Hard drive dead?

rmg1

Hi all

My laptop hard-drive is giving me SMART errors and won't load windows. I get an error saying something along the lines of "SMART errors detected, press F1 to continue". when I press F1 it just sits there doing nothing.
It's also got a few bad sectors (managed to run chkdsk before getting the SMART errors).
It won't le me reinstall windows from the disc either.

I'm assuming the drive is dead (unless anyone can tell me different or give me some other options to try?)

Anyway, assuming the drive has had it, would this be a suitable replacement:-
http://www.ebuyer.com/270615-samsung-320gb-spinpoint-m8-hard-drive-hn-m320mbb

The laptop currently has a 160GB SATA 2.5" drive in place.
If it is, is this a good buy or can I get cheaper elsewhere?

poppellerant

Can you post a screenshot from CrystalDiskInfo? This will show the SMART information which gives an indication of how health the drive is.

As for a replacement, I'd consider an SSD. You can get the Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO for only £68.99, which is very reasonable considering the speed increase you'll see from it. If you want to reduce the price further, then, you can find the same drive on Amazon.co.uk for about £60.

rmg1

Does CrystalDiskInfo boot from a CD? If it does, that's fine.
I'm not too bothered about an SSD, it's only a laptop for testing things on and won't be used that often so a slow start-up isn't really an issue.

poppellerant

If you can boot into a Windows PE environment, then you should be able to run CrystalDiskInfo from a USB stick.

rmg1

If I put the disc in to reinstall windows, it gets past the point of asking for region, language, keyboard etc and then stalls.

The screen reads something like "please wait" (I'm at work so can't give the exact message) and just stays there.

I've got a Hirens boot cd (somewhere), would that work?

poppellerant

I think Hirens uses WinPE, so it's possible that it'll work. I'm wondering rather than wasting time find and booting from various CDs, if you'd be just as well downloading UBCD. That has loads of harddrive testing applications for most/all makes of harddrives.

You can put UBCD onto a CD or a 1gb stick, but I'll leave you with this link and let you have a play: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

spud17

rmg1 wrote: »

If I put the disc in to reinstall windows, it gets past the point of asking for region, language, keyboard etc and then stalls.

The screen reads something like "please wait" (I'm at work so can't give the exact message) and just stays there.

I've got a Hirens boot cd (somewhere), would that work?

If you'd made that X-Boot usb from ages ago, you'd pop that in, select Hirens and you would be away.

Don't know which Hirens you have, but, boot from it select the DOS options, which will give yo HD testing tools.

You will have to navigate the very basic menus by using arrow keys etc.

I would try 'Disk Sentinel' first.

rmg1

Spud - I tried but I couldn't get it to work. Hirens is version 15.2 if that helps.

Propellerant - CrystalDiskInfo just gives me a blank page with no info on it (just the headers).

I've run the chkdsk option from the Hirens menu and that came up with quite a few bad sectors.

The model number is WDC WD1600BEVT-22ZCT0
The serial number is WD-WX60EA9A2545

I've also run the WD diagnostics tool (it's a WD drive) and it came up as fail.The info it came up with gave red against reallocated sector count (with a value of29). Everything else seemed to pass.

If anyone can giveme any advice (or an idiots guide) to getting the X-Boot USB working on a 2GB stick I'll gladly give it another go.

rmg1

The plot thickens.......

Ran various tests last night and the only issue I could see was the SMART errors on the HDD (see my previous post).
The chkdsk ran through without a hitch (apart from telling me about bad sectors).
Dropped in the CD for reinstalling Windows (just thought I'd drop that in and start again as it won't boot anyway).
It loaded all the files, I selected the correct region, language, etc and pressed next.
Clicked on the nice big "Install now" button and got as far as "Setup is starting" and went to bed.
It was still there this morning (with the little whirly cursor) and that was after about 7 hours.

There's nothing on the HDD I want to keep (no documents as yet) so a reinstall isn't going to cause me any issues if I can get it to work.

Anyone any ideas?

I'm at work now (without laptop) so if you need any more info, it might have to wait until I get home.

GunJack

may be a stupid question, but have you tried to format the drive before running diagnostiics?

rmg1

Erm ..... no.
Can I do that from the Hirens disc?