for any errors.

Go to "My Computer", right click on the hard drive, under the "Tools" tab click "Check now" in Error checking. You should get a message box with some options, check both then click "start". Windows should then say something like Can't check the disk while in use, choose "Schedule disk check", then restart.

This will check for any problems with the hard drive and filesystem, and hopefully solve them. It does take a while though.

 

Hard disk is struggling to access it's self. Backup, replace. You can try tools like spinrite (not free). Hard disks are so cheap that you might as well just replace it. If it has any warranty left you can do that as well.

 

if i was you, BACK EVERY THING UP ASAP!!

Then do the disk checks.

you can use the ultimate boot cd or hirens boot cd, which contain loads of test software on there to test your drive. You will have to read/play with them, not sure which one is the best.

 

Listen to this man and...

also listen to this man.
You will have a relatively short window of use to get your data off the drive, use it well. My immediate thought from the thread title was HDD failure, and upon reading your post you pretty much cemented that.
Best of luck.

 

Looks like you have a faulty HDD. See if it's under warranty, and if so, RMA Western Digital (they won't recover your stuff... the HDD back won't be yours, but new (or refurbished))

Backup your stuff ASAP.

 

use crystal disk info

 

Ok so I've just started scanning my C drive and I'll do my B drive afterwards, I'm using WD DataGuard, seems like a pretty impressive program. Also it's a full scan this time, so it's taking a fair bit of time xD ... I'll post back with the results some time tomorrow.

 

just run a system restore point

 

Ok, so I've done the "long" tests and both drives *B and C* have passed the longest test on WD Data LifeGuard...arghh wtf is up!

 

I now get another crash error, a different one to before---
Crash Report #1354076

and then this (uploaded via Flickr):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61846768@N03/?saved=1

 

do other games have any issues?

 

I have noticed that most games have slow loading times during screens of process and mostly all my other games freeze similar to that of DoW2

 

OK can rule out a dodgy game install.

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskInfo/index-e.html

Download and run that, see what it says. Its never wrong for me.

If that gives the drive the all clear back up and reinstall, see what happens.

 

It just says both hd's are "good"...is there any tests I can do with the program ?

 

If that says that both the drives are good then you can be 99% its either a software issue or another part of the machine.

Id say defrag has just messed up your install.

I don't think ive ever defragged a computer in the last ten years lol

 

what would you recommend then ? A fresh install of Win7 and format my storage drive, and start again? Obviously backing-up my important stuff first!

 

Thats what id go for buddy.

Someone may harp in with an idea but id say the hardware is fine.

 

I would check if the drive didn't drop for some reason to PIO mode. If it did, try to move the cable to different SATA port on the board, it usually helps.

 

okie dokie...As a friend installed win7 for me, do I install that then download the latest drivers or vice versa? It's the drivers bit I am not too sure about....