I'm pretty tech savvy but I have a hard drive that will connect but when i try to use it regularly or in disk management it freezes that program immediately. Obviously a bad sector or something corrupt with the drive because I have plenty of ram and the connection of choice is working with other drives. Any suggestions?

 

check connectors/cables first

harddrive manufacturer may have some software to help with diagnosis

is it over heating / making ticking noises? signs of a drive about to end it's life

Had a drive die a couple of weeks ago myself

 

Control panel. click on that device. click properties. you should be able to see a message in the box that says "this device is working properly", among other info. You should also be able to do a scan, defrag, or anything else from there.

 

Do a disk scan?

 

Can't hurt. That will tell you if something is corrupted or needs defragged.

 

The one and only software that is capable of repairing bad hdd's is the SpinRite - it'll do the job even on a hdd w/ several bad sectors. ofc if it's dead, it's dead. (https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm)
One of my extra incomes is setting/sorting out bad PC's, so I'm talking out of experience. To spare myself extensive explanations on
what it does, head to their website. That little software is the main part of my fixing routine, no matter does customers machine need it or doesn't.
In fact, I run it on my machines (incl. external hdd's) once every 3-4 months. Freaking beast it is.
Have fun!

p.s. In case you can't purchase it, hit me up.

upd; You can run the SpinRite on a hdd jam-packed by data, been there, done that xxx times w/o losing anything.
The only downside is the time that bad boy will take to flick trough a hdd.

 

Easiest way without having to download unknown software or depending on the O.S. to check the disk is to use the Command prompt, Start > Run and type “cmd” Make sure to run CMD as admin. Once you get in to the CMD screen Type the command “chkdsk” followed by a space, then the letter of the drive you wish to examine or repair.Simply running the CHKDSK command will only display the disk’s status, and won’t fix any errors present on the volume. To tell CHKDSK to fix the drive, we need to give it parameters. After your drive letter, type the following parameters separated by a space each: “/f /r /x” The “/f” parameter tells CHKDSK to fix any errors it finds; “/r” tells it to locate the bad sectors on the drive and recover readable information; “/x” forces the drive to dismount before the process starts.

Note that CHKDSK needs to be able to lock the drive, meaning that it cannot be used to examine the system’s boot drive if the computer is in use. if the target drive is an external disk then the CHKDSK process will begin as soon as you enter the command above. If the target drive is a boot disk, the system will ask you if you’d like to run the command before the next boot. Type “yes,” restart the computer, and the command will run before the operating system loads, allowing it to gain full access to the disk.A CHKDSK command can take a long time, especially when performed on larger drives. Once it’s done, however, it will present a summary of results including total disk space, byte allocation, and, most importantly, any errors that were found and corrected

 

Use a LiveCD and see if it allows you to backup your data on that drive, then start working through some of the solutions in this thread.

 

You can buy a HDD case (with SATA interface I suppose) and mount the HDD into it, this way you can try to access it via USB.

 

Open Command Prompt as an administrator, often referred to as an "elevated" Command Prompt.

Important: For the sfc /scannow command to work properly, it must be executed from an elevated Command Prompt window in Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista. This is not required in previous versions of Windows.

Once Command Prompt is open, type the following command and then press Enter.

sfc /scannow
Note: There's a space between sfc and /scannow.

System File Checker will now verify the integrity of every protected operating system file on your computer.

Note: In some situations, especially in Windows XP and Windows 2000, you may also need access to your original Windows installation CD or DVD.

Restart your computer if sfc /scannow did actually repair any files.

Note: System File Checker may or may not prompt you to restart but even if it doesn't, you should restart anyway.

Repeat whatever process caused your original problem to see if sfc /scannow corrected the issue.


Good Luck!!
e

 

+1 with Catalyst : try to backup with any LiveCD on another drive before anything else. This is what i do for years on thousands computers Because when an hard drive get a physical failure, any access (Spinrite, scan disk...) will damage it even further. So start with a backup...always. And after that, you can tweak what you want for hours, even days.

I advice you FalconUBCD (on CD or USB key). I use it for years, you get LiveCD MiniXP and Hiren Boot on one support :
FalconUBCD

 

Sfc /scannow will only inspect all of the important Windows files on your computer,it has nothing to do with the hard drive

 

After you backup the drive, as wisely stated above, you should read the its SMART data - basically a log kept autonomously by the hdd itself - to see the state of the drive. There are several paid apps for this, but I recommend you a good free one, called gsmartcontrol. See if the drive pass the tests there and check the log.
Keep an eye on the 'current pending sector count', 'offline uncorrectable' and 'reallocated sector count' tabs. If you have values other than zero in the first two, and possibly varying from test to test, then most possibly you deal with a goner. Throw it away and buy a new one.