1 Y.O. Laptop - suspected hard drive failure - help needed

ArthurDent · 06 Feb 2020

Hi folks,

Hope someone can help with this.

My wife's 1 year-old Lenovo Legion Y530 laptop wouldn't boot today but came up with the error message: "Default Boot Device Missing or Boot Failure. Insert Recovery Media and hit any key. Then select 'Boot Manager' and choose a new boot device or to boot recovery media"

So, I'm guessing that the hard drive (a Seagate Barracuda Pro ST1000M049) has failed.

Are there any tools that I can load onto a bootable USB stick, pop this in the laptop and boot from in order to check that it is, in fact, the hard disk that has failed?

If it is simply a software issue (like Win 7's NTLDR missing) and is easy to fix, I'd appreciate full (i.e. assume basic knowledge) instructions on how to fix it.

BTW, the laptop doesn't have an optical drive bay, so a bootable CD/DVD isn't an option.

I just want to see if we can get any documents, etc off the hard drive before it goes in for repair (thank goodness for JL's 2-year guarantee).

My wife regularly backs up photos to an external drive but I'm thinking that there may be some banking/financial stuff on there.

Cheers,

Art

Sorry - can't give you any Win 10 version info as it isn't/wasn't my machine.

GoldenDog · 06 Feb 2020

Okay I would download Linux Neptune and flash it to a USB using Etcher (or Rufus if you have it works as well) Then pop it into your computer boot from it. It will come up with a boot menu, choose the top one (live CD) wait a while, it should boot into a GUI (graphical user interface) from there select the partion tool and you will be able to see if the drive is working if it is then you can then go into the file manager (I believe it is called dolphin) and copy all the files to a USB before doing a fresh re-install (if your HDD is dead I would buy a new one before proceeding) Reinstall windows and away you go!

Samuria · 06 Feb 2020

Go to disk makers website they will have a free test for their own drives with a bootable version this will give a report which if its un warrenty you will need many have 5 year warrenty

SIW2 · 06 Feb 2020

You could borrow my winpe
183x64.iso

extract 183x64.iso to usb stick using usb7ice
Usb7ice.zip

Boot it up on the sick machine

zbook · 06 Feb 2020

Boot failure problems are relatively common before drive failure.

There were options already posted.
In case they are needed these are additional options:

You likely can boot from special flash drives that may be able to:
a) test the drive
b) backup folders / files
c) troubleshoot the boot failure

ArtDent · 07 Feb 2020

Firstly, many thanks for the replies folks - much appreciated.

GoldenDog said:

Okay I would download Linux Neptune and flash it to a USB using Etcher (or Rufus if you have it works as well) Then pop it into your computer boot from it. It will come up with a boot menu, choose the top one (live CD) wait a while, it should boot into a GUI (graphical user interface) from there select the partion tool and you will be able to see if the drive is working if it is then you can then go into the file manager (I believe it is called dolphin) and copy all the files to a USB before doing a fresh re-install (if your HDD is dead I would buy a new one before proceeding) Reinstall windows and away you go!

I have three different distros of Linux Mint 19.3 "Tricia" (quite liking the MATE desktop) and so propose doing what you said but using MATE and either Rufus or Etcher (thanks for the link to that). That would work wouldn't it - I don't need Linux Neptune?

Being new to Linux (only d/loaded it and installed on a test HDD last week), do you know if Linux Mint has a similar command to either scandisk or chkdsk? If it does, I guess you run it from Terminal? (sorry for the Linux-focused questions on a Windows 10 forum!)
@Samuria

The drive is a Seagate Barracuda Pro so I guess I can put Seatools onto a USB in the same way and check the drive out that way?

Thanks once again,

Art

ArthurDent · 07 Feb 2020

D/loaded Seatools from the Seagate website and made a bootable USB stick with Seatools on.

Booted PC with the USB stick in and it installed Linux Tiny Core in RAM.

Couldn't see a drive to test however so I'm guessing that this proves a fatal hard disk failure?

Any further help/thoughts most welcome.

Regards

Art

zbook · 07 Feb 2020

Please perform the following steps:

1) Find 3 flash drives that you can format (> or = 8 GB)

2) Make tools that can be used to recover important files, test the drives, and troubleshoot

3) On a working computer create:

a) a new bootable windows 10 iso 1909:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10
Download Windows 10 ISO File
Download Windows 10 ISO File
Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10
Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10

b) bootable Ubuntu flash drive:
Create a bootable USB stick on Windows | Ubuntu tutorials
Create a bootable USB stick on Windows | Ubuntu

c) Kyhi boot rescue flash drive:
Toolkit Item: Kyhi’s Rescue Disk – Win10.Guru
Toolkit Item: 8GadgetPack – Win10.Guru

Try3 · 07 Feb 2020

Art,

I experienced "Couldn't see a drive to test" when I used SeaTools after an HDD failure {also a Seagate}. I also tried several other tools but none of them could see the disk. The consistency in the reponse of all tools persuaded me to give up and replace the disk.
- I subsequently connected the disk through a USB enclosure and managed to recover a small proportion of my files before it finally stopped co-operating at all.
- I remain convinced that it was a write fault and not a physical media fault but no other utilities were able to see it after its final collapse.
- I reformatted it to use as an extra transport / file exchange tool and it has been working fine for the last two years in that role. But I could never trust it again.

You will have the additional embuggerance of reinstalling Windows & your applications on a replacement disk - Clean Install Windows 10 - TenForumsTutorials

Denis

Try3 · 07 Feb 2020

Art,

I thought it also worth mentioning that I lost some files because my backup plan had a big hole in it.
- Apart from a few key files for which I had special backup procedures in place, most of my files were only backed up when I deliberately got out one of the external drives I keep backups on. I had backed up the day before the failure but had been busy later on so I knew that new/edited files had been lost.
- I have plugged the hole so now I'd only lose, at the very most, some files that have changed in the last hour.
- - I realised that I had an SD card reader sitting there with a small card in it & doing little more than protecting my few key files [finances, Outlook, some IS logs].
- - I replaced the small SD card with a 128GB one that is big enough to hold all my documents and video/audio files that have not yet been backed up to my external drive.
- - I get Task scheduler to run a batch file every hour on the hour to RoboCopy all my Docuemnts folder contents to the big SD card.

Just food for thought, nothing more,
best of luck,
Denis

1 Y.O. Laptop - suspected hard drive failure - help needed

1 Y.O. Laptop - suspected hard drive failure - help needed

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