Newbie Question: Concerning failure of 2nd Hard Drive in New System

[ChinaCat]

Hi all,

I just had a system built for me; well actually my son. I used two WD Velociraptors, one for the C drive and one for the D drive as a backup. I bought one a few years ago and never used it so bought a new one and had them use the new one for C drive where the OS (Windows 7 Pro) is installed and all my programs. The D drive or port 2 is the drive I had.

As fate would have it, no sooner than a day after bringing the PC home and 6 hours of loading programs and stuff, I got an error message about faulty hardware on D

Now when I boot it goes to the dos screen and says:

SATA Port 2: WDS WD300GLFS-01F8UO
S.M.A.R.T Status Bad, Backup and Replace
Press F1 Setup

PS: The newer drive is "HLFS" and as I requested was used on Port 1, or C drive thank goodness, "I think"

Here's my question. If I replace the hard drive on D which currently has nothing on it, will I need to reinstall the OS? I'd hate to lose all the program and driver installs I've done all day today on Drive C.

If you can advise how to proceed, perhaps I can do this myself, just not sure what is required other than a new drive to replace the D drive obviously.

Thanks in advance.

-CC

 

[Paperdoc]

You should have no problem replacing that second drive. There is ONE situation that might cause you grief. At the time that Win 7 was installed, IF BOTH HDD's were in the machine, the Install process would have placed some semi-hidden backup files on the second drive. Thereafter it would check for those at every boot up and balk if they are not found. But from your description, it appears even with the D : drive not working properly, you machine is still booting OK. This suggests to me that whomever built your machine for you used a good idea when doing the Win 7 Install - just don't add the second drive until AFTER the OS is installed on the first drive.

Other than that odd wrinkle, your OS does not give the second drive any special treatment or coding, so replacing that second HDD ought to cause you no problem.

 

[ChinaCat]

You should have no problem replacing that second drive. There is ONE situation that might cause you grief. At the time that Win 7 was installed, IF BOTH HDD's were in the machine, the Install process would have placed some semi-hidden backup files on the second drive. Thereafter it would check for those at every boot up and balk if they are not found. But from your description, it appears even with the D : drive not working properly, you machine is still booting OK. This suggests to me that whomever built your machine for you used a good idea when doing the Win 7 Install - just don't add the second drive until AFTER the OS is installed on the first drive.

Other than that odd wrinkle, your OS does not give the second drive any special treatment or coding, so replacing that second HDD ought to cause you no problem.

Thank you.

But I haven't booted to Windows, or tried to. I boot to that DOS screen with the message. I turned the PC off as unsure of what to do so I haven't tried to change the setup to ignore D (if that's possible). When I boot it takes me to that DOS screen with the message.

 

[ChinaCat]

Update: Resolved.

Spoke to Tech Support and followed instructions.

Simply told me to unplug the D drive and boot. I did and it went to windows. Since the OS and all programs I've installed are on the C drive it appears a minor inconvenience and a few extra dollars.

When my new drive arrives I'll replace the D drive with it, plug it in and use the Disc Management tool in windows to partition and format the new D drive.

Thank again folks.

-CC