Just realized how many people still think a computer running slow means it has a virus

Last week, I was fixing a laptop for a regular customer in his home office in Akron. He was convinced his slowdown was a major infection, but after running some checks, I saw his 8-year-old hard drive was just failing. I told him 'This drive is on its last legs, it's not malware,' and he looked totally shocked. Has anyone else had to explain that hardware failure is way more common than a virus for older machines?

3 comments

3 Comments

jadej502mo agoMost Upvoted

While @jakeb81 has a point about free space, in my experience the age of the drive itself is the real culprit.

jakeb812mo ago

Did you check how much free space was left on his drive before it started to fail?

drew_jones312mo ago

But don't drives fail all the time even with tons of free space? I've had brand new ones die for no clear reason, so age or just bad luck seems more likely to me.