My PC has started to freeze for about eight to 10 seconds at a time, usually when reading or writing to disk. The hard disk light is on and I am unable to do anything until the disk starts up again. What is the problem, and is there a way to eliminate these pauses as they are starting to happen more often?
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Your hard disk may be performing a 'recalibrate' operation. This is a normal function to ensure the disk read/write heads are accurately positioned over the correct track. If it is happening more often, this is probably because wear-and-tear in the mechanism is making the positioning inaccurate. Otherwise, maybe the drive is having trouble reading or writing to part of the disk.
Running ScanDisk with the Thorough option selected may shed light on the problem. If the pauses are caused by read/write errors, it may be possible to rejuvenate the disk by reformatting it, but it's going to fail eventually. Given the cost of hard disks, and the fact that your system is probably three or four years old, it might be better to replace it.
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