How can I tell if my hardrive is failing or crashing. . . Yes, yes indeedy I am new to self help!

SweetBaboo

Have had IT genius around me but I now need to be self sufficent.  Fooling around with diagnostics and help from service providers has simply confused and corrupted my WONDERFUL Aspire 5750.  This little gem is perfect for my needs and is only 18 months old so I am loathe to have to trash and replace. 

 

scrambler

Thinking of trashing a system just because you may have messed the SW that is on it looks a bit extreme

 

You could start by restoring it to factory setting and reinstall your programs on this fresh install.

 

As for hard drive failing, that is a different issue all together. If a mechanical drive, strange noises are a big clue, and a sign that you need to make sure you have recovery media (DVD or USB), that you make daily backups of your personal data, and that you have a list of all the SW installed and tune ups you made (ideally make a windows system image backup to an external USB drive).

 

If the drive fails and you have all that, the fix is pretty simple and cheap, and you can be back and running in no time.

SweetBaboo

Thank you for replying and re enforcing what I had hoped to be true.  As you may well know, buy a new one is the first advice a technology ignorant user gets.  I did get a good back-up for my laptop for protection last week and successful made 1 backup.  I also have the restore discs from day one..  Specifically my issue is how long it is taking for Windows to load and shut down....of course there have been significant issues  that had NOTHING to do with my computer but were IP driven.  However in trying to resolve their issue a multitude of other things have been brought to the table.  Diagnostic tools are not leading me to any resolution at this point..