Hard Drive 1 - Primary HDD Bay FAILURE

[AshaP1]

After just ONE year, my HP Pavilion’s Hard Drive has failed. With no warning.
I am torn between being heartbroken (I have just started my own business and I am studying a degree - my LIFE is on this thing!) and distraught. I could literally just cry.
What do I do now? And how can something that cost several hundred pounds just die after a YEAR? A YEAR? This is crazy. I will never buy HP again. And I will tell everyone I know about this piece of junk. In reality. On social. Everyone. But that doesn’t help me now. Can someone give me some advice on what to do next please? Have I just lost a year’s worth of hard work. Devastated. Just devastated.

[Huffer]

There are failures and then there are other failures. In most cases even if the drive gets corrupted such that it cannot run an operating system one can still recover data off the drive. HP did not make your hard drive. Hard drives fail every day for a lot of reasons and sometimes for no apparent reason. That is why we do something called a backup. Failure to back up "your life" can only be seen as reckless and I am sure you have learned a valuable lesson. 

So be sure to tell everyone "on social" that you did not set up a backup system for your business and your studies just so the whole context is fairly presented. I am sure you will hear a lot of sympathetic stories about how people with computers from every computer manufacturer have had the same thing happen. 

And when you are done with that, come back and we can discuss replacing your hard drive which is not terribly difficult or expensive and getting you set up with a viable backup program. And also recovering your data off the old drive. 

[AshaP1]

Actually I do have a back up... I’m still devastated that I do not appear to have a laptop though. Thanks for your compassion though.

[Huffer]

Why do you not have a laptop? And if you have a backup your life is not ruined and I am glad to hear that. 

[AshaP1]

Because it won’t switch on and I’m not a techy... so I’m terrified! I don’t know if hard drives are cheap and easy to install!!! I just know my laptop won’t turn on - so I’m fretting that I will have to shell out hundreds to either fix it or buy a new one. Hundreds that I don’t have.

[Huffer]

Not turning on is a whole other much worse thing than hard drive has failed. You gave me a bit of misdirection there. 

Did you try a hard reset? Remove battery and AC adapter hold down power button 30 seconds and then install just the AC power. If your battery is internal let me know that (i.e. can't be removed). 

What is the precise model or product number please? 

[AshaP1]

Okay. I may be panicking a bit...
So, it turns on but I mostly get a spinning wheel on the HP screen - if it does go to the login screen, I enter my passcode... and then the wheel continues to spin
If I hold down the power button, I get a diagnostics screen... so I ran the simple/quick/extensive tests - all returned the Hard Drive Failure
And my battery doesn’t come out - it’s internal.
Sorry, it’s just that this type of thing terrifies me. It’s such a large investment.

[AshaP1]

It’s an HP Pavilion Notebook PC

[Huffer]

There are dozens different kinds of those...look on the bottom of the laptop. 

[AshaP1]

X7H10EA#ABU...?