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Old 10-10-2005, 04:57 PM   #1
user1442
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Registered: Oct 2005
Distribution: Slackware 10.2
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Is my harddrive fried?


Hey all. great forum. I am noob who has recently converted from debian to slackware. i have a toshiba satellite that is three years old. this thing has been a beast for me, but i think it's slowly dying. About a month ago, I started gettinh a smart error at boot time that said that "hardrive failure was imminent" I ignored it because I was messing around with different distros and I had already backed up all my important files.

Of late, I've noticed that the hd felt hot and was noisy. When it got hot it would freeze up. If it started getting hot, I would shut it down, let it cool off, and then it would work fine again. I thought maybe my slack 10.2 install was goofy, so I reinstalled slackware again. Things kept freezing up. I forced a shut down and got an error message that my root partition had errors and I was instructed to run f2sck. This didn't work, so I reinstalled slackware hoping that *I* had made some mistake instead of hardware failure. After the fresh install, I got the same errors.

Luckily, I purchased an extended warranty so parts and labor will be free, but I don't want to go two or three weeks without my comp (and slackware). Before I take my trusty laptop into bestbuy, I just want to verify that this is indeed a hardware problem and not user error.
 
Old 10-10-2005, 05:07 PM   #2
anomie
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Quote:
About a month ago, I started gettinh a smart error at boot time that said that "hardrive failure was imminent"
That's clue #1.

Quote:
Of late, I've noticed that the hd felt hot and was noisy.
That's clue #2.

A few weeks before my laptop hard drive croaked, it began making sounds like it was spinning down - then everything would freeze. Noise (especially clicking) coming from your hard drive is not a good sign.
 
Old 10-10-2005, 05:13 PM   #3
user1442
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Registered: Oct 2005
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thanks, dog.

i guess i'll take it into the shop. being comp-less is going to suck.
 
Old 10-10-2005, 07:32 PM   #4
Shade
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Registered: Mar 2003
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User1442...

Changing a hard drive is a trivial task. Why don't you give it a shot yourself before waiting for turn-around times at [ack] Best Buy?


--Shade
 
Old 10-10-2005, 07:37 PM   #5
liquidtenmilion
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Registered: May 2004
Location: South Carolina
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Purchase a hard drive over the internet, and then use a liveCD distro such as knoppix while you wait for it.

Then simply literally replace the hard drive directly with the new one(put the new one in the exact same connections the old one was in) and reinstall the OS.

Certainly no need to pay a person at a shop to do a 5 minute hard drive switch.
 
Old 10-10-2005, 08:11 PM   #6
user1442
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Registered: Oct 2005
Distribution: Slackware 10.2
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shade and liquid:

thanks for your comments. that's probably what i should've done. at this point, i am reluctant to take a laptop apart. i'll do some homework though to see how difficult it really is. btw, i already took it BB.
 
Old 10-10-2005, 08:47 PM   #7
anomie
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Well, he said earlier it was under warranty. A new laptop hard drive may be approximately $100 US.

Personally, I have more patience than money.
 
  


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