My computer has several local disks, but Local Disk F has started behaving strangely. Opening folders and files there takes noticeably longer than on the other disks. A folder containing photos and videos is especially slow: thumbnails take a while to appear, scrolling causes more delays, some files seem to be missing, and opening two pictures in separate Photos tabs sometimes makes the app close. I also have a PDF and two DOCX files in another folder, but one of the Word documents will not open, delete, or copy elsewhere. I'm not sure whether F is a separate physical drive or simply another partition, and I don't know whether it uses an HDD or SSD. What should I check, and could the drive be failing?
3 Answers
First determine whether Local Disk F is a separate physical drive or just a partition on the same drive. If it is a mechanical hard drive while your other disks are SSDs, it may simply be slower, but missing files and files that cannot be opened, copied, or deleted are warning signs of possible drive errors. Back up anything important from F immediately before doing more testing.
The symptoms could come from filesystem corruption or a failing disk, especially because files cannot be copied or deleted. After backing up what you can, you can run Windows’ error-checking tools, but don’t start with repair commands if the drive is making unusual noises or becoming increasingly unresponsive. A full backup or drive clone should take priority, since repair attempts can make recovery harder.
Check the drive’s health and model using a SMART tool such as CrystalDiskInfo, or smartctl if you prefer command-line tools. Look for warnings, bad sectors, uncorrectable errors, or a health status other than Good. Also check Windows Disk Management to see how the partitions and physical drives are arranged. If the health report shows problems, replace the drive rather than trying to repair it first.
What is CrystalDiskInfo used for?
It reads the drive’s built-in health information, including temperature and error counters. Install it from a reputable source, select the correct physical drive, and save your important files before running any repair commands.
I’m not familiar with the technical difference, but all of the disks appear inside the same laptop. I’ll check whether F is a separate drive or partition.