Sony Vaio Problem

Lemonade_Pockets

Hi,

I'm trying to fix a my GF's laptop (sony vaio VGN-N31M) which has been completely useless for the two years or so that she's had it. The main problem at the moment seems to be

"SMART Failure predicted on Hard Disk 2: FUJITSU MHW2120BH-(S1)

WARNING: Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure maybe imminent.

Press F1 to continue"

This seems to be screwing everything up, it'll start every so often in safe mode after pressing F1 so i've managed to back everything up.

I've just done a factory restore jobby, so it should be box fresh (using F10) but hasn't maybe not surprisingly made any difference.

Please can you wise bods advise what to try?
Last time she had a similar problem and got it "fixed" so i'm loathe to take it to a repair place if there is stuff i can try first. Obviously if it needs a new hard drive it needs a new hard drive.

Thanks.

custardy

well thats what its telling you
adding a new hard drive isnt that hard
Sont may even have a guide on their site to do it
so its really 'just' the cost of the drive

Lemonade_Pockets

Hmmm ok but PC's have been known to tell porkies before now. I was just wondering if there is anything i can do to check this is definitely the problem before forking out for a new hard drive (i beleive this computers is on its second or third already).

N.b. Is this a common thing i've never heard of hard drives 'expiring' what causes (or what can cause) it?

Browntoa

looks like its a common fault on sony Vaios.....if you are lucky you can clone the old hdd to the new one and just do a straight swap

custardy

oh hard drives can die
its a mechanical unit with moving parts runnnig at close tolerences
you can get programs to check hard drives eg

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools

tronator

Lemonade_Pockets wrote: »

"SMART Failure predicted on Hard Disk 2: FUJITSU MHW2120BH-(S1)

WARNING: Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure maybe imminent.

Press F1 to continue"

This seems to be screwing everything up, it'll start every so often in safe mode after pressing F1 so i've managed to back everything up.

I've just done a factory restore jobby, so it should be box fresh (using F10) but hasn't maybe not surprisingly made any difference.

Please can you wise bods advise what to try?
Last time she had a similar problem and got it "fixed" so i'm loathe to take it to a repair place if there is stuff i can try first. Obviously if it needs a new hard drive it needs a new hard drive.

Thanks.

Buy a new hard disk. If you get a S.M.A.R.T. error, your hard disk is about to die, or in your case it is dying already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

I doubt that she fixed this problem in the past, maybe it was just a few corrupt files which you can fix with chkdsk.

Lemonade_Pockets

tronator wrote: »

Buy a new hard disk. If you get a S.M.A.R.T. error, your hard disk is about to die, or in your case it is dying already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

I doubt that she fixed this problem in the past, maybe it was just a few corrupt files which you can fix with chkdsk.

Hi thanks for the link very informative. When i said it was fixed, i meant she had taken it to 'professionals' to have it sorted.

Anyway sounds like a new hardrive is needed now or in the very near future so i'll get onto it.

As we have a few computers between us is it safe to continue to use this laptop for internet browsing until the point of failure (i.e anything important can be done/saved on other machines) or could that cause further problems with the internals?

Thanks

The_Grandmaster

Is it not under guarantee? OK sorry, probably not...

custardy

Lemonade_Pockets wrote: »

Hi thanks for the link very informative. When i said it was fixed, i meant she had taken it to 'professionals' to have it sorted.

Anyway sounds like a new hardrive is needed now or in the very near future so i'll get onto it.

As we have a few computers between us is it safe to continue to use this laptop for internet browsing until the point of failure (i.e anything important can be done/saved on other machines) or could that cause further problems with the internals?

Thanks

its unlikely to cause any other issues