Has my hard drive failed?

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nopep

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Nov 26, 2013
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10,510
Hello, I've been having some major problems with my computer.

A few months back, I got a blue screen of death, and then it just stopped working when I restarted it. It goes to the "windows error recovery" screen. I only get two options: launch startup repair, and start windows normally. The first option leads nowhere as it just goes to a black screen after the "loading files" bar fills up completely, and the second option leads to the "starting windows" screen, but the logo doesn't show up, and it just restarts to the launch startup repair screen.

I'm currently working off a years old netbook, and would really like my actual laptop back. It's a 2012 Asus with i7 processor. I work a pretty low paying job, and cannot afford an expensive computer repair on top of current expenses. So I'm hoping to fix this one myself. Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated, thank you.
 
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nopep

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Nov 26, 2013
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10,510


I don't have one of those. I got it for last year's Black Friday from Best Buy, and literally just got the computer with the OS installed already with no disk.
 
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nopep

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Nov 26, 2013
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Potentially, I don't know though as I ran anti-virus checks almost daily and never detected anything. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's a problem with a driver not being recognized.
 
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InvalidError

InvalidError

Titan
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May 18, 2007
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Most computers these days do not ship with recovery disks. Instead, the first time you boot into the OS, you are asked if you want to burn recovery DVDs.

If you didn't do that then your next best option would be to download the OEM DVD from somewhere and activate it using the install key that should be on a sticker somewhere on your laptop if the OEM install does not read its key directly from somewhere in the laptop's BIOS. If you have neither of those either, you may have to buy a new OEM DVD with key.

With the OS part sorted out, the next thing I would do is buy a new HDD and an external HDD enclosure, put the original laptop drive in the external box, put the new HDD in the laptop, install the OS on it and then plug the original HDD in to start copying your files in order of importance to the new drive.

If the old HDD survives long enough for you to retrieve all your data, you can download its manufacturer's diagnostic tools and see what they have to say about it. If it comes out clean, you now have a spare external HDD to evacuate data to or make backups on.
 
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nopep

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Nov 26, 2013
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10,510

Ah ok, so I need a second drive to figure out exactly what the problem is? I don't really have any important data on the failed drive, I could pretty much just scrap it entirely if need be. I just was hoping to find some sort of workaround through a command prompt or something, but none of the f8 options upon the attempted boot seem to lead me anywhere.

Should I just buy a new drive, get a new install disk, and just start over? I'm trying to go by whatever method seems cheapest, and I know for a fact I have friends with the disk I could use. I just don't know how much new drives cost.
 
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nopep

Honorable
Nov 26, 2013
5
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10,510


Ok that makes sense. When I try to run safe mode, it'll go through drivers but then stop after about 30 have been recognized. So I think there's a bad driver somewhere that the computer won't pick up. Yeah, I guess at this point it just is the difference in cost of either fixing this current drive or purchasing a new one, as I have no important data on my old drive.
 
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InvalidError

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
May 18, 2007
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5,265
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If you have no important data on it and can get your hands on an install DVD that works with your product key, you could try wiping the drive with a full-format during the re-install.

If the drive itself is really starting to go bad, you should see very irregular progress if not freezes and crashes. If the drive smoothly goes through the whole format (a full-format will take about 1h per 100GB) then the drive itself is likely fine and your previous OS install got corrupted by something else. In that case, you might want to try memtest86 just to rule out the possibility that your laptop might have a bad RAM bit somewhere that could slowly mess your OS and files up over time - that happened to me once, wasted about two weeks repairing the damage.
 
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