Hard drive failure

[Maddie6]

Hey there,

(NOT SURE IF THERE'S A LINK TO THE CHARGER BUT THOUGHT I'D EXPLAIN THE WHOLE STORY)

After losing my charger, i ordered one off of Amazon, shortly after i started having minor issues which eventually meant my laptop would only turn on if my charger was inserted and the battery wouldn't actually charge up itself. I then noticed the system slowing down, finally found my original charger and started using that again as the amazon one looked quite different in comparison and wasn't sure if it was fake - though i linked it to why my battery suddenly stopped charging.

A few weeks later when  i would turn on my laptop sometimes it wouldn't load properly, a black error screen would come up, mentions of "cooling fan issue", the log in screen wouldnt come up and it would take ages to load! I would then restart and it would normally go back to normal, the system overall seemed to be slowing down. This has recently gotten worse to the point where sometimes the log in screen wont come up even though the laptop lights are on/can hear it running etc. I read online to remove the battery/charger etc and hold down the start button for 40 seconds.

This fixed the issue for a few days, though as the system was still slow and would sometmes freeze i'd have to hold down the power button to turn off which made it even slower. Now when i turn on my laptop  a blue screen opens up so i dont even have the choice to log on anymore!

The HP support page suggested to run an HP PC Hardware Diagnostic UEFI test on the hard drive for which the 'hard drive short DST check' failed, though the hard drive smart check passed.

So now that i have found this hard drive has failed what are my options? Is there some way I can fix this, will it be pricey? Will it fail again shortly after ? I don't want to have to repair it every few months as it will turn out quite pricey and im still a student!

Would appreciate any advice

Thank you ! x

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

It shouldn't be expensive to replace the hard drive as long as nothing else goes wrong.

The service manual below has the hard drive removal and replacement procedure.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c04402649

You have the option of replacing the current drive with the same type...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-BarraCuda-Internal-Drive-Cache/dp/B07D9698HW/ref=dp_ob_title_ce

Or a better performing, normally more reliable solid state drive (SSD).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ultra-500GB-560MB-530MB/dp/B072R78B6Q/ref=sr_1_3?crid=YN9177QX5E63&...

[Maddie6]

Hey Paul,

Thanks for looking into that for me! Sounds pretty straight forward i guess, i shouldnt lose any documents or data right ?

Also before purchasing, are there any other checks i should do to see if there may be other issues or would you say its a pretty straight forward issue

Kind regards,
Maddie

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, Maddie.

Most likely all of the files on the hard drive won't be able to be recovered if you can't get into Windows now.

If you can get into Windows, back them up right away onto a portable hard drive.

If you can't there may be a way you can recover them by purchasing a USB to SATA hard drive cable, plug the bad drive into a working PC's USB port, and see if you can read and copy the data you need off the hard drive.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-SATA-Adapter-Cable-Drives-en-GB-SATA-USB-3-0-converter/dp/B01N2JIQR7/re...

You didn't mention what operating system you were running on there.

Do you have a way to reinstall it onto the replacement hard drive?

If not, let me know what operating system you were running and I can give you a way to reinstall it for free.