Lenovo T61 hard drive broken

Hi,

My Lenovo T61 (WinXP) crashed and won't boot anymore.
I ran a full hardware diagnostic with the diagnostic program (pcdoctor) and got several "failed" on the hard drive tests.

What to do? (warranty ran out 2 months ago - of course)

Can I just buy a new hard drive (recommendations?) and use the "Rescue&Recovery" DVDs I created a while back to reinstall the system? Will this work since I think the R&R is running from a partition on the hard drive?
Will this bring back the operating system or do I need to pay Lenovo support to send me the Windows CDs?

Thanks!
Norbert

 

Yes, buy a new drive. The discs should work. You can always buy a set if they don't.

 

I would test your laptop with a known good drive. If you have a defective SATA controller on the motherboard it will produce failing result on any hard drive you test. Also try plugging in your drive externally to another computer and see if you can see the data.

If the known good drive passes the diagnostics then you had a bad drive.

 

- buy the 500GB Seatage 7200 rpm drive - because it has the lowest power consumption among all. Or the XT one as it has extra performance benefits but is more expensive.

- use your recovery CDs to bring the system back up and running

- create your own windows XP installation CD (search for "XP clean install" and my name, I have a post on here somewhere about how to do that).

- download all drivers that you'll need based on your hardware from the lenovo site

- delete the lenovo recovery partition if you'd like (search on here how to do that)

- format your HDD and clean install your new XP (look at my post for the correct sequence)

- clone your clean installation after all updates are done (will take some time) to a third HDD so that you wont fall in the same situation again.

..... bare in mind that my XP method is for advanced users. If you're not one of those then just use the recovery CDs and call it a day

P.S. I've never heard of SATA controller failing before

 

Sandy Bridge much?

I've been burned plenty of times because the motherboard/southbridge was defective and not the drive. I ordered an SR hard drive and turns out it was having the same issue..

 

I upgraded my T61 with a WD Scorpio Black 320GB (part no WD3200BEKT).

No problem to do.

Of course I did it with a good drive and cloned old drive to the new one in the Ultradrive bay with a caddy and than installed the new drive in the machine.

You will need to R&R.

But the changing of the HDD is simple.

Perry

 

Thanks for your help!

I found out that the external hard drive I bought recently has the right connector and size. So I took it out of its case and swapped it for the broken one in the laptop.
I was able to reinstall the system from the discs. *jay!
It is a Kingston SSD 128GB and I am pleasantly surprised at the low noise level I now get from my laptop.
128GB is a bit small however and I have read that SDDs can decrease the battery lifetime (though some sites seem to claim the exact opposite). Is this true?

Also, what (free) cloning software do you recommend? I want to double this reinstalled HDD onto the new one I am going to buy and keep this one as a backup like you recommended.

Thanks again,
Norbert

 

Wait what? You had an external hard drive that had a 128 GB SSD inside? A brand new 128 GB SSD is ~230 dollars. Anyways the Kingston SSDs tend to have significantly lower battery life due to an aggressive GC algorithm compared to SF/Intel controller SSD.

 

Yes, I did
Following the great data loss of 2010 when I arrived after a flight to find my portable HDD completely busted and making horrible clicking noises (it was tucked in between my clothes) I decided to invest in a more shock-proof alternative (£150 + £10 or so for the case) ...and put it in my hand luggage (duh!).
I didn't realize at the time that it could double up as a replacement for my laptop HDD. ftw!
However, now looking up the prices for Intel/SF SSD drives, it seems like a bargain...
How does the power consumption compare to a normal hard drive like the Seagate miro_gt mentioned? I don't think its worth it just for the reduced sound, though being shock resistant is surely a plus...

Norbert