whats it called when a repair shop tells you something is broken

[zerocool1]

have you run spinrite?

 

[darkswordsman17]

Even if they run a diagnostic tool to check the drive, that doesn't mean the drive is bad either. FWIW, the average PC tech is a complete idiot when it comes to hard drives. A lot of people think that it Windows didn't boot then the drive is dead. Who's to say they ran the diagnostic correctly?

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: TheSiege
a computer repair shop told my mother her hard drive was bad, but its not
at worse it needs a new os installed. isnt this illegal?

I think I know what you mean - there's a term or phrase for this - like 'bait and switch' - but this isn't it. It's similar to a garage saying the spark plugs in your car need to be replaced when they don't.

I believe there are consumer protection laws this would fall under but there would have to be many complaints and provable malfeasance before a prosecutor would take it on.

If they knowingly say the drive is bad and it isn't, then it's at the very least deceptive practices. If the drive is indeed good, we can only hope it was a mistake or incompetence.

 

[TheSiege]

my mother dropped her laptop, and we were taking it in to see which parts the warranty covered, it covered the screen. but then they said that HDD was bad, some IO board was bad, and the optical drive was bad. both the HDD and optical drive are fine, the front cover of the optical drive was broke so i attributed that to being the reason them saying that it needed to be replaced. but the HDD works just like it always did so i wanted to see if there was something that could be done

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: TheSiege
threw it in a laptop and it booted up. ran partition magic on it

Checkdisk, full surface scan? Spinrite, perhaps? Check the SMART status?

 

[bmacd]

Originally posted by: TheSiege
my mother dropped her laptop, and we were taking it in to see which parts the warranty covered, it covered the screen. but then they said that HDD was bad, some IO board was bad, and the optical drive was bad. both the HDD and optical drive are fine, the front cover of the optical drive was broke so i attributed that to being the reason them saying that it needed to be replaced. but the HDD works just like it always did so i wanted to see if there was something that could be done

This would have been a better first post than the one you used initially. Might even be worth an edit to throw it in there.

 

[Nocturnal]

Just continue using the drive but if and when it crashes and your mom loses all her data please do not cry or complain back to that original store.

Try running the manufacturer's diagnostic tool such as the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test, or the Sea Tools test, or even the Maxtor and Western Digital test.

You can run the Hitachi on any hard drive and it will tell you whether or not it is bad.

However, try running the actual manufacturer's tool but if it's a Samsung or Toshiba, try the Hitachi first then the Seagate one.