Laptop Smart hard disk imminent failure

sarflee

Laptop, 31 day out of warranty and the Smart hard disk failure warning appears and now unable to do anything as it is asking for boot disk!!

Called PC World, where I bought HP laptop, and they have stated I need a new hard drive costing £60-£80, recovery disk £30 (stupidly didn't realise I should have made my own) and labour.

Couple of questions:
1. Could I copy the hard drive stuff, windows etc, off someone elses if they have the same model?

2. Is it possible to fit my own hard drive, bearing in mind I have no technical computer knowledge at all?

I didn't really store anything on the computer just used for browsing the internet.

Many thanks in advance

sunlund2311

1-You can burn set up, recovery disks from an identical model as they are generic and built into a partition on laptop. Some will only let you burn one copy then disable the program. So If you do get a copy, re-copy it and give it back to the person who provided it

2 Fitting a new drive is usually as simple as undoing 3/4 screws, sliding old one out and sliding new one in

Hammyman

1) You can only do that on a working hard drive. If its not working, putting it in another computer won't make it magically work and you're looking at professional data recovery at typically £500 per 20GB.
2) Absolutely. You can buy a 320GB one from Scan computers for £32 inc delivery. £51 gets you an extremely fast 500GB Western Digital Scorpio Black.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Many hard drives come with a 3 year warranty. Find out what make it is and contact the manufacturer directly. It may then be a case of posting it to them and getting one in return. You'll still need to get a recovery disc, which you can get from the manufacturer, or beg/borrow a Windows 7/Vista ,depending on what was installed, installation disc (doesn't matter if it is OEM, Retail or Upgrade version), install it using your licence key and downloading the drivers from the laptop manufacturers website. TBH, I'd go that way as you don't get all the pre-installed junk.

closed

Ask the retailer for a free repair/replacement or refund under the sale of goods act, don't let them give you the runaround, it should last longer than 13 months

OEM fitted hard disks rarely come with extra disk manufacturers warranty

sarflee

Thanks all.

I am definitely going try the 'sale of good act', just read up on it so worth a go. Assume I go to the retailer?!

Failing that the info provided makes me feel a little better, there is nothing worse tha thinking you're going to have to splash out huge lump of money to fix something that could possibly be DIY (well almost).

closed

one of many examples of when it works

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2997152

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/cheap-free-warranties