Is my HDD Dead or just very ill?

Trapper · 18 Jan 2023

This is my second attempt to post here, the first one just disappeared and the internet failed just as I was about to post! And this tinny laptop is horrible type on.
Deep breath.
Yesterday I switched on my PC as usual, after the BIOS loaded things went very, very slowly. The boot stopped with a black screen and a small flashing light on the left of the screen about a 1/4 way down. I did what I could, checked the BIOS but it seemed by C:\ drive was not listed, thought I has missed it so tried booting with F8 this brought up a list of drives but my C:\ Drive was not selected. I selected the right drive then rebooted. No luck, still hung at the same point. To be honest I sort of lost what I was doing as I did not know what to do. By some accidental doing I managed to boot into windows 10 but it took about 10min. I did not see a Macrium Reflect option to boot from it so did nothing except open MR and found the last full image failed. I set to do a full image. Many hours later the PC must have rebooted itself and I found that it was back at the small light on the left. I inserted my MR Rescue disk and am trying a restore to my H drive as that is the only drive large enough for my C drive. I will attempt to add a screenshot. I do not know where to go from here, assuming the restore fails. Replace the HDD or try to correct the drive letter using a linux OS so I can at least access the drive system. I think I used Lorin or similar to sort another problem. I have a Win 10 System restore disk but if the HDD is dead then that won't help.

Any suggestions or links to TT would be greatly appreciated.. I am not even to upload the screenshot photo. I will try again.

Ghot · 18 Jan 2023

@Trapper

The easiest way to tell is with CrystalDiskInfo.

CrystalDiskInfo - Crystal Dew World [en]

What does it say in the RED box?

Is my HDD Dead or just very ill?-0000-crystal-info.png

Trapper · 18 Jan 2023

Is my HDD Dead or just very ill?-mr-restore1.jpg

I guess the screenshot was too large.

- - - Updated - - -

Ghot said:

@Trapper

The easiest way to tell is with CrystalDiskInfo.

CrystalDiskInfo - Crystal Dew World [en]

Thanks but as I cannot access My PC's HDD's It makes it rather hard to use the program.

Ghot · 18 Jan 2023

Trapper said:

Thanks but as I cannot access My PC's HDD's It makes it rather hard to use the program.

If you can boot to Windows on the questionable drive... you should be able to check it with CrystalDiskInfo.
It only takes a second. And... CrystalDiskInfo is portable.

As for Macrium's bootable rescue media... it will allow you to access your backups (if they're on a different drive), and restore them to anywhere that's large enough. That should work no matter what condition your Windows drive is in.

Trapper · 18 Jan 2023

That would be great, if I can boot into windows. The MR restore program has been going for about 7 hours so far and it now states
Overall Progress 56%
Current Progress 6%

I would be delighted if MR at least gave me access to the HDD's but I fear it will not. I don't suppose you can use CrystalDiskInfo from a CD like you can with MemTest or another program like Partition Disk?

My MR backups are on separate drive so there may be hope after all. I will just to wait until MR finishes what it is doing, which at the moment will probably be sometime tomorrow.

"

Ghot · 18 Jan 2023

Trapper said:

That would be great, if I can boot into windows. The MR restore program has been going for about 7 hours so far and it now states
Overall Progress 56%
Current Progress 6%

I would be delighted if MR at least gave me access to the HDD's but I fear it will not. I don't suppose you can use CrystalDiskInfo from a CD like you can with MemTest or another program like Partition Disk?

I don't think so... but I've never tried it.
Looking at your computer specs... you might just have a dying motherboard.
It's getting as bit, long in the tooth.

As I said above... Macrium bootable rescue media should function with or without an operable C:\ drive.
The fact that even the bootable rescue media is having problems... isn't a good sign. ^^

I hope you're attempting to restore to an "internal" drive.

dalchina · 18 Jan 2023

As you can't boot from it, then to check it you could..

- create a live boot disk with Crystal Diskinfo (on another PC, Google e.g. Hiren's. Bonb Omb's) then boot your PC from that, and so run C. Diskinfo
- remove the disk from your PC and put it in a caddy and check on another PC.

You might boot your PC from a Win 10 install disk, to a command promtp and use:
How to Check Drive Health and SMART Status in Windows 10

Don't try to get Win 10 onto another disk with that one installed. Restoring to a new disk is something best done with just the system disk in place and nothing else on the disk.

To do that your image will need to include all the partitions comprising your O/S of course.

Ghot · 18 Jan 2023

dalchina said:

As you can't boot from it, then to check it you could..

SIW2 · 18 Jan 2023

restore program has been going for about 7 hours so far

seven hours ! Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

Trapper · 18 Jan 2023

Thank you, some options to try and I have another PC (and this hopeless laptop). I will install CDI on a cd and try that once MR has finished it's task.

If it's very unlikely to restore my Win 10 system maybe I should cancel the MR restore and try plans b,c,d?

Update:
? Is it okay to just cancel the MR Restore program. I have installed CDI onto a CD as this is one of the Boot options on my ill PC. I will try CDI on this laptop to see how it goes,,,,,,

Worked fine on this laptop with a 98% Good rating.
Got to go out for an hour or so, hope you very nice Guru's can say if it's okay to cancel the MR Restore.....

Is my HDD Dead or just very ill?

Is my HDD Dead or just very ill?

Is my HDD dead or Just very ill