Laptop hard drive death?

[milkloss]

Morning All, looking to see if anyone can help.

Have a fairly old Sony Vaio laptop that wouldn’t boot yesterday, shows the bios splash and then black screen with the HD light constantly on. Can enter bios and change boot sequence so made a bootable usb with win 7 repair files on using Rufus. It runs but there seems to be no boot file for the hard drive as there seems to odd info for the c: drive using the cmd prompt. No bootrec commands work either.

I don’t think I have any data that needs saving from it but would like the opportunity to check. I have the win 10 iso but no spare licence for it, I do have the keys for win 7 stuck to the laptop but are manufacturer specific.

Advice gratefully received.

 

[milkloss]

Just trying seagate seatools on a bootable usb to check the HD.

 

[towbar]

you can also get an adaptor that will let you connect the laptop disc as a usb disc on another machine - then check for files you might need. Or even connect it to the sata port inside another desktop machine.

StarTech.com USB3S2SAT3CB SATA to USB Cable, USB 3.0 to: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

Shop StarTech.com USB3S2SAT3CB SATA to USB Cable, USB 3.0 to 2.5 Inch SATA III Hard Drive Adapter, External Converter for SSD/HDD Data Transfer. Free delivery and returns on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk

 

[milkloss]

you can also get an adaptor that will let you connect the laptop disc as a usb disc on another machine - then check for files you might need. Or even connect it to the sata port inside another desktop machine.

StarTech.com USB3S2SAT3CB SATA to USB Cable, USB 3.0 to: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

Shop StarTech.com USB3S2SAT3CB SATA to USB Cable, USB 3.0 to 2.5 Inch SATA III Hard Drive Adapter, External Converter for SSD/HDD Data Transfer. Free delivery and returns on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk

Thank you, might be an answer. SeaTools won’t boot into the gui mode and the command line part seems a bit beyond me. Not sure if it’s entirely the hard drive causing issues, that cable might resolve that question.

 

[deleted user 837354]

If HD is fudged (sounds likely) swap it for a new SSD and your laptop will be transformed. Worth trying to connect another machine to your old HDD and try to fish the data off it. Data recovery company can get data off a hard drive usually- for a fee.

 

[milkloss]

If HD is fudged (sounds likely) swap it for a new SSD and your laptop will be transformed. Worth trying to connect another machine to your old HDD and try to fish the data off it. Data recovery company can get data off a hard drive usually- for a fee.

Ahead of you there. A new ssd turned up this morning along with a caddy for accessing the old one using another computer. Problem is that my windows 7 licence is manufacturer specific and won’t allow a clean install so I’m going to have to buy a new copy of windows.

 

[deleted user 837354]

Ahead of you there. A new ssd turned up this morning along with a caddy for accessing the old one using another computer. Problem is that my windows 7 licence is manufacturer specific and won’t allow a clean install so I’m going to have to buy a new copy of windows.

That is a bit pants but not unexpected knowing MS.

 

[J B]

Ahead of you there. A new ssd turned up this morning along with a caddy for accessing the old one using another computer. Problem is that my windows 7 licence is manufacturer specific and won’t allow a clean install so I’m going to have to buy a new copy of windows.

Assuming that you are going up to W10 (?) then I'm led to believe that W10 pro is a better choice if you can afford it

Pardon our interruption...

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[milkloss]

Assuming that you are going up to W10 (?) then I'm led to believe that W10 pro is a better choice if you can afford it

Pardon our interruption...

www.ebay.co.uk

Cheers for that

 

[Storeman]

Ahead of you there. A new ssd turned up this morning along with a caddy for accessing the old one using another computer. Problem is that my windows 7 licence is manufacturer specific and won’t allow a clean install so I’m going to have to buy a new copy of windows.

Or clone the existing Windows partition to the new drive.

 

[HDAV]

If HD is fudged (sounds likely) swap it for a new SSD and your laptop will be transformed. Worth trying to connect another machine to your old HDD and try to fish the data off it. Data recovery company can get data off a hard drive usually- for a fee.

I used one recently they offer a no fix no fee deal you send them the drive they try and fix it then give you a list of the files that can be found and if you want the files you pay......quote was about £400 for the contents of a 320gb NAS that died I have already tried an external enclosure and no joy......£400 was too much for some missing cds and photos but if it had your accounts from 2015 on there and no back up and your due an audit........it might be.... similarly customer data etc as that’s the market they target not home users

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

I used one recently they offer a no fix no fee deal you send them the drive they try and fix it then give you a list of the files that can be found and if you want the files you pay......quote was about £400 for the contents of a 320gb NAS that died I have already tried an external enclosure and no joy......£400 was too much for some missing cds and photos but if it had your accounts from 2015 on there and no back up and your due an audit........it might be.... similarly customer data etc as that’s the market they target not home users

Was it the drives that failed in the NAS or the enclosure (power supply, controller etc) that died?

I learnt my lesson the hard way a few years ago when all the drives in a NAS failed - they were “only” desktop/laptop grade and should have been NAS grade drives to endure being run 24/7 etc. Changed them over to the correct spec and haven’t had a problem with NAS since.

 

[HDAV]

It was the drive in fairness it had run nearly 8 years 24/7 was in its 3rd psu and the controller board had some serious charring..... the fan was clogged with cat hair and nicotine film and surprised it lasted that long when I took it apart ....

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

charring..... the fan was clogged with cat hair and nicotine film and surprised it lasted that long

Sounds like a harsh environment!

 

[HDAV]

Almost as harsh as where we use our tractors.........


I’ll show SWMBO mother that photo (spot on to be fair....)

Should seen the inside of the desktop I cleaned out at the same time..............Henry will never be the same again

 

[milkloss]

Update: as far as I can tell the old drive was knackered so a new 500gb ssd and win 10 has transformed the old girl. Very quick compared and dead quiet.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Update: as far as I can tell the old drive was knackered so a new 500gb ssd and win 10 has transformed the old girl. Very quick compared and dead quiet.

SSD's are probably the single easiest/best thing to make an old dog turn new tricks (and fast!).