hard drive failure - end of the recovery road?

[robbes7rh]

Problem occurred in correlation with my tapping the touchpad with my fingers really hard for five times because I was frustrated over something. I went through the start-up Diagnostics it came back that it couldn't help.  I tried refreshing the operating system Windows 10 and then it interrupted that process said it couldn't proceed. I called HP tech support and they determined that the hard drive  has failed and needs to be replaced. Should I try booting it up from a Windows startup disk? Or is that futile at this point?

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@robbes7rh 

If your question is about continuing to use the PC with a failed drive, then yes, booting the PC at this point from a Windows startup disk would be futile.

That said, however, if you want to recover files and folders from that drive, presuming it will still even spin up, then you should consider an alternative -- using another PC to create a boot disk that has some utilities on it, which would then allow you to use a file manage to find files and folders and copy them to a USB stick.

If your PC can not boot into Windows, a way around that is to follow the instructions below to create boot media from Macrium Reflect (MR) that can be used to rewrite/repair the boot media on your PC:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR) from this link: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
2) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

That will create MR bootable media. Then, you can boot your PC into WinPE using that media.

Have patience, as that can take a while to start and bring up the screen.

Once the screen is there, read this thread about using PE Explorer -- a simple file explorer: https://forum.macrium.com/PrintTopic15803.aspx

If your disk still works, you might be then able to retrieve some files and folders from it.

Good Luck

[robbes7rh]

Okay, thanks for those two solutions for retrieving files on the malfunctioning hard drive. It gives a tangible alternative to pursue. I could rent another pc to perform those procedures, which would cost less than paying for data recovery service, but I have weigh that against my lack of experience with this kind of thing where my efforts may falter.