Hard disk fail, 301. 303. 305. Any solutions?

[JohnP441]

Hard disk failure.  Codes 301, 303, and 305.  Any suggestions?

[Nal_NR]

Hi @JohnP441,

Welcome to the HP Support Community. 

I'd be glad to help you! 

Both error codes would indicate that your Hard Drive is failing - there are many reasons for a Smart error, one example would be that there are increasing blocks of the HDD that can not be written to or read from - whatever the actual reason for the smart warning, the solution boils down to replacing the Hard Drive.

As to why it occured, the average lifespan of a traditional HDD is between 3 - 5 years, but some fail much sooner while others may last far longer.

For all practical purposes, it's extremely unlikely the HDD can be repaired - the Smart warnings you receive are usually a good indication that there is a physical problem with the drive.  Although there is software that can stop these errors from appearing, this is not really curing the problem but just hiding it - ie if the warnings are being generated because of bad blocks on the HDD, these blocks can be excluded from testing and so the drive may look like it has passed testing but in reality these bad blocks are still present, just ignored.

Once a HDD starts to fail, it will only get worse - how long that takes can vary enormously, but if you value your data I would always recommend replacing the HDD.

If your notebook is under warranty, HP should replace the HDD.

I want you to go through this document and see if that helps. 

Hope this helps! Keep me posted for further assistance

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