Is my hard drive 💀 dead

Phill D

Phill D

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I am in need of a technical opinion please.
My trusty Dell laptop (11 years old but had a new SSD around 3 years ago)
Started playing up yesterday with screen haze occasionally.
In the past 30 minutes it appears to have chucked in the towel🙄

This appeared on the screen, and despite several attempts to re boot it now don’t want to play.

Anyone confirm what’s up or do I have to rob my piggy bank. 🤭
369A2BDA-6859-45E9-BEA8-A1FC36A099DA.jpeg
8894AC12-6F19-45BE-8025-1C00A9844A59.jpeg
593996D4-22AD-40AB-8ED9-C63ACA6EF0F5.jpeg
 
Remove the HDD and connect it to a working computer then transfer your files. What you're seeing is more like a memory or CPU failure than HDD. Or graphics card if it's separate from the CPU.
 
pappajohn said:
Any way you can connect it to a monitor or TV screen?
Could be the graphics card on its last legs
Click to expand...
I thought that and it’s not replaceable.
I did get a message that said

@windows failed to load, reboot “
 
tonyidle said:
Remove the HDD and connect it to a working computer then transfer your files. What you're seeing is more like a memory or CPU failure than HDD. Or graphics card if it's separate from the CPU.
Click to expand...
I upgraded the memory at the same time as a new ssd and I may still have the old sticks so may be worth a shot to get an idea.
Thsnks

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Just try turning all off, disconnect cables,, leave to cool, then reconnect and restart. Has worked for me in the past, costs nothing anyway.
 
Dorwyn said:
Just try turning all off, disconnect cables,, leave to cool, then reconnect and restart. Has worked for me in the past, costs nothing anyway.
Click to expand...
Just done that and also connected to an external vdu

Nope

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Just connected to an external vdu and got this ..,
From the little I am able to read it seems like a window’s failure
But I really don’t know

CBF6352B-594A-4F91-95F6-9F7950AF6ACE.jpeg
 
My Samsung started playing up earlier this year, turning off and going into recovery after rebooting, took several attempts to get it running again. I took it to a firm in the village and carried on with a refurbished Lenovo I'd bought for travelling. After they'd replaced the hard drive with a SSD and put everything back on it worked for a few days but went back to crash mode. They had it in again and decided it didn't know whether to run from battery or mains and was too expensive to repair. It then booted with the battery out and continued ok after putting it back in - for a few days. In the end I gave up and after reserching options to update the Lenovo discovered SSD and memory are pretty universal/compatible so it was a straight swap to take the new SSD and bigger memory from the Samsung and fit it in the Lenovo. I also bought this to transfer stuff from the Lenovo's drive to the now replaced SSD.

Amazon product ASIN B07PTPDH8N
1673208336688.png
 
Bailey58 said:
My Samsung started playing up earlier this year, turning off and going into recovery after rebooting, took several attempts to get it running again. I took it to a firm in the village and carried on with a refurbished Lenovo I'd bought for travelling. After they'd replaced the hard drive with a SSD and put everything back on it worked for a few days but went back to crash mode. They had it in again and decided it didn't know whether to run from battery or mains and was too expensive to repair. It then booted with the battery out and continued ok after putting it back in - for a few days. In the end I gave up and after reserching options to update the Lenovo discovered SSD and memory are pretty universal/compatible so it was a straight swap to take the new SSD and bigger memory from the Samsung and fit it in the Lenovo. I also bought this to transfer stuff from the Lenovo's drive to the now replaced SSD.

Amazon product ASIN B07PTPDH8NView attachment 704408
Click to expand...
That’s an interesting comment about the battery!
It started as I was running low on battery and I then plugged in the mains charger.
It’s not been right since.
I will remove the battery and try again.
But I suspect even it recovers it will be on borrowed time.
 
Bailey58 said:
My Samsung started playing up earlier this year, turning off and going into recovery after rebooting, took several attempts to get it running again. I took it to a firm in the village and carried on with a refurbished Lenovo I'd bought for travelling. After they'd replaced the hard drive with a SSD and put everything back on it worked for a few days but went back to crash mode. They had it in again and decided it didn't know whether to run from battery or mains and was too expensive to repair. It then booted with the battery out and continued ok after putting it back in - for a few days. In the end I gave up and after reserching options to update the Lenovo discovered SSD and memory are pretty universal/compatible so it was a straight swap to take the new SSD and bigger memory from the Samsung and fit it in the Lenovo. I also bought this to transfer stuff from the Lenovo's drive to the now replaced SSD.

Amazon product ASIN B07PTPDH8NView attachment 704408
Click to expand...
Tried with and without the battery no go,
Still a message “ windows did not load”

It also seems I have limited time to do anything before I get a blank screen
 
Before trying to do too much you need to see if you can recover data from the SSD if you have no backups.

Do you have access to any other computer, be that another laptop or desktop? If so you can take out the SSD from the failing lappy and either mount temporarily as an extra drive in the other computer. There are adaptors / housings that would let you connect the SSD via USB to that second computer. At that point you should be able to read the SSD if it is still working, and copy anything from it.

My suspicion, as hinted by others is the laptop CPU/GPU, motherboard is failing. May be as simple as a loose joint somewhere, but difficult to diagnose. SSD problems will usually have errors along lines that the disk can't be found.

You may be able to boot into the BIOS at startup, but be careful if you haven't tried recovering your data as above. On Dell lappy try pressing the F2 or F12 key repeatedly during boot. If the Screen goes weird whilst trying to get to BIOS then it really does point at the CPU/GPU motherboard issues as it won't have got as far as trying to read in detail the SSD.
 
Kannon Fodda said:
Before trying to do too much you need to see if you can recover data from the SSD if you have no backups.

Do you have access to any other computer, be that another laptop or desktop? If so you can take out the SSD from the failing lappy and either mount temporarily as an extra drive in the other computer. There are adaptors / housings that would let you connect the SSD via USB to that second computer. At that point you should be able to read the SSD if it is still working, and copy anything from it.

My suspicion, as hinted by others is the laptop CPU/GPU, motherboard is failing. May be as simple as a loose joint somewhere, but difficult to diagnose. SSD problems will usually have errors along lines that the disk can't be found.

You may be able to boot into the BIOS at startup, but be careful if you haven't tried recovering your data as above. On Dell lappy try pressing the F2 or F12 key repeatedly during boot. If the Screen goes weird whilst trying to get to BIOS then it really does point at the CPU/GPU motherboard issues as it won't have got as far as trying to read in detail the SSD.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the sound advice I think this laptop has seen its day and it’s been a good servant.
I think a replacement is in order and in the meantime remove the ssd and aquifer the appropriate leads to try to recover the files.

I did transfer all the files once before when I changed from a normal HD to the SSD.

Thanks again 👍
 
I hope I don’t add confusion but from the screen shot of the Windows error message it looks like a couple of things are going on.
Windows won’t boot normally but it’s “well enough” to tell you that. That means a fix could be simple if you’ve windows recovery media, etc. yy
Boot you’ve a graphic display issue that looks hardware related. (n)
The ”optimising image, please wait” middle message is from your monitor.

If you’re backups of data and are looking to get a new laptop, one of the SSD/HDD sata to usb cables could be used with the old laptop’s SSD to speed up copying across data to a new PC.

That new laptop idea maybe easier than troubleshooting the combined OS & HW issues on the old one

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I think I have an old dell your welcome tot the screen if it fits but will have to check I got rid of a load of old laptops recently
 
One thing i'd try is removing the covers and hoovering the motherboard. They do get filthy over time and an arc can occur.
 
Have you tried starting windows in safe mode just in case you’ve got a corrupted video driver?
Also, Dell normally have a boot into test mode option which lets you run hardware checks. That would have been on the original hard drive but you may not have copied it over when you built the SSD?
 
Phill D said:
I am in need of a technical opinion please.
My trusty Dell laptop (11 years old but had a new SSD around 3 years ago)
Click to expand...
The life of a laptop is 18-24 months.
You can easily get 3 years out of them if you look after them.
But at 5 years you really should be replacing them, as anything beyond that is borrowed time.

When you replaced the SSD 3 years ago, it was already 8 years old, an obsolete geriatric in computer terms, you really should have replaced the entire laptop.

I'd suggest a local hardware IT company may be able to salvage the hard drive and get off some of the data, to transfer to a new laptop.
 
Brains said:
The life of a laptop is 18-24 months.
You can easily get 3 years out of them if you look after them.
But at 5 years you really should be replacing them, as anything beyond that is borrowed time.

When you replaced the SSD 3 years ago, it was already 8 years old, an obsolete geriatric in computer terms, you really should have replaced the entire laptop.

I'd suggest a local hardware IT company may be able to salvage the hard drive and get off some of the data, to transfer to a new laptop.
Click to expand...
I have got 8 years out of my last one. The current one purchased in 2015 is still going strong.

The lifespan of modern laptops does not have a limit on it. You may have to replace an SSD if you are a heavy user and wear levelling has reached the limits. But there is nothing saying 18-24 months is normal for a consumer usage..

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Provided you don't abuse it modern lappy will last many years. Battery may stop holding a decent charge but rest of machine should be fine. Only a real heavy user likely to reach limits on a SSD.

What usually dictates laptop, and other electronics is more obsolescence that a newer device would run so much faster, or the old device can't run the latest software. Windows 11 is an example that many devices won't be upgradable from Win 10 which won't have support after 2025.
 
work laptops on average 2 years before they died personal one I keep until they will not go in any longer will have to have a look at what this is running on thanks Kannon Fodda looks like a new one may be required. But if I can fully finish work I may be able to get way with a tablet next time
 
Thank you all for the feedback I will now be on the hunt for a sensibly priced laptop that I use for browsing, documents, photos and a bit of work with my watercolour painting.
I have a tablet which I like particularly when travelling,but there is something about a laptop that I find suits.
 
Gromett said:
I have got 8 years out of my last one. The current one purchased in 2015 is still going strong.

The lifespan of modern laptops does not have a limit on it. You may have to replace an SSD if you are a heavy user and wear levelling has reached the limits. But there is nothing saying 18-24 months is normal for a consumer usage..
Click to expand...
We've got two one 8 years old the other about 10 both at the moment work well. All we do is a bit of browsing although most of that's on the phone these days and a bit of word processing/ looking up music.
 
We now use a Samsung galaxy S8+ in our van it has a 14.6 screen I think there is a watercolour app that shows as updating although I haven't used it.

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