Critical Hard Disk Failure in laptop

[Stg-Flame]

It's an older laptop from 2007 with Vista installed, but it's served me well for the past 11 years. I just tried to boot it up today and was hit with the Windows is Loading Files nonsense. After restarting and doing a quick memory and hard drive test, I get a critical hard disk failure error. On the occasion that it won't get stuck at the Loading Files screen, it will say "Loading Windows" and go through the little loading icon but then the screen goes black and nothing happens.

Is there something that can be done to salvage the laptop? It was a really nice HP laptop when I got it and it still works just fine - albeit pretty slow on occasion - but I'd hate to just get rid of it from a single hard drive failure.

 

[MtnMan]

Spinrite

 

[Charlie22911]

First off I’d quit trying to boot from it.

If you have any important files on it the first thing you are going to want to do is to create a disk image (there are several way to do this).

If you don’t have anything important that isn’t backed up (everyone should be doing backups!), you can replace the drive and reinstall vista.

Is there a more specific answer you are looking for?

 

[Stg-Flame]

I have no experience with replacing laptop hardware. I've heard in some cases, if the laptop is old enough, it's cheaper in the long run to just save up and get a new one. If that's the case, would it be possible to run the laptop via an external HDD? I really only used this laptop for college and now traveling since I haven't been in college since 2009, but traveling is few and far between.

 

[ch33zw1z]

2007? Nah man, get a new laptop. There's models with extended battery life will make life easier on the road. Look at lenovo carbons or yoga models. Or even their tseries have two battery spots to make it last longer.

It's also possible the internal disk is IDE, which means good luck finding a replacement.

 

[Charlie22911]

If it’s from 2007 it almost certainly has a SATA drive, you can grab them for super cheap online.
What is the model of your laptop? Replacing drives in the older laptops is typically pretty straightforward, unlike these newfangled ultrabook things.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm tired of cloning my boot-system laptop drive through external USB2 -- at USB2 speeds. The lappie is a 2007 Gateway "executive" release that was even made to fit in a desktop docking station. It's great for what we use it for, but I need a laptop that's a lot faster for a pile of other things. I'm tempted to save my money and find a gaming laptop that runs cool and performs well, with long battery life and long charge-life.

We will continue to use the old laptop as a home-security-camera watch-station.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Well I just switched jobs so buying a new laptop is out of the question. I was hoping I could use one of my older externals or grab a cheap hard drive to replace it.

As for the model, it's an HP but I can't remember the exact model. I'm currently out of town for training so it will be a few weeks before I can start working on it.

Thanks for the information.

 

[PliotronX]

Is it a larger pavilion lappy? Looking on the bottom of it, the icon for the drive (cylinder) could be somewhere and if its easy to swap I'd go that route. If the idea is to shuck the external drive and swap it, that'll work otherwise windows won't install to removable drives. There is a chance that if you perform a disk to disk clone and boot to command prompt to run chkdsk or offline sfc it'll work okay but be prepared to reinstall vista.

 

[ch33zw1z]

If you want help replacing the disk, post the hp model or sku, we can point to the manual and how to do it.

 

[C1]

There's all kinds of simple things to try.

Download a free floppy disk version of SeaTools then run it to check your installed HDD. It may be just a bad sector and if SeaTools finds it, SeaTools will have an option to do a repair.

Go to your local eWaste recycler and pick up a compatible 2.5" HDD. Shouldnt cost more than $15 ($7.50 if they happen to be having their frequent half price sales), then image over your old HDD to the eWaste purchased one and install that one.

You'll be fine as those old spinners run forever.

 

[jtvang125]

Had to replace the hdd in my laptop recently. For the longest time it was running so slow. 5+ mins to boot and sometimes closing or opening a program could take a minute or two. The drive finally wouldn't boot to windows anymore but could still be access with a sata-usb cable. Copied what I need and tried to do a restore but that failed too so I went ahead and picked up a 256gb ssd for like $80. I only use the laptop to stream movies to the tv in the bedroom so I didn't need gobs of space. Running smooth and so much more snappy.

I don't think you can boot from an external hdd, especially a laptop that old. You can try booting from a linux install disc and see if you can back up files you need. There should be a removeable panel underneath that will give you access to the drive and memory modules.

 

[hal2kilo]

I have no experience with replacing laptop hardware. I've heard in some cases, if the laptop is old enough, it's cheaper in the long run to just save up and get a new one. If that's the case, would it be possible to run the laptop via an external HDD? I really only used this laptop for college and now traveling since I haven't been in college since 2009, but traveling is few and far between.

You'd be amazed. Youtube is your friend. Replaced many a hard drive in Dells.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Sorry about my late reply, but I've been out of town for the past two weeks for new job training and I had very little service up there.

I'll read through this tomorrow as I just got home a few hours ago. I appreciate all the replies.