Is it 100% certain my hard drive is failing?

Windows freezes when it boots. It has gotten worse the past few times. Shorter and shorter times before it freezes. It freezes at the Desktop every time after automatic login.

Ran chkdsk c:/r and receiving the following message repeatedly.

The disk does not have enough space to replace bad clusters detected in file <#> of name <name>.

I Googled the message it and just about every page says my hard drive is failing. It is an SSD. Two years old. HP.

If I try a Windows recovery and restore my computer to original state is there a risk the hard drive will fail faster?

 

Did you try to read SMART data to see how many bytes were written? something like this portable app will do fine:

http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?q=crystal&m=

Typical SSD should have about 50-100TB written, 3-5 yr warranty, so it could be still under warranty. My Win10 laptop writes about 1TB a month, about 3 times as much as my Win7 laptop with average not too heavy use. I have 3 yr old Samsung 850 EVO with about 15 TB written and zero bad clusters so far, so yours may have too many writes or is rather low quality. I would image the drive or at least did full backup while I can. BTW how much empty space you have on that drive?

 

What if it is an HP machine? Will the SSD manufacturer still honor the warranty?

 

Looks like a file error probably critical to Windows. Safe mode may still boot

SMART data for reallocated sectors or read errors usually indicates a dying drive

If free space is not low, the drive controller may be saying its out of reserve space due to lots of bad sectors already accumulated. This can be put off by shrinking the partition in partition manager and leaving unallocated space.

In any case actual file corruption is not a good sign, back up your essential files as soon as you can however you get the drive working. The best way to check it is in another computer where its not being used to boot OS off

 

What is the easiest way to Boot in Safe Mode in Windows 10? I know hitting the function keys does not work any more.

 

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10

 

What a bizarre turn of events.

I ran Safe Mode and Windows or HP (the HP logo was on the screen) performed some repair function which was totally unexpected. My computer is seemingly back to 100%. This issue has literally been going on for 2 months. What a relief.

I went from a possible failing hard drive to a computer functioning at 100%. Windows doesn't get the credit it deserves.

To think this all started when I installed a new wireless keyboard. As fickle as Windows is it does a good job of repairing itself.