I think my hard drive is failing...

[Keld Denar]

So, when I start up my lap top, the first screen that pops up, even before windows, is an error.


SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 2: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0-(S1)

WARNING: Immediatly back-up of your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent.

Press F1 to continue.

Its a laptop running Windows Vista, 32 Bit, I think. Its ~2 years old. Is this something I can fix with a reformat? Or do I need to buy and install a new hard drive? Any advise would be helpful...

[RS14]

Its a laptop running Windows Vista, 32 Bit, I think. Its ~2 years old. Is this something I can fix with a reformat? Or do I need to buy and install a new hard drive? Any advise would be helpful...

No. Back up everything, important data first, and replace it as soon as possible.

Make sure you have the disks to reinstall Vista.

Under warranty?

[Keld Denar]

Ok. I have my external plugged in and I'm transfering everything that isn't already redundantly backed up on my desktop. Stupid computer...

I guess I should mention that it does start up with windows, but it runs REALLY slow and sluggishly.

And no, I only had the default 1 year warrenty. Extended warrenties are about the biggest rip-off in human existance, thus far.

[Erloas]

2 years isn't great, but it isn't exactly unexpected for a hard drive, especially if the laptop is moved a lot. Most HD manufacturers are 2 or 3 years on their warranty, it might be possible to get a warranty return from the HD manufacturer itself, but its hard to say.

Would be best to order a replacement harddrive as quickly as you can. You don't have to match your current HD in brand, space or speed, just make sure it has the same connection type (SATA is pretty much guaranteed if its only 2-3 years old) and make sure you get a 2.5" drive.

[Keld Denar]

Its a laptop. Is it hard to change the hard drive yourself? Or should I have it professionally done? I've never changed anything in my laptop, not even installed more RAM. If it was my desktop (I've built 3 to date), I'd have no problem. But this is kinda....yea. I don't wanna mess anything up.

[Erloas]

Well for reference, from opening up this thread, removing the cover from my laptop and getting to the HD and now posting this reply it has taken 5 minutes.
And in the process I found that my laptop has space for a second HD if I wanted to add one.

I haven't switched any parts on my laptop either.

[Keld Denar]

I'm in the process of reformatting. We'll see if that makes a difference or not. I doubt it, but hey, its free to try. If not, I'll probably take it in to Best Buy or something. There are few problems you can't solve by throwing money at them...

[KuReshtin]

SMART errors on the hard drive are never fun. It seems you were lucky enough to get the error before the HDD decided to pack in completely, and you were able to save the data on it.

Replacing a HDD on a laptop is often one of the easiest things you can do.
What make/model is it?

If you get that info, just use another computer to download the maintenance manual for the laptop and you should get pretty easy-to-follow instructions on how to do it.
For instance, if you have a Thinkpad or other Lenovo laptop, they've even got video instructions posted on their website to guide yo through it.

[Erloas]

Reformatting is unlikely to get you anything. The SMART monitoring is a low level hardware sort of error reporting and not the sort of thing that is likely (or maybe even possible) to show up because of simple data corruption (what reformatting will fix).

Chances are even if reformatting speeds things up for a little while (since it won't try and write anything into the sectors marked as bad), about all it is going to do is give you a little bit of time before completely failing on you at some unknown time in the future.

[Keld Denar]

Its a Gateway. I can't get into the device manager to get the specs on the hard drive atm, since its reformatting. It looks like its about done though, so maybe later I'll find it. Can I just get a new hard drive from like, Newegg or Tigerdirect and put it in?

[KuReshtin]

Its a Gateway. I can't get into the device manager to get the specs on the hard drive atm, since its reformatting. It looks like its about done though, so maybe later I'll find it. Can I just get a new hard drive from like, Newegg or Tigerdirect and put it in?

You don't need to know the type of the hard drive, just the model of the machine, to be able to see how to get the hard drive out.
If you get the hard drive out of the laptop, you'll then be able to see what type of hard drive you need to get to replace it.
As has been mentioned before, you don't need to match the size or speed of the old hard drive, but you will need the same type of connection and physical size of it.

[factotum]

The code in the original post actually tells you what type of drive it is:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=377

[Keld Denar]

Oh, hey. Thats incredibly useful. Thank ya kindly, good sir! Sounds like its just a matter of buying one, unscrewing the backing, popping it out, plugging it in, and reinstalling Windows (what a perfect time to upgrade to 7).

You guys are teh bestest!

[Keld Denar]

Ok, so...quick question for you guys...is the one linked above, this one, (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=377) the same as this one I found on newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136567) for $10 less with 160 Gigs more memory?

Its the same Scorpio Blue 5400 RPM 2.5" SATA with 8 MB cache 3 GB/s. I can't find anything that would indicate that I couldn't use the newegg one in my laptop if everything but the size lines up, but I'd appreciate if someone could look into this quick before I make the purchase. Love you guys!

[factotum]

As long as the interface and form factor are the same (SATA, 2.5") then you should be fine--the size of the drive shouldn't matter. (It would be different if you were talking about some sort of consumer device like an XBox or a TiVo, where the drive size is often hard-coded into the firmware, but we're talking a general purpose PC here).

[Cobra_Ikari]

As long as the interface and form factor are the same (SATA, 2.5") then you should be fine--the size of the drive shouldn't matter. (It would be different if you were talking about some sort of consumer device like an XBox or a TiVo, where the drive size is often hard-coded into the firmware, but we're talking a general purpose PC here).

I believe he's talking about physical size. >.>