Hard Drive Failing?

Hi everyone, new member here.

I'm writing to ask people's opinion on an issue I have been having with my hard drive over the last few days. I own an Acer Aspire 8735G laptop and a few days ago the problems started as it all started to become quite sluggish. Without ever freezing completely, programs have started to stop responding, before quickly coming back to life again and multitasking isn't as quick as it used to be. There are also frequent drop outs in audio and video, whether I'm listening to Itunes, using VLC media player or just on youtube.. its everywhere basically!

Believing it just needed a quick Spyware scan/disk check and defragment as normal, I did each of these and had no problems till I got to the defrag part. I use Auslogics Disk Defrag and there are 2 local disks on the laptop; Local Disk (C:), which has Windows and all the files you'd expect to find, and then Data_2 (D:), which contains more media files than anything. The D drive defragged fine in about a minute, but the C drive didn't even get past the analysing stage and instead pointed out that the drive may contain errors and I should run a disk check.

I did this and left it alone, as it was taking its time to go through each of the 5 stages (I ticked both boxes on the disk check). I only managed to notice a few errors at a glance during this period.. one was something along the lines of bad index files being deleted and another was 4 bad files processed or something to that effect... in other words, I could really do with a log file! There was definately a mention of a clusters there as well which, again, doesn't look good! Anyway, I was straight on the internet googling Hard Drive self testing and found Seatools for Windows. The worrying part is that the Short Drive Self Test with this program failed ... 3 times (I repeated to be sure).

So my question is, is it looking like I need a new hard drive? I have everything backed up so that shouldn't be an issue and since the original disk check was completed I have been able to defrag the drive. But that doesn't take away from the fact that there was a bad cluster in there somewhere.

The laptop is just short of 13 months old (bloody typical!) after buying off Acer Direct last April and with this being the first problem I've had, and without wanting to make any rash decisions, I thought I would come on here first. I know one of the first things I'll be asked for is the log file for chkdsk, but having trawled through the Event Viewer looking for it, I still don't know where it should be.

Thanks for any assistance!

Thanks for the quick reply, its appreciated!

Ok then, I had a feeling it would come to that. Like I say, I was just wanting to get a few more opinions first, but I think I will get it changed. I've just done a warranty validation with Seagate and it says: "The product you identified was sold as a system component... You must contact your place of purchase for any warranty support on these drives." This would mean getting back in touch with Acer Direct and of course, if they dont agree to sort it with it being out of warranty I'll have to buy the drive myself from elsewhere. I'm already backed up with all the personal files I'll need should it come to a restore, but how would I go about restoring the actual Windows 7 OS that came with the laptop, because of course the new hard drive would be newly formatted right? And the Windows 7 OS would be lost with the broken hard drive.

Ok thats great, I'll look into it all. Thanks!!!

Ok, I'm having a bit of a problem creating the restore disk. I'm using Acer eRecovery Management through Windows and clicking on "Create factory restore disk". It says then that it will need 3 DVD's worth of space, but no matter which blank DVD I put in it complains that "Burning has failed. Please insert a blank DVD into the optical drive" with an error code of 0x207. I've tried pressing Alt + F10 to see what options I get there as well, but all I get there is the option to do a factory restore or a restore which will keep the files backed up. No mention of making recovery disk there. I've created a disk before on my old Acer laptop, so this error code has come at a really bad time! Any ideas?

Thankyou, I'll probably try the last bit.. I've never had much luck when ringing that technical service at Acer lol, you spend more time being redirected around. So your saying that I should be able to download the legit copy from Digital River and then product use the key on the bottom of my laptop to activate it later on?

Thanks, I've realised I'm probably going to have to ring Acer actually, because I'll need the drivers disk as well and that is also not copying in eRecovery. But before I do, I've been doing loads more googling and came across this: http://download.cnet.com/Easeus-Disk-Copy/3000-2242_4-10867157.html. If I was to be able to create a bootable ISO from that, it would remove the need to ring Acer / or download new Windows software wouldn't it?

Edit: I just rang Acer to see what the availability of a recovery CD would be. I couldn't be left more downbeat, as they want £51 for a CD (which I should be able to make myself with their own software!!!) and they say I have to pay because I've owned it longer than 6 months. Whether I can get the new copy of Windows or not now, I'll be stuck without all of the drivers that the laptop needs as well as the Acer Arcade Deluxe and Crystal Eye webcam software, etc. I couldn't be more disappointed in Acer than I am at this minute!

Just a quick response to thank you all for your responses.

I've only just got the laptop back (which explains the late reply!!). But I decided to avoid making any impulse reactions myself (and to avoid the rubbish Acer support!) and instead took it into the local private repair shop and have it dealt with there. The technician made a system image and put it on a new drive, and it turns out that the old drive was definitely on its way out so its looking like a bullet dodged! 

So despite the slightly long wait, I'm reunited with the laptop and its all up and running again now. Thanks again!