Is it possible for a failing hard disk to cause game freezing?

[dorquemada]

As of recently, the game occasionally freezes. So far, it happened on three different lots and on loading another one. The mouse pointer remains active, the music plays, but there is no indication at all of disk activity and the only way out is reset. On the next play, everything ran fine except for the lot that froze on loading, but that was bypassed by getting to it from the neighbor's lot instead of main map.
Some short time before, my HD started complaining about its S.M.A.R.T - I know what that means and it's going for replacement soon, but I'm curious if those accidents can be connected, given how much Sims 2 rely on disk work. Because if it's a coincidence and it's just the hood showing symptoms of BFVFS, at least I won't bother with backing it up.

[J. M. Pescado]

This basically exactly matches impending total disk failure. I recommend you stop using the disk immediately before it fails completely, until you can dump it out onto a backup disk while it still is limping along.

[dorquemada]

I know it. Data is all backed up, emergency disk is present. It's just that my vendor complains they're overbusy what with Christmas and stuff, so it'll take time to order a replacement, yadda yadda, and, since it'll be replaced for free anyway, I can use it until I kill it, it's faster and bigger than the emergency one.

Still, no other program is behaving crazier than usual, just Sims. 

[J. M. Pescado]

Yeah, but sims tries to thrash and write several GBs of data at a time for no discernable reason. You will likely corrupt your files doing it.

[dorquemada]

Ah, so there's the catch. Point taken.