Pavilion Laptop fails short DST on "Patch Tuesday": Coincidence?

[Phil_Esterhaus]

When my wife's Pavilion Laptop (HP Pavilion - 15z-cw000 CTO) rebooted following this week's "Patch Tuesday" it went to the blue "Repair" screen.  I had it reboot and try to repair, but that failed.  I tried most of the options on the Advanced Options screen with no luck.  It would boot to the command line and CHKDSK ran fine.   All the files I looked for seemed to be on the disk.  (However, there were no files in ...config/regback.)

So I rebooted to the hardware diagnostics and ran a test.  The system passed all of the tests except the "short DST"  (Disk Storage Test).  Googled results for this failure suggest a drive about to fail or a corrupted driver.  Since it happened on Patch Tuesday, I am suspecting a corrupted driver.

Does anybody agree?  If so, how do I refresh the driver?  If the disk is failing, is the best solution to look for a command line backup utility and to backup as much of the drive as possible?

Thanks for any help,

Phil

P.S.  Hey, let's be careful out there.

[Raj_05 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Phil_Esterhaus,

Welcome to HP Support Community.

Thank you for posting your query, I will be glad to help you.

It's certainly possible that a corrupted driver could be causing the issue, However, the failed short DST (Disk Storage Test) indicates a potential problem with the hard drive itself, which shouldn't be ignored.

Here's a step-by-step approach to address the situation.

Backup Important Data: Regardless of whether the issue is caused by a corrupted driver or a failing hard drive, it's crucial to back up any important data as soon as possible. If the drive is failing, you don't want to risk losing valuable files.

Refreshing Drivers: If you suspect a corrupted driver, you can try refreshing the driver by following these steps:

• Boot into Safe Mode: Restart your computer and repeatedly press the F8 key before the Windows logo appears. This should bring up the Advanced Boot Options menu. From there, select Safe Mode.
• Uninstall the Driver: Once in Safe Mode, go to Device Manager (you can search for it in the Start menu) and locate the device driver that you suspect might be causing the issue. Right-click on the driver and select "Uninstall device." Follow the prompts to uninstall the driver.
• Reboot: Restart your computer normally and see if the issue persists. Windows should automatically reinstall the driver. If not, you may need to download and install the latest driver from the HP website.

Check Disk for Errors: Since you've already run CHKDSK and it didn't find any issues, you may want to try a more thorough disk check using third-party tools like CrystalDiskInfo or HD Tune.

Replace the Hard Drive: If the above steps don't resolve the issue and the short DST test continues to fail, it's likely that the hard drive is indeed failing. In this case, your best course of action would be to replace the hard drive with a new one. You can then reinstall Windows and restore your data from backup.

In any case, it's always a good idea to have backups of your important data regularly, preferably in multiple locations, to avoid potential data loss in situations like this.

I hope this helps.

Take care and have a good day.

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Alden4

HP Support