Question : Problem: Are These Signs The Hard Disk Is Failing?

I have an HP desktop PC that is running slowly. Occasionally the system will freeze.

When I ran a SMART (HD Tune) check of the hard disk, HD Tune reports the health status is "OK." The HD Tune Error Scan also reports disk sectors as "OK."

However, when running a chkdsk, the operation takes a very long time (more than an hour) to complete. However, it does not report errors. The chkdsk just takes a very long time to complete, stalling, in particular, after the CHKDSK is verifying security descriptors (Stage 3 of 5) step.

The SMART check does show (0A) Spin Retry Count in yellow, with a Current value of 100 and a threshold of 97. The (01) Raw Read Error Rate is 63 (Current), with a Threshold of 6.

Is this hard disk experiencing mechanical issues?

Answer : Problem: Are These Signs The Hard Disk Is Failing?

Actually download SpeedFan http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php and run it.  There's an option there under the S.M.A.R.T. tab once you find your hard disk to do an analysis of your hard disk.  It sends the S.M.A.R.T. information off to the Net and sends back a report of how good it thinks your disk condition is.

Interesting stuff but still no accurate guarantee of disk condition.