Failed HDD, can't recover any how, will use SSD- is this good idea?

[Barney_Rubble]

Hi Folks. I have a hp pavilion 17- g115na, the HDD is failing, and it will not boot or recover. I have tried UEFI, Windows 10 bootable iso USB, system restore, Zorin linux live USB, the lot. Whe trying the W10 USB iso image, it gets to where I am given options on which disk to install- there are 4 show, Presume these are partitions on the single HDD? One is windows, one is 'system', can't remember what the other ones were. I tried 'windows' first, and got 'unable to install to this disk' or similar. tried all the other 3, same result. This is consistent with a failed HDD, BUT! I am going to install a SSD, and try a fresh W10 instal with the USB iso bootable image. I have the product key, and there is no data I need to save. Is there anything I need to do additionally to use the new SSD? I thank you for your kind help!

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

Yes, there is only one hard drive in there broken down into several partitions.

You could try installing W10 over the current Windows partition.  That would be the only partition you would want to install it on.

If it doesn't install, you can safely assume the drive is no good.

You would just need to replace the 2.5" mechanical hard drive with a 2.5" SSD, reinstall W10, and you should be good to go.

Below is the link to the service manual...

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04655191

[Barney_Rubble]

Hi Paul....is it sata 1, 2 or sata 3 in this? Just looking now for a good price SSD of 1tb, maybe have to accept 500gb, as expensive! Thank you for your help, Paul.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

The drive controller your notebook has is SATA 3, and if you don't need a lot of storage space, a 500 GB SSD would be an excellent way to go.

I have this one (in the 250 GB size), and for the price, I believe it offers the best performance out there today for SATA drives.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-WDS500G2B0A-Blue-Internal/dp/B073SBZ8YH/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1...