smart check drive failure

[dallas_babycat]

I let a tech savvy "friend" of mine work on my hp. The first time was great. He put a Linux os on one partition and windows on another. Then it began to slow down a lot so I asked if he would check it out just to be sure it wasn't something more than just less memory available on the system. I left it with him and some time passes. I didn't want to be rude since this was a favor being done for me and I understand how people become busy etc. etc....but a couple months go by and now I cant reach him on the phone. It took me acting very rachet outside of his house after the third time I went knocking on his door for me to get my hp back. 

Now there is a problem with my hard drive! 

error code Q4VMBA-785B4V-MFPWXF-60E303

it says it cannot find hard drive 1

Can anyone give me some more info on this. Theory is appreciated the same as knowledge base. Anything helps ... 

thanks in advance  

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Below is the failure report generated by the code you posted, minus your PC's serial number.

Failure Information

Failure ID Tag Checksum HP Serial Number Test Date Failure Code Device Includes Error Message

Q4VMBA-785B4V-MFPWXF-60E303

OK

0000000000

6/6/22

301

Storage

Floppy Drive, Hard Drive, Memory Drive, Optical Drive, SCSI, Tape Drive

Hard Disk 1 SMART Hard Drive Detects Imminent Failure

You will need to install a new hard drive and reinstall the operating system.

Below is the link to the service manual, where you can find the hard drive removal and replacement procedure.

c03721290.pdf (hp.com)

You may want to consider replacing the 2.5" mechanical hard drive with a better performing 2.5" SATA solid state drive (SSD).

After you replace the drive, you can reinstall W10 for free by making a bootable USB installation flash drive with the media creation tool from the link below.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

After you boot from the installation media, you will be asked what version of W10 you want to install.

Select W10 Home.  Then you will be asked to enter a product key.

Select the 'I don't have a product key' option.