Pc doesn't boot normally and shutting off takes ages

[Goatic]

I've been dealing with a problem for a week now, when I start my omen it doesn't want to boot up, the screen is turning on and the lights also but when I come back after 10min, it is still the same, just a black screen. The only thing that worked for me is by taking out the power plug, plugging it back in and holding f8 while starting up. Also when I turn my pc off it takes ages for it to actually turn off. My pc is also way slower after a few hrs of use than it used to be.

[itsmyname]

@Goatic -- how old is the disk-drive?  It could be failing, and thus taking seconds to do Input/Output that should be done in milliseconds, thus making your computer "wait" for a long time for the disk-drive.

Download, install, and run the free SPECCY software, and expand the "Storage" branch, to see the S.M.A.R.T. statistics for the disk-drive. Any "yellow" or "red" flags are bad -- it means that you need to replace the disk-drive, before it completely fails (and takes all your personal files on a trip on the Styx river to H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks).

[Goatic]

Sorry I'm not really into pc's (still learning) but a disk drive is a hdd or ssd right? If so which one is used to start up? I have 2 hdd's from which 1 is an older one that I added to my pc myself and 1 new one, and I have 1 new ssd. I'll download the app tomorrow and let u know what the outcome is.

[itsmyname]

@Goatic -- a disk drive is a hdd or ssd right?

HDD = Hard Disk Drive. 

SSD == Solid State Device.

They are different.

A SSD consists of RAM (Random Access Memory), plus electronics to emulate a HDD.

So, the motherboard sends the "read" and "write" commands to the HDD, or to the SSD, 

The electronics in the SSD read/write to the RAM, to make the SSD "masquerade" as being a HDD.

If so which one is used to start up?

That is a setting with the BIOS SETUP for your motherboard.

Your motherboard can "boot" from floppy-disk, IOMEGA ZIP drive, Imation LS-120 drive, HDD, CD, DVD, USB memory-stick, and even by communicating via Ethernet to a "boot-server" computer inside a corporate network of computers.  The order of checking all those devices is set within the BIOS SETUP.

I have 2 hdd's from which 1 is an older one that I added to my pc myself and 1 new one, and I have 1 new ssd. 

Each HDD and SDD can have a "volume-label" (compare to the title on the spine of a book in a library).

Open the Windows "File Explorer", to see the volume-label connected to the "C:" drive-letter. That is your "boot" drive. The device connected to the "D:" drive-letter is your other storage volume (HDD or SSD).

Also, it is not likely that the two volumes have the identical storage capacity.

So, if you know the storage capacity of the SSD (64 GB? 120? 128? 240? 256? 512?) you can match that capacity with either the 'C:" or the "D:" drive-letter. Windows always associates "C:" with the "boot" volume.

[Goatic]

Ah okay, well I got no red flags and my pc suddenly boots up normally again. Shutting off still takes ages.

[itsmyname]

@Goatic -- shutting-down generates a significant amount of disk-drive activity. A "slow" disk-drive can "take ages" to complete all that input/output.

How old is the disk-drive?  If my automobile's tires were over 5 years old, with not much tread left, I would proactively replace them (or trade-in the vehicle, rather than spending about $1000 for a vehicle that I would probably be trading-in before it was 8 years old).  Similarly, a "proactive" replacement of an "old" disk-drive, especially if a "spinning" disk-drive is replaced by an ultra-fast SSD, is worthy of consideration.

[Goatic]

• My disk-drive "D:" is around 10 months old, and my "E:" is atleast 1.5 years old but I got it from someone so I don't know how old it is exactly.

[itsmyname]

@Goatic -- in your case, your "D:" disk-drive is still within the original manufacturer's warranty -- if it breaks, you can get a free replacement, but none of your files on it will be "migrated" to the replacement.

Your "E:" disk-drive might still be under the original manufacturer's warranty -- check the Seagate or Western Digital web-site for the duration of the warranty for your specific product (and serial-number). It might be one year, and it might be two years.

One can never have "one too many" backups of your personal files.

[Goatic]

Yeah you are right. I'm gonna check if I can get a replacement if it's still under warranty if this problem starts again. Thank you for your help and for teaching me a bit about disk-drives, really appreciated. 🙂