To replace the hardrive or no....replace the whole computer?

[GinnyF888]

A week or so ago I posted about an unwanted app finding a home in my computer. Ultimately it left my computer for dead. I already had so much on my computer and then this uninvited app had too much baggage. I asked for advice but did not take it, due to my faith in my computer. However, after running diagnostic tests and attempting to restore, I did a system reset with my files and then without. It took awhile but it reset and appeared to be like new. The next day it went in to the repair disk drive screen again. And now everytime it on that screen comes up but the computer always gets stuck at 7 percent I am tired of wasting my time if thats what I am doing please advise. I ran a system test and the Hard Drive shirt test failed. If I should need a hard drive indeed, I would appreiciate some insight on what kind and what stats I would need to get. FAILURE ID OCTX7H 82D9HL MFPWMF 60WE03

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

The error code translates to one word...Failed.

That doesn't tell us a whole lot, but most likely the hard drive is kaput and needs to be replaced.

So, here is what I would try first...See if you can reinstall W10 without replacing the hard drive as follows...

You can make a W10 USB flash drive installer with the Microsoft Media Creation Tool, using an 8 GB flash drive using another Windows PC, if your PC is not working.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

If you are asked to enter a product key during the installation process, select the 'I don't have a product key' option, and W10 will install and automatically activate once you are connected to the internet.

Here are the steps to create the W10 USB flash drive installer...

Select Download tool now, and select Run.

If you agree to the license terms, select Accept.

On the What do you want to do? page, select Create installation media for another PC, and then select Next.

Select the language, edition, and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit) for Windows 10. You want 64 bit.

Select which media you want to use:

USB flash drive. Plug in a blank USB flash drive with at least 8GB of space. Any content on the flash drive will be deleted.

Then you can reinstall the drivers and available software from the PC's support page.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-17-p100-notebook-pc-series/8499335/model/8788293

If that doesn't work, then you will have to decide whether or not to buy a new PC or replace the hard drive in your current one.

If you or someone else (relative or friend) can do the work, you're looking at $40 - $50 for a new HDD.

A new PC will cost at least $250 - $300 for a cheap one.

Below is the link to the service manual for your notebook.  The HDD R & R procedure can be found in chapter 6.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04777516

Then you can use the above approach to reinstall W10 on the new hard drive.

If you need the 500 GB space, you can replace the drive with a similar type like this.

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-BarraCuda-Internal-2-5-Inch-ST500LM030/dp/B01M0AAA6X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UT...

If you don't use all of that space now, you can get a better performing, normally more reliable solid state drive like this...

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-240GB-Solid-State-SDSSDA-240G-G26/dp/B01F9G43WU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qi...

The 480 GB version would be $60.00.