Laptop Seagate HDD failing.

[itsakjt]

Hi all,
I have a HP 430 laptop which was working fine till 4 days ago after which I started having some hard disk related problems. Some files were not loading and I checked with HD Tune pro. On the 1st day, there were 2 reallocated sectors. The next day it was 21. The 3rd day it was 48 and now it is 51. The laptop was given to us by our college. I contacted the person who takes charge of these and he said that he can't do anything until the machine(HDD) is fully dead.

How long will the HDD last? Should I destroy it deliberately? If yes then how?
Also any means to repair it? I tried Seatools for DOS and Windows but in vain.

[Frick]

Make backups as soon as possible and wait for it to fail. I don't know how to trash HDD's without physically damaging them, maybe someone else knows. But it looks like it's going down pretty quick. Unfortunately it's hard to say when it'll fail.

Save all work on other media in any case.

[itsakjt]

Thanks Frick. I have backed up my important files too. :-)

[itsakjt]

Well a little update here, the HDD has crashed. It has now got over 444 bad sectors. Whenever I switch on my laptop, I get "disk read error. Press alt, ctrl, delete to restart"
After numerous such restarts, all I get is the Windows 7 bootloader But Windows will never start saying this and that error has occurred. Sometimes, all I get is a frozen HP screen. Tested HDD on Desktop. Fail.
I hope I will get warranty.

[Sasqui]

Originally Posted by itsakjt

Well a little update here, the HDD has crashed. It has now got over 444 bad sectors. Whenever I switch on my laptop, I get "disk read error. Press alt, ctrl, delete to restart"
After numerous such restarts, all I get is the Windows 7 bootloader But Windows will never start saying this and that error has occurred. Sometimes, all I get is a frozen HP screen. Tested HDD on Desktop. Fail.
I hope I will get warranty.

If it's not under warrantee (Seagate won't warrantee an OEM drive, so you'll have to go through HP), then get the right sized screwdriver and pull out some most excellent fridge magnets.

[Frick]

Originally Posted by Sasqui

If it's not under warrantee (Seagate won't warrantee an OEM drive, so you'll have to go through HP), then get the right sized screwdriver and pull out some most excellent fridge magnets.

They are too excellent if you ask me. They are bloddy hard to get off.

[itsakjt]

The laptop is under warranty. Valid upto 23.01.2013
It was given by our college. And it is actually a good one considering it to be my first laptop. The system is very nifty. Plays HD videos without issues and manages to run Battlefield Bad Company 2 at 25 FPS on medium settings.

[Sasqui]

Originally Posted by itsakjt

The laptop is under warranty. Valid upto 23.01.2013
It was given by our college. And it is actually a good one considering it to be my first laptop. The system is very nifty. Plays HD videos without issues and manages to run Battlefield Bad Company 2 at 25 FPS on medium settings.

Wow, that doesn't happen often (I mean the warrantee part, lol)

[itsakjt]

Hahahaha
Just gave it today. They said it will take around 4 days. LOL I could have said that if they had given me the HDD, I would have installed it myself.

[Sasqui]

Originally Posted by itsakjt

Hahahaha
Just gave it today. They said it will take around 4 days. LOL I could have said that if they had given me the HDD, I would have installed it myself.

That might have been an option. A HDD failed in my Dell laptop at work last year, and IT got Dell to ship a new HDD at cost, then IT sent the old one back, and got a refund when Dell received it.

In any case, happy trails!