Laptop can't boot due to clicking hard drive and only has one hard drive

[Resilient45]

Hey there, when I switch on my laptop I hear a clicking sound and it shows me there is a SMART hard disk error and continuing only leads to showing a boot device cannot be found. How can I resolve this issue while preferably keeping all my data

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

FA clicking drive indicates seek failures, so most certainly, the drive is going to completely fail, so it is unlikely you will be able to keep all your data. So, the sooner you quit using it, the better your chances of recovering data from it.

To retrieve any data from the drive, you need to remove the drive from the laptop and connect it to a working PC using an adapter cable.  Then, use FIle Manager to copy off the files you want to save.  You will not be able to save applications or settings, only data files.

Then, you need to replace the drive in the laptop and reinstall Windows on it.

If your PC is a 2016 model or newer, you should see if you can make a bootable USB recovery drive using the HP cloud recovery tool on a working PC.

The recovery drive can then be used to install Windows and the HP drivers and utilities that originally came with your PC.

You will need a working PC and a 32GB USB stick to hold the recovery files. Here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmtXOU40vxk

You use the Microsoft Store to download the actual tool:

https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9mtks9pr7r3n?rtc=1&hl=en-us&gl=us

If you use a different PC to run the tool, you will have to provide your PC's product number. Here is an HP link for finding that information:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_2039298-1862169-16

Here's a video from HP Support about using the Cloud Recovery Tool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7AwuKNJKS4