HDD GURU FORUMS

I am trying to get suggestions, so my husband can figure out what to do, since I'm getting a hard drive failure notification message on my beloved Lenovo all-in-one PC. Nothing is crucial, but lots of photos, family docs, precious-to-me info, etc. He tried to run back-up last night & it failed. Chkdesk only mentioned a PST issue, which it fixed.

I've googled to identify my specific hard drive, which is stated above. Any other non-techie tools I can run myself, to possibly ID/fix the HDD issue? Husband works lots of hours & I try to do everything I can myself, without causing more harm.

Thanks for any ideas/suggestions!

Karen

Hi Karen

Without getting technical and with the usual advice, seek a pro if the data are really valuable:

If the drive is physically dying, repair is not an option unless you have technical experience.
Do not invest in a software solution at this stage. you could do more harm than good by putting the drive through automated tests with software that is making a best guess.
Take with a huge pinch of salt anything you read about Spinrite or Drive Regenerator etc with regard to revitalising a drive.

That said, you could try and mitigate risk / damage by taking a gently gently approach and try to salvage what you can using windows explorer.

Assuming the drive is working in general maybe try to copy out small sections at a time rather than a full backup.
For instance, if you have say 20 subfolders under My Documents, copy them off to another drive or usb pen drive 1 folder at a time.
If it locks up on a particular folder, note it and avoid. move on to other folders.
Come back later and try to move individual files one at a time.
If it starts locking up whatever you do, then maybe its time to look at data recovery software.

Better to ask first than come back with "I tried all this ..... and now the drive is making funny noises"

good luck

Kern

Hi Karen,
The best non-techie thing to do is get an external Hard diskand copy all your wanted stuff over.

I dont like the sound of checkdisk fixing a .pst file. I would be copying the .pst file asap to a flash drive or external disk just to make sure it is backed up.

If you copy files, instead of actually running a backup software, you have a better chance to get most or all of your wanted files copied. Running a backup generally means that the whole backup needs to work to be successful, and it would take a certain level of experience\IT Know how to get around any issues... which you sound like you dont want to deal with.

Other people may not agree and tell you to clone or image the disk, but I feel even this can get quite "techie" and copying is quite a bit easier.

After you have everything you want to save safely on an external disk, steps would be:

1)get new drive
2)remove old drive and put away in a static-safe bag(the one the new drive came in is perfect)
3) install new drive
4)install Operating system
5)install chipset driver, other motherboard drivers, then other peripheral drivers such as printer
6)update OS by windows update
7)install any software
8.)put back your files from your backup.

Do not do what I have seen alot:
Dont delete off the old disk because you think you have your files
Do not keep using it for replacing on to new drive, use the backed up files
DO keep it safe, as your skill level may change, and you could also think of other files you need that you didnt know of before.

If you follow this, you should not lose anything significant, as it looks like the notification is coming, but system is working.

Feel free to ask anything at all during process, so you dont lose data.

Cheers and good luck

PS, you earn a brownie point for trying to help out your husband