Hard drive problems

[Lenster]

Im having a problem with my friends computer. He asked if i can try to make it perform better. (couldnt even boot up before i formatted and re-installed xp pro.
Performance is terrible. I suspect its the hard drive. The hard drive at times makes alot of noise and it takes longer now to boot up. I defragged and did checkdisk but performance is still low. I went to pcpitstop and it said serious performance problem
with c drive. Uncached speed is at 1.15 mb/s. (way too low pcpitstop says).
Im telling ya's, this hard drive sounds bad, really bad at times.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.

wd 60gb 7200rpm hdd.
windows xp pro.
gigabyte ga 7vax mobo.
athlon xp 1700 cpu

[Bill in SD, CA]

Have you tried WD's online diagnostics?

http://support.wdc.com/dlg/onlinedlg.asp

Bill

[Lenster]

Hey Bill,

You are always there to offer me advice :0)
Ill give it a try.
This is the same computer i posted about earlier, I had to format and re-install xp pro. However, sometimes now the hard drive sounds whacked. Performance is low too.
I cant give this back to my friend until i fix the problem(s).
Im going to check out that link now.
Thanks

[Bill in SD, CA]

No probs.

Bill