Prolonging old laptops life

goodValue

I´ve had two hand-me down laptops, and I believe they both died due to HDD failure.
They both failed, at different times, after  not being used for a while.
The one that died recently, hadn`t been used for about 10 days.

So, if you are an infrequent user, with an old HDD machine, it may be advisable to start it up each day to help prevent HDD failure.

debitcardmayhem

And if it has an SSD? I just started an "old" laptop (i5-2540) with an HDD which has been off for 3months battery very low, fired up no problems then updated it to Windows 11 and will then copy the O/S onto an SSD over the weekend

Neil_Jones

goodValue said:

I´ve had two hand-me down laptops, and I believe they both died due to HDD failure.
They both failed, at different times, after  not being used for a while.
The one that died recently, hadn`t been used for about 10 days.

So, if you are an infrequent user, with an old HDD machine, it may be advisable to start it up each day to help prevent HDD failure.

HDDs do not just spontaneously fail just because they haven't been spun up for a while.  10 days is nothing.  If you consider the laptop from new would have sat on in a box on a shelf in a warehouse somewhere for months on end then by your logic they should all be dead out of the box.

Its far more likely the drives were "going" - with bad sectors most likely - and you received them towards the end of their life.

Olinda99

very weird post.no need to start it up each day  no need whatsoever.

getmore4less

Picked up a family one that had been sitting off for around 5 years, booted up first time(once it had power).

Going back many years we used to get the odd older HDD stick and not spin up,  light tap usually fixed them

goodValue

So what do you think went wrong - there was no sign of HDD problems previously.

On start up, when it got to the grey screen with date and time at bottom left, there was a horrible screeching sound, with occasional throbbing sounds - a bit like  sci-fi background music from the 1960`s

Neil_Jones

goodValue said:

So what do you think went wrong - there was no sign of HDD problems previously.

On start up, when it got to the grey screen with date and time at bottom left, there was a horrible screeching sound, with occasional throbbing sounds - a bit like  sci-fi background music from the 1960`s

If your hard drive was making that sort of noise it would have done it long before you get to the lock screen.

If the noise only started when you get to the lock screen then that suggests it may have been the start-up noise (which isn't on by default in 10 or 11 but remains in place if you upgraded from 7/8).