Help! Do I have a hardware problem?

Hello all,

I have a 5 year old Dell 8200 running windows XP and seem to have a problem
that I cannot figure out. My computer started running very very slow about
3 weeks ago, so I recently reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled windows
XP. However, the reformatting process ran very slow as well (~8 hours to do
28GB) and the computer is still running very slow. I should say that when I
am trying to open a program, the hard drive light is on while the computer
is loading the program (it can take almost 30 seconds to open a program).

Since the reformatting process ran so slow, I am suspecting that my problem
is in hardware. Does anyone have any idea what this could be? Can a hard
drive just slow down? I also read something about the BIOS battery running
out and changing settings that can slow the system down. Any ideas?

Thanks!

Rizwan

On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 11:06:27 -0800, "Rizwan Ahmed" <>
wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>I have a 5 year old Dell 8200 running windows XP and seem to have a problem
>that I cannot figure out. My computer started running very very slow about
>3 weeks ago, so I recently reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled windows
>XP. However, the reformatting process ran very slow as well (~8 hours to do
>28GB) and the computer is still running very slow. I should say that when I
>am trying to open a program, the hard drive light is on while the computer
>is loading the program (it can take almost 30 seconds to open a program).
>
>Since the reformatting process ran so slow, I am suspecting that my problem
>is in hardware. Does anyone have any idea what this could be? Can a hard
>drive just slow down? I also read something about the BIOS battery running
>out and changing settings that can slow the system down. Any ideas?
>
>Thanks!
>
>Rizwan

Hard drive no longer operating in ultra dma mode?
Insufficient cooling causing processor to throttle down?

"Rizwan Ahmed" <> a écrit dans le message de news:
drb6jk$5j0$

> I have a 5 year old Dell 8200 running windows XP and seem to have a
> problem that I cannot figure out. My computer started running very very
> slow about 3 weeks ago, so I recently reformatted my hard drive and
> reinstalled windows XP. However, the reformatting process ran very slow
> as well (~8 hours to do 28GB) and the computer is still running very
> slow. I should say that when I am trying to open a program, the hard
> drive light is on while the computer is loading the program (it can take
> almost 30 seconds to open a program).
>
> Since the reformatting process ran so slow, I am suspecting that my
> problem is in hardware. Does anyone have any idea what this could be? Can
> a hard drive just slow down? I also read something about the BIOS
> battery running out and changing settings that can slow the system down.
> Any ideas?

You may have bad sectors on the hard disk. To verify that, boot in the
recovery console from the Windows disk in the recovery console, and run
"CHKDSK /R". Of course, you have already backed up your data, but now it
may be time to purchase a new hard disk.

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