SOLVED Hard Drive Failure

[Redheadgranny]

Has anyone else had an issue with hard drive failing since upgrading to Win 10? My hard drive is less than 2 years old and the not to polite woman at HP told me to replace it. Everything was fine until I upgraded.

 

[BigFeet]

Coincidence. Software can't break the hard drive. Is it dead or can you access it? Are you getting a SMART error when booting? I've had hard drives die within months (I have a 750gb hdd from my dad's emachines in my basement. It was a year and a week old). Most mechanical hard drives carry a 2 year warranty. Although being OEM, it would probably have to be warrantied through HP. Which is probably only a year.

I don't know what to tell you, other than hard drives are relatively cheap. If you activated your Windows 10, you should be able to do a clean install. As far as getting the data off the disk, that could be a bit complicated, if it's even possible..

 

[Redheadgranny]

I am still able to access it but I am getting an error. When I contacted HP about it they said it needed to be replaced and if I continued to use it I could loose all my data. Priced the hard drive at between $50 - $80 and the installation would be approx $150.00 on top of that. Since I am 75 and not really that tech savvy, doing it myself is not really an option.

 

[Trouble]

Replacing a hard drive is not as difficult as it sounds, although data recovery from a bad hard disk and the installation of an OS on the new hard drive can complicate things a bit.
Do you have a friend, neighbor or relative who might be a little more computer savvy than you who you might talk to about the problem.
Is there a local business that might perform the job cheaper in your area.
I'm wondering how HP determined that your disk was bad did they have you run any diagnostic utilities to test the disk?
They are correct, continuing to use a failing hard disk can further corrupt its' contents so it is generally a good idea to remove the disk and set it aside if you are certain that it is bad.

 

[Redheadgranny]

I checked with Best Buy on the price. Their Geek Squad. My son is going to loan me a computer so I can still do my family research until I can get my computer fixed. He is going to help me back everything up this afternoon and may have a friend who can help me replace the hard drive. HP just asked me what the error that showed up on the screen said. Usually I have good luck calling HP. This lady must have been having a bad day.

 

[Trouble]

Usually I have good luck calling HP.

Me too.
I had an issue recently where I had to acquire a set of recovery media for a friends HP that I was fixing. I used their real time chat session explained the problem, provided the serial numbers that they required (it was still under warranty) they even offered to provide a replacement hard drive.
The recovery media (four optical disks) arrived at my door the next day.

You might want to try again, maybe the second time you'll get someone who is not having a bad day.

 

[Redheadgranny]

Certainly worth a try.

 

[BigFeet]

I agree with Trouble. I'd try support again. I had to have a video card replaced years ago, and hp even covered labor, even though the warranty had recently expired. This was 1999 though.