Laptop won't boot Windows effectively anymore - can't tell if HP support even exists

[Keches]

I have an HP ProBook 6470b that I bought refurbished. Until yesterday, it worked fine. When I tried to boot it today, everything was behaving slowly. The cursor moved at a normal speed and things like the text cursor in the password box were fine, but input like typing a password was accepted very slowly. Trying to use on-screen buttons (windows 😎 like the power settings button behaved slowly. Eventually, I was able to log in. Desktop wasn't really loading, took probably around 10 minutes foranything more than the start button to appear. Restarted to try to fix it; then I couldn't even enter the password to log in. I turned off the laptop.

A few hours later, I tried to turn on the laptop with nothing plugged into any ports. I navigated some startup stuff pre-Windows and found a menu to perform a harddrive test from. Did a quick one, got a DST failure or something, got a failure code.

Failure code directed me to HP support website. Went to HP support website, couldn't find where to read about the failure. Tried to submit a ticket for what I think is live support but when I try to put in my serial number it says it's invalid (it's not) and to try again (I did). Found another(?) HP support website that eventually told me 6470b isn't supported anymore and I should try here.

[visruth · Accepted solution]

Hi,


Manual: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03564727

Hard drive has failed. You've to replace it with a new one of similar form factor

You can do it yourself and hard drives are pretty cheap to get.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145875&FM=1

Replacement Video: https://h20574.www2.hp.com/results.htm?SID=5212922&MEID=3D896C5F-D8A8-402B-8119-8743F5BB9B39

After replacement, reinstall Windows


Regards

Visruth

[mcast1286]

I have the same problem; is all data not in the cloud lost, or can I retrieve it with Windows recovery or some other tool?

[Keches]

This is a very old thread so I'm mostly responding just to give you the acknowledgement that somebody's out there 😛

I believe my solution was to replace the harddrive entirely. I'm pretty sure all data not in the cloud was lost.

Perhaps if you remove the harddrive and put it in an external harddrive reader like this and had that plugged into a functional computer you could attempt to transfer uncorrupted data that way.

Please not I'm not an IT professional, I'm just the original poster of the thread you replied to.

[mcast1286]

Yes, I understand. But the computer firmware agrees with you. I'll give it a try.