My Hard-drive is About to Fail

[J MASTER]

Farewell cruel world~

Toshiba Satellite L655, windows 7 home premium 64 bit
3gb ram, 2.0ghz processor, intel HD graphics.
I realize most of that has nothing to do with the hd.
What hard-drives are compatible/reliable/affordable?

[Ad Bot]

[WALDO]

Is that a laptop or desktop?

[Kumquat]

Is that a laptop or desktop?

laptop i think.

[J MASTER]

It's a laptop.

[WALDO]

Are you able to take the laptop's hard drive out easily? Some laptops allow that sort of thing. If you can do that, you can tell what kind of hard drive it is, so you can replace it.

[Dexxtter]

Lets hope it doesnt fail before you find one to replace it with.

[Headcrab Zombie]

How exactly are you able to tell it's about to fail

[WALDO]

How exactly are you able to tell it's about to fail

This. How exactly do you know that your hard drive is going to fail soon? Is your laptop over-heating? Are you getting Blue Screen of Deaths? Did you run a BIOs hard drive test and it failed?

[J MASTER]

How exactly are you able to tell it's about to fail

http://datacent.com/failing_hard_drive_sounds
Toshiba laptop drive with bad bearings making loud grinding sound.
Toshiba laptop drive with bad heads making clicking/sweeping sound on boot up.
^^ those were the two sounds I've heard.
The first on and off over the past month, the second just a few minutes ago.

I have no idea what kind of hard drive I have, searching internet.

[WALDO]

Ok so let's say you get a new hard drive for your laptop and it works. Did you check that you have recovery discs so you can re-install the OS and other software your laptop needs so it can work like it should?

[J MASTER]

I have no recovery discs.

But I figured even if I didn't have them, this may be an option http://www.justanswer.com/computer/6cfj4-replaced-hard-drive-toshiba-satellite-l655-laptop.html
"If your system files have installed to a point to recover them try the following"
That however, would mean that I need some discs.

Where are these magical discs.

[WALDO]

I have no recovery discs.

But I figured even if I didn't have them, this may be an option http://www.justanswer.com/computer/6cfj4-replaced-hard-drive-toshiba-satellite-l655-laptop.html

That instruction may not help you, did you even read it all?

Customer Question

I replaced the hard drive in my toshiba satellite l655 laptop. I used my restore disk, but when i got to disk #3 i got an error message saying.....ERROR:F3-F200-0002and to press ok to turn off computer..... what does all that mean and what do i do now?

Expert's Answer

tekbabe :
Hello are you there
 
tekbabe :

If your system files have installed to a point to recover them try the following....let me know the outcome with detail please
Thanks, TEKBABE

 System Recovery from the Hard Disk Drive
 
Do not turn off or restart your system during the process.
 
1. Push in the power button for around 5 to 10 seconds to turn off your system.
 
2. At the same time press and keep holding down the zero key
 
3. push the power button in one time to switch on your system.
 
4. Once the screen appears, release 0 key.
 
If you see a message to select the 32bit or 64bit operating system- just click Next
 
5. A warning screen will appear; click Yes to continue
 
6. Select Recovery of Factory Default Software from the menu and then
 
7. Choose Recover to out-of-box state option from certain options, select Next
 
8. Then Next to start recovery

I pointed out the key words in bolds, he had a recovery disk. You don't have recovery discs right now so if you got a new hard drive and put it in your laptop, you probably couldn't use the help this person stated. What most laptops do nowadays is have the recovery infomation stored on your hard drive as a partition. What you need to do is to see if your laptop has an option to burn the recovery files onto bootables CD-Rs or DVD-Rs. That is if your laptop can burn discs. If your laptop can do that, after you get a new hard drive, you can make your laptop boot up those discs to install the files so you can run your laptop like it should.

[J MASTER]

^ most above already covered.
But about the burning for recovery discs, thank you very much. I'll look into that.

[KoopaScooper]

...or just back up your important files to external media, order a new hard drive, replace it once it's dead and reinstall Windows.
There's entire subsections on most websites for Laptop hard drives so as long as you pick a SATA one, you're fine.

[WALDO]

...or just back up your important files to external media, order a new hard drive, replace it once it's dead and reinstall Windows.
There's entire subsections on most websites for Laptop hard drives so as long as you pick a SATA one, you're fine.

It isn't that simple, you can't magically install OS software on your computer. You either need a recovery disc so you can install your laptop's factory default software or get a genuine windows installation disc, which aren't cheap, to install the OS only. If you do the latter choice though, you won't get your laptop's included software or drivers upon installation. You'll have to download and install your laptop's drivers from the internet and you probably won't be able to get the software that came with your laptop back. That is why recovery discs are so important.