Hardisk problem, how to change hard disk

[mrjimp]

Hi,

So from the start (2015-12-12) i had trouble with this machine. Last year it has been in a box, so warranty is out.

Problem:
Harddisk works constantly at 100%.Response times are very high, even for a non SSD: Average response time fluctuates up to 1752 ms at times. (just saw it on the machine as it is on right beside me). I would say that its around 200ms most of the time though. This is still way to high. Especially for a computer that is just idling.

I have never been able to use this computer without this problem. After 10 minutes, at least the computer becomes usable.

So, since this is a starwars edition computer, I still want to keep it.

How do I replace the hardrive on this machine, keeping everything as it is?

please help.

[Huffer]

Can we have the specific model. I know you said Star Wars but I want to be sure to get the right literature. Have you ever run any kind of diagnostics on the hard drive?

[iomare · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The best idea would be to replace the 2.5" HDD with a 2.5" SSD such as the 2.5" Samsung 860 Evo or similar. This will give a great boost to the system and also solve the problem.

On page 49 of service manual you can see the steps to replace the drive.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04642845

You will need to reinstall the OS on the SSD for performance gain.

Regards,

David

[mrjimp]

Product name is simply: HP Pavelion Notebook.

I5, 6GB memory, 1 TB harddrive.Star wars special edition. 15-an001nr

[mrjimp]

Iomare - Yes!

Gonna look into it. Its the "You will need to reinstall the OS" part that bothers me a bit since its a pre installed HP os, and I dont know how to preserve it. Should i copy the windows key or something?

[Huffer]

I concur 100% with @iomare ...get an SSD you will be happy you did and the prices have come way down. But if you want to replace HDD with mechanical HDD the steps are there.

Windows 10 installer is a free download from Microsoft Media Creation Tool site (just google that). You need no Key Code the activation system is much more advanced now your laptop will just activate automatically. You can get drivers from this site if needed and can likely recover most if not all of your old data off the old hard drive. 

Good luck. 

[mrjimp]

Allright guys, I just wanted to conclude this thread.

First up: Thanx for all your help guys. It might not have been super much, but at least I got pointed in the right direction.

So what has happened since last:

First off I changed the hardrive to another non ssd drive which I know was working. I used Macrium REFLECT together with a SATA TO USB Adapter to clone the drive before inserting it into the computer. I can strongly recommend this tool for HD cloning instead of having to reinstall windows from scratch - if you have a working HD.

When switching the drives I noticed that the original drive was a 5400 RPM drive which is kind of slow. The replacement drive was a 7200 RPM.
It worked better but the drive was still under very heavy load, which made me rule out that the original hard drive was faulty.

I did an online antimalware/virus scan of the drive and it found ONE gen.trojan (ESET scanner).

I removed it and the computer was working so much better. However, I noticed saturday that this computer also has only 6GB of ram.

So, today I installed a samsung EVQ 1 tb hard drive as well as 16 GB of memory into this machine.

Now I'm very pleased with the speed of booting and general usage of the machine. It can even play some games. 🙂

Thanx again guys, and keep up the good work!

Cheers /Jimmi