Laptop hard drive died after just 19 months

ddoris

Sata drives have the same connections so you could put it into another pc , maybe using the dvd cables, if it's still working.
Have you run the drive manf's hdd test ? Download and run from cd.

Nilrem

macman wrote: »

You should expect a hard drive to fail from day one. It's a relatively crude mechanical device in a box of electronics, and invariably the weakest link.
The average drive will last 5 years or more. Some will last 7, some will last 2. 19 months is very much at the unlucky end of the scale, but it can and does happen.

Aye, always expect any hard drive to fail at any time with no notice - backup, backup, backup (I'm fairly obsessive about it, as I had 4 drives fail in about 9 months from a batch bought from PC World, and have far more drive failures than any other part*)


Re an earlier posters "average lifespan", whilst Desktop drives can and do last years, they also fail unexpectedly and sometimes without warning.

However the Op has a laptop drive - they tend to be treated much more roughly than your typical desktop drive that will likely not be moved more than once in a blue moon, and never whilst running.
Everyone with a laptop that I've ever known has tended to move the laptop whilst the drive is running...

As for warranties.
IIRC preinstalled OEM hard drives often have a much lower warranty than "bare" oem drives, or retail drives, as they are sold to manufacturers to be put in prebuilt machines, so the manufacturer of the Laptop or PC trades off the saving on getting a batch of drives with 1 year warranty, with the cost of potentially funding a replacement after that out of their own pocket.
The OEM company will often buy a whole batch in the thousands of units to go into say a Laptop or external drive.

HDD's tend to have 3 basic warranty types from what I've observed.
True OEM drive to be fitted into a prebuilt machine or device (external drive etc) - usually 1 year.
Bare retail (often called "OEM") - usually 3 years.
Full Retail - usually 3 years, sometimes 5.

It's the reason sometimes buying drives from a retailer who has them extra cheap may not be a good idea - iirc several of the online stores have been caught with True OEM drives, often only found out when someone has tried to RMA to the manufacturer and got a "contact System suppler" or "not in warranty" message based on the serial number.


*Although fans and graphics cards seem to have fun failing as well.

Visiondvd

Hammyman wrote: »

What expense of recovering the data? Just restore from backups. Oh, you didn't back up that ever so important information? Well in that case you are looking at £500 per 20GB.....
Isn't he a barrel of laughs.

If you go to Currys they most likely fob you off to tech or Toshiba,
If you try and ring Toshiba you will spend money wasted trying to get to the right department,
end up even more frustrated,
if you do get a result, you will have to pay delivery to and back,
wait four weeks,
maybe end up with a refurbished hard drive at best,
and still lose your mp3's.
I tell you best advice try repair it your self from caddy, if it dont work bin it, download mp3's again.
As for buying a new hard drive try Scan they aint bad,
I advise Seagate or Samsung, try stay clear of Western Digital and Toshiba, 10 years experience of failed hard drives tells me this.

Hammyman

lafemme51 wrote: »

Fortunately a guy at IT in work has some data recovery diagnostic software and is going to try and retrieve my MP3s.

Oh. Dear.

That'll most likely be them gone forever then.

Hammyman

Visiondvd wrote: »

Hammyman wrote: »

What expense of recovering the data? Just restore from backups. Oh, you didn't back up that ever so important information? Well in that case you are looking at £500 per 20GB.....

Isn't he a barrel of laughs.


If you go to Currys they most likely fob you off to tech or Toshiba,
If you try and ring Toshiba you will spend money wasted trying to get to the right department,
end up even more frustrated,
if you do get a result, you will have to pay delivery to and back,
wait four weeks,
maybe end up with a refurbished hard drive at best,
and still lose your mp3's.
I tell you best advice try repair it your self from caddy, if it dont work bin it, download mp3's again.
As for buying a new hard drive try Scan they aint bad,
I advise Seagate or Samsung, try stay clear of Western Digital and Toshiba, 10 years experience of failed hard drives tells me this.

I have DECADES of experience of building and repairing PCs. I've probably done more laptops this last week than you've done in your entire life.

Refurbished HDDs..ROFLMAO. Shows just how little you have a clue. Still, I make plenty of money sorting out the mess morons like you leave in your wake with your expert repairs.

Visiondvd

Hammyman wrote: »

I have DECADES of experience of building and repairing PCs. I've probably done more laptops this last week than you've done in your entire life.

Refurbished HDDs..ROFLMAO. Shows just how little you have a clue. Still, I make plenty of money sorting out the mess morons like you leave in your wake with your expert repairs.

you should retire then old timer.:rotfl: