[PlanningtoLive]

Just within the last week, when my computer boots up, this screen comes up that says that hard disk drive failure is inminent (sp). Back up your hard disk drive and replace. Then I have two options: hit F10 and go into the Bios or hit F2 and continue with loading Windows Vista.

Generally I've been hitting the F2 key and the computer runs fine. No glitches, no nothing. I put the computer thru a system restore, back to factory specs, and it still does the same.

Do I need a new hard disk drive? How do I know what kind to get and where do I get one from? My computer is an HP. Thanks.

Mary Alice

[billieJ]

I hope you posted this to computers and technology board. Can you call the computer company. If all else fails, you may need to go to a local computer repair shop. billieJ

[Rmdctc]

I would say take it into a local repare shop and have them look at it.

[FooZe]

Originally Posted by PlanningtoLive

Do I need a new hard disk drive? How do I know what kind to get and where do I get one from? My computer is an HP.

You do not want to wait till the hard drive fails completely to try to set up your system from scratch on a new hard drive. I had a hard drive failure (with warning) last spring. I thought I was in good shape with backups, installation CDs for my software, etc. but it turned out that if my old drive hadn't woken up long enough for me to retrieve all the files I could from it, I might not have been able to get my system working fully.

Rmdctc's suggestion, to take it to a repair shop, sounds like the easiest way, but better do it before the drive fails completely. If they're really good (and your old drive cooperates) they should be able to "clone" your old drive to your new one. If they're not so good (or your old drive quits early) you may end up with a working Windows system but minus a lot of your software and data.

If you want to replace the hard drive yourself you'll need to start by finding out what's in there now and how it's connected; as I understand it there are two kinds of cables in use called SATA and PATA and you'll have to stay with drives that fit what's in your computer. If you didn't know that (I didn't, till last spring), the learning curve gets even steeper after that.

I've never had an HP but for my Dell I was able to download an instruction manual that described how to get the case open, how to change the CMOS battery, how to add a hard drive, etc., etc. I'd printed off the manual a few days after getting my computer (used) and I had it handy in a binder to refer to. You might want to do something similar while you still have a working computer.

One last thing -- I don't think I would've made it through my system reinstall if I hadn't had a junky old spare computer that I could use for going online till my main one was working again.

Good luck, PlanningtoLive!

[PlanningtoLive]

Thanks everyone. Is there an estimate of how much time I have left before this computer takes a nose-dive on me? I will have to get information from some local places on cost. I want the same space and RAM and all that good stuff.

How did this happen?

Mary Alice

[FooZe]

Originally Posted by PlanningtoLive

Is there an estimate of how much time I have left before this computer takes a nose-dive on me?

I'm afraid not. It's like skating on thin ice; you know it's likely to fail on you (and will fail before summer, in the case of ice) but there's no telling exactly when or where. What you want to do is first prepare to survive the crash as gracefully as possible (keep your backups up to date; collect your installation CDs, serial numbers and keys; locate and print off the manual for your model; arrange for a spare computer). Then see if you can get the computer diagnosed (and the drive replaced if necessary) as soon as you can, and meantime do what you can to make your old drive last a bit longer. Using the computer less may or may not make a difference.

There are several kinds of things that can go wrong with a drive and often you never do find out exactly what happened. Your system may be warning you that it's taking too many retries to read (or maybe write) data but that could be caused by the magnetic surfaces deteriorating, by the electronics in the drive getting flaky, and possibly by a few other things as well. It's not even 100% certain that the problem is in the drive but replacing the drive is the first (and usually the only) step in finding out.

[PlanningtoLive]

Fool, thank you for the sound advice. I will keep an eye and try to fit some repairs into the budget.

Mary Alice

[Yoda]

Some good advice already posted. Only thing I can contribute is back up what you don't want to lose {perhaps it was mentioned but I missed it} . My son is my tech support but when I want to try to understand something by myself I go to this site ----> http://www.techguy.org/

[FooZe]

Originally Posted by Yoda

...when I want to try to understand something by myself I go to this site ----> http://www.techguy.org/

Tech Support Guy is a good resource with a lot of helpful and knowledgeable people. I spent a fair amount of time there before and after my hard drive crash. They were the ones who turned me on to the idea of cloning my old drive to my new one.

I had the new drive bought and was within a day or two of installing it (and trying the cloning thing) when the old one forced my hand by quitting completely. I spent a panicky evening setting up and formatting the drive and installing Windows to it, then almost a week getting all my software reinstalled and working. I was online a good deal (from my "lifeboat" computer, as I called it) getting advice from the TSG people. A few of the things I learned in the process:

-- Take copious notes on everything you do, especially if it's something you've never done before. I already knew to do this. Note what messages and options you see on the screen, what choices you enter, and what the results are.

-- You'll probably need some kind of startup disk, either CD or floppy, to start your computer without your old hard drive. If you opt for a CD, make sure your computer can be set to boot from the CD drive. Mine had to be booted from a floppy under these conditions, then drivers for the CD drive installed from the floppy. Be sure to try out your startup disk before you actually need it.

-- Read up on the DOS commands FDISK and FORMAT if you aren't already familiar with them. It helped a lot that I had a whole bunch of DOS books left over from my programming days.

-- If you start over from scratch installing Windows to an empty hard drive you can easily find yourself with an ugly and minimal display, no sound, no working modem, no working printer, and a mouse that no longer responds to all the buttons you're accustomed to using. When your computer was originally set up it had drivers installed for all these functions; unless you clone your old drive to the new one, you'll have to find and reinstall the necessary drivers to make everything work normally again. It turned out that zip files with almost the drivers I needed were already among the files I'd rescued from my old drive; all I had to do was figure out which ones I needed and how to get them to install themselves correctly. It took a fair amount of poking through their associated README files (and taking notes) to get everything figured out.

-- Burn copies of your drivers (preferably the self-installing zip files) and your notes to a CD or, better, to several CDs and put them in a safe place. It would have been better to do this ahead of time but I had to find out the hard way what I was going to need -- by seeing what happened without it.

After I had my system working from the new drive I bought another drive just like it and tried to clone the new drive to the newest one. For some reason the cloning software refused to do what I wanted so I ended up just formatting the new drive, copying all my files to it, and leaving it in the drive bay ready to put into service. If I ever needed it I'd still have to install Windows to it, then follow my notes to get everything else installed.

If after reading all this PlanningtoLive is still open to the idea of trying to do her own drive replacement, more power to her. If not, I hope this is more than enough information to make her feel OK about taking it to a pro.

[PlanningtoLive]

You guys are the best. Fool, you sound very knowledgeable about this, thank you. I don't know what it would cost to have someone do it, but a hard disk drive that is 1TB is only about $100 at Best Buy. My computer won't back itself up, there is some I/O error thing coming up. If I can't find a Vista CD, I am stuck afterwards.

I'm doing a lot of praying these days. Thanks.

Mary Alice

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by PlanningtoLive

. If I can't find a Vista CD, I am stuck afterwards.

Mary Alice

Why is that? Do you like Vista? They will be releasing Windows 7 in just a few weeks.

[VickiesPath]

Hi PlanningToLive,

I'm a certified Computer Tech. We always said there are two kinds of hard drives. Those that haven't failed and those that are going to fail. It's like a car. A hard drive is actually mechanical. It does have metal parts and it will fail eventually. You are one of the lucky ones and you received a warning. Back it up now.

Regarding your drivers, as long as you have a driver for your cd rom and a driver for your nic (network interface card) you can connect to the internet and download the rest. If you connect via modem instead of a network card, you'll need that driver instead of the nic driver. But if your pc came with cd's, chances are there are drivers for the cd rom, the nic, the extra apps, a modem if there is one, a driver for a sound card and/or a video card if there are any separate from the motherboard, plus your operating system.

The kind of hard drive your pc will accept depends on the motherboard, the processor and the bus speed. I would shoot to replace it with an identical one. If you back it up, you can take it out and take it with you to a store and they will give you one like it. There is a sticker on it that says what it is, i.e. speed, size, ATA or SATA, etc.

If you have the Windows operating system disc from your current pc all you have to do is put the cd in the tray, boot and let the system disc boot up. (If it's not set to boot first from the cd, reboot and hit F10 and change it to boot from cd first.) It will format your new drive for you and do everything you need to do. You don't need to mess with anything else. Windows makes it easy for you.