Reading HDD is Sluggish (not related to "fragmented")

Hi,

Recently, I started to have trouble with my HDD (slow access).

When I performed a "surface scan" (via scandisk), accessing clusters was
slow and "jerky". I aborted the surface scan because it was going to take
a very long time. Note: The HDD is 8 Gig.

Note: Last year, when I performed a surface scan, it was fast and
"smooth".

Is this a sign that the hard disk is going bad or could this be a
controller problem?

Thanks in advance, Brad

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