Sony Vaio HD Problem

Hi,

I have a sony vaio vgn-n11s. I have owned this for about 3-4 years. Windows XP is my operating system. I have been having some problems my sony over the past few months. What has been happening is every few months when I start my computer up it freezes at the desktop and none of my desktop logos show up.

What I have to resort to doing is pressing F10 on startup and putting my computer back to it's original settings when I purchased it. Today I ran hardware diognestic test before the restore. The CPU test and the memory test came back ok but the last one, the HDD test said the surface scan failed. It said "Surface Scan Test Did Not Pass (E-HDD-004) Errors were detected on this PC.

Does anyone know how I can correct this and is this linked to me having to run a system recovery every few months?

 

My first question would be.... why do you need to run the Recovery Discs every couple months?
Is it due to Malware or Viruses or the problem you have described....??
If it is due to the problem you have described; did you drop your laptop before this problem started occurring?
It does sound as though there is an issue with the HDD.....

 

Im guessing the reason I am having to run the system recovery every couple of months is because of scan recovery test failure. I don't recall dropping my laptop at any time but I have had for maybe about 3-4 years so it may be general wear and tear. Do you know how I can resolve this problem??

 

The obvious solution would be to replace the HDD, but forum members more knowledgeable than me might have other suggestions...

 

Could be bad blocks. When you start it up and it freezes at the desktop, does it keep doing that if you reboot your vaio a few times?

Try scanning the hard drive again after you recovered, see if it still detects problems. Use windows's Check Disk utility (Double-click My Computer, right-click your HDD > Properties > Tools tab > Error-checking > Check Now), tick both check boxes, Start, and it will do a one-time scan on your HDD at start up.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I have tried to do the windows disk utility when it gets to the fifth test it gets stuck at 38%. How long does it usually take?

Is my Vaio ready for the bin??

 

Definately sounds like a bad HDD. Possibly beyond the point where it can mark off bad blocks/sectors on itself so that the OS never tries to access/write to said bad blocks/sectors.

It's not worth throwing away over a simple fix. Order a new HDD from Newegg for cheapcheap.

 

Hi guys,

Finished checking my drive C and this is the message I got.

Failure predicted on hard disk 2

Immediately back up your data and replace your HDD. A failure may be imminent.

Press F1 to continue.

It looks as if I definetly need to a new hard drive. I am going to take it to my local computer shop with a log of the errors. How much does a decent hard disk cost for a VGN N11S?