hard drive failure

[tripacer1]

have a HP model wa793ua#aba notebook that the HD has Failed

if i buy a 500GB drive locally and install will the Restore Discs i made when the system is new

work with this HD or do i have to Buy a HD right from HP that is all set up with Partions

or do i have to just go buy a new Copy of Windows 7 home 64 bit so i can restore it

what about recoving all the extra stuff that came with the notebook when i bought or are they just gone forever

[DavidPK]

Hi,

Your Recovery Discs will work fine on a new HDD and you are in no way limited to a particular manufacturer or where you purchase it from ( the only thing I would not recommend is installing an HDD smaller in capacity than the original as this can cause problems when using the Recovery Discs ) - all you need to do is install the new drive and then use the recovery discs to reinstall the OS - see Here.

The Recovery Discs will re-create all the original partitions on the new drive and will also install all the original software that was bundled with your notebook - the only notable exception to this is Microsoft Office which will not be reinstalled.

Regards,

DP-K

[tripacer1]

Thank you for the quick reply

i can buy 500 GB or 1TB drives loacaly

the drive that came in the unit is a Hitachi

it says HDD    7k500 -500

HTS725050A9A364

7200 /RPM

Sata .=3.0Gb/s

part # 0A78275

What size is this   i cant believe it is just a 3 GB drive

The reason i asked the question about being able to use the Recover Disks (4) that we made when it was new

was the local shop said they would not work with this HD

[DavidPK]

Hi,

The specification Sata = 3Gb/s is referring to the data transfer speed - ie this is a Sata II drive.  The capacity of your current drive is 500Gb.

You can find the procedure for replacing the Hard Drive starting on Page 47 of your Maintenance & Service Guide.

As you will see on Page 47, there is no mention of the unit taking a 1Tb drive, so I would stick with a 500Gb replacement HDD - an example of this can be seen Here.

Your Recovery Discs should work fine on this sort of drive.

Regards,

DP-K

[tripacer1]

OK again thanks for your help

got the a new 500 gb and this time it loaded all 4 Disks

now when it was suppose to reboot and continue the reload

it comes and tells me there is "No Bootable Device"

also apears to fail the HD Test like the original HD did

it was a Sealed HD WD Scorpio Blue to be exact

Why would it load all the disks if it could not find a HD

What am i missing

[tripacer1]

finaly after three or 4 loads of the recover disks i was able to get the system up and running

im not sure at this time if all of the preloaded stuff is back or not but im not going to worry about that

again thanks for all your help

[DavidPK]

Hi,

You're welcome and good to hear it's up and running

All the best,

DP-K

[tripacer1]

Well spoke too soon

yes it was up and running

tried to load windows updates and says its turned off and need to reboot

still no matter what i cant get it to update

then after that evertime it fires up it wants to check the files on the C drive

but left it all night and still doesnt do anything

im trying to reload the files again

im confused on witch one of the 4 things i have to  do

i pretty much know that the first one is restore to a point in time

but the the other Three are a little miss leading

what is the wording to restore the C drive if the D drive has the restore loaded on to it

witch one Restores the D drive partision and what does the third one do

right now the only way i can get it to come up is to put the #1 restore Disk in the system

F 11 doesnt get anything done   will not take you to the restore Screen

im really confused   this should be so simple but worked all yesterday afternoon till 11 pm last night and then now im messing with it again

when it was up it did not look like it had all the stuff that came with it when purchased new  

could be wrong but not sure

[tripacer1]

got it back up and running

but i cant get it to update from windows

when you go to windows updates the shield has a x in it and its Red

you click on check for updates you get the following Box that pops up

"windows updates cannot currently check for updates "

because the service is not running

you may need to retart your computer

but you restart it and still get the same message

What is going on what do i need to do to get it to upadate like it should

[DavidPK · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Here's one thing to check.

Open windows Control Panel, open Administrative Tools and open Services.   Scroll down the list until you see the entry 'Windows Update'.  The service should show as Status = Started and Start-up Type  = Automatic ( Delayed Start ).

If you need to make a change to the above, just right click this service and select Properties, then in the dropdown box next to 'Start-up type',  select Automatic (Delayed Start ) and click Apply to save the change.  Then click the Start button.

Regards,

DP-K