Storage/video drive suddenly slow

[Aaron_K]

In my pc build, I have a specific 2TB HDD where I store all my videos (movies and family films) and, from there, I use Universal Media Server to stream them to my tv via ROKU Media Player. Has worked great for a very long time.

When I download videos, I download them to a different drive and move them over to the video drive. Probably not the best way but I have done it for years and it has worked out fine.
Anyways, about 2 days ago, when I would open up Roku Media Player to stream a video, the video files have started taking an exceptionally long time to even show on screen and, when I click to stream one, it is very slow and sits at 33% for a VERY long time.
Today I downloaded another video. God help me…
I opened up the video drive (call it drive V) and it took forever to even load the files in File Explorer… and, once it finally loaded, I copied the video from “random drive” and pasted it into “drive V”… says it is going to take 24 minutes to transfer it… WTF ?? Transferring prior to 2 days ago took like 15-20 seconds and loading the video folders and the files themselves on Roku Media Player used to be just about instantly.
I am lost as to what to do… is this a settings issue, a HDD issue, a PC issue ?
I ran a check on drive V (through the right click menu) and it says it found no errors…
I am so lost.

[PeterOz]

I hope you have a backup.
go here Click on me and download the standard edition of crystal disk info - free.
Run it and test both drives.
Are you aware of any updates that have been done?

[Bruce]

reboot the PC into Safe Mode and try copying a video then.
that’ll rule out any background processes as a cause.

but, sadly, more likely, the drive is probably failing.
from an elevated command prompt, do chkdsk c /r

Speccy shows the drives SMART values, so get Speccy from here; Speccy - Download Builds
in Speccy, click File > Publish Snapshot > Copy to Clipboard > Close.
now you can paste (Ctrl+V) that link into a post.

[Aaron_K]

I hope you have a backup.
go here Click on me and download the standard edition of crystal disk info - free.
Run it and test both drives.
Are you aware of any updates that have been done?

Not aware of any updates. I did, however, reinstall Windows 11 completely and, before I downloaded the updates, tried moving a file to the same results.
Ok, I downloaded and ran that programs you linked but am not sure what to do with the innformation it gave. It noted no errors or updates to install. For the drive itself, it just noted the stats…:

Microsoft

10.0.22621.608

6/21/2006

CC29

1863.01 GB

Z340VK18

1

SCSI\DISK&VEN_&PROD_ST2000DM001-1CH1\5&2B637674&0&020000

\.\PHYSICALDRIVE2

NTFS

False

1863.01 GB

622.61 GB

[Rustys]

1. Like as @PeterOz has stated and hinted BACK UP the drive.
2. Post a screen shot of the Crystal Disk for that drive.
3. Post the speccy report.
   instruction in Post # 3
4. One the backup is complete run a check disk on that drive using the /r switch.
   Open Admin Command Prompt or Admin Powershell and use the following command
   chkdsk /r

May take a while depending on the size of the drive.

1. Post the report:
   https://pchelpforum.net/r/retrieve-c...formation.209/

[Aaron_K]

reboot the PC into Safe Mode and try copying a video then.
that’ll rule out any background processes as a cause.

but, sadly, more likely, the drive is probably failing.
from an elevated command prompt, do chkdsk c /r

Speccy shows the drives SMART values, so get Speccy from here; Speccy - Download Builds
in Speccy, click File > Publish Snapshot > Copy to Clipboard > Close.
now you can paste (Ctrl+V) that link into a post.

Ok, rebooted into Safe Mode, still VERY slow on that drive BUT a popup of some kind opened saying something about the recycle bin for that drive is corrupted and asked if I wanted to empty it. I clicked yes but it looked like it wanted to delete everything in that folder (just going by the number of items it wanted to delete) so I ended it. Any information on this ?

I ran chkdsk and got this for that drive :

C:\Win\Sys32>chkdsk V:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Video.

WARNING! /F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure …
2560 file records processed.
File verification completed.
Phase duration (File record verification): 8.13 seconds.
10 large file records processed.
Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 0.38 milliseconds.
0 bad file records processed.
Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 0.43 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage …
1732 reparse records processed.
3144 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
Phase duration (Index verification): 23.13 seconds.
0 unindexed files scanned.
Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 0.46 milliseconds.
0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 0.20 milliseconds.
1732 reparse records processed.
Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 4.94 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors …
Security descriptor verification completed.
Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 1.86 seconds.
293 data files processed.
Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 0.39 milliseconds.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal…
18438792 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Phase duration (USN journal verification): 14.84 seconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

1953512447 KB total disk space.
1333114148 KB in 1913 files.
1768 KB in 294 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
146719 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
620249812 KB available on disk.

  4096 bytes in each allocation unit.

488378111 total allocation units on disk.
155062453 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 47.99 seconds (47991 ms).

Should I go on to trying to use SPECCY or do you think it might be something to do with that recycle bin error that came up ? Is there a way to fix that ?

[Rustys]

You need to run the chkdsk with the /r switch

but, sadly, more likely, the drive is probably failing.
from an elevated command prompt, do chkdsk c /r

1. One the backup is complete run a check disk on that drive using the /r switch.
   Open Admin Command Prompt or Admin Powershell and use the following command
   chkdsk /r

You ran

C:\Win\Sys32>chkdsk V:

Which only show information and does not check the drive.

[Aaron_K]

1. Like as @PeterOz has stated and hinted BACK UP the drive.
2. Post a screen shot of the Crystal Disk for that drive.
3. Post the speccy report.
   instruction in Post # 3
4. One the backup is complete run a check disk on that drive using the /r switch.
   Open Admin Command Prompt or Admin Powershell and use the following command
   chkdsk /r

May take a while depending on the size of the drive.

1. Post the report:
   https://pchelpforum.net/r/retrieve-c...formation.209/

Here is the Crystal Disk report. The drive in question is drive 03 which shows almost nothing compared to all the other drives. Not a good sign I assume.

Also attached the SPECCY report…
Am running /r on the drive in question right now but it is saying there is 450 hours left… again, I assume that is not good nor normal for a 2 TB drive but I know nothing about this stuff.

[Aaron_K]

You need to run the chkdsk with the /r switch

You ran

Which only show information and does not check the drive.

Ok, doing that now… says 450 hours to go…

[Rustys]

Time will change over time. Interrupting this could make the drive unusable and the same goes for using the system.

The speccy report was removed since the text version has you Windows Key included which is why we asked for the Link it does not.

After the check disk is completed redo the speccy report and post the link and the screen shot of the Crystal disk information as requested.

in Speccy, click File > Publish Snapshot > Copy to Clipboard > Close.
now you can paste (Ctrl+V) that link into a post.

[Aaron_K]

OK, I stopped running the /r because I just do not have 200+ hours to let my PC sit here doing that. I ran it for almost 3 hours and it was still saying over 200 hours to go (estimated it says but no reason to doubt it).

I formatted the drive (complete format, not “quick format” - goodbye movies) and I tried to transfer a movie from drive “X” to the freshly formatted drive and it was still slow as dirt… like would probably take an hour to fully transfer. Transferred it to 2 of my other drives and it was like 17 - 20 seconds.

Here is a link for my SPECCY snapshot as rerquested.

Crystal Disk does not even show it as a working drive… (drive E)

[Bruce]

the fact chkdsk was going to take that long also suggest a failing drive.
a low level format of a 2TB drive would take many hours, roughly 8 or so.
how long did yours take?

the movies are gone now, so I wouldn’t be wasting my time with a known, unreliable drive.
ditch it and get a new, bigger one!

[Aaron_K]

the fact chkdsk was going to take that long also suggest a failing drive.
a low level format of a 2TB drive would take many hours, roughly 8 or so.
how long did yours take?

the movies are gone now, so I wouldn’t be wasting my time with a known, unreliable drive.
ditch it and get a new, bigger one!

yeah.. at roughly the 4 hour mark for /r it still said 193 hours to go so I ditched that… I did get past step 4 of /r after I formatted the drive and ran it in step 5 for an hour and it never came down from 999 hours rofl !!

I am so done with it… will be picking up a 4 TB HDD tomorrow.

[Bruce]

good choice (y)

[PeterOz]

will be picking up a 4 TB HDD tomorrow.

To me this is an odd way to go.
I would look at possibly another 2TB for movies and depending on how much all the other drives add up to an 2nd drive to cover them all in a backup.
E.G Current C drive = 1TB
New V drive= 2TB
New backup drive = 4TB
Just my way at looking at it