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My laptop might be dying

RosieLKH

Well-Known Member
Messages
735
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I'm getting a message on start up saying imminent hard drive failure, and today it has crashed and closed down several times, so I'm kind of believing the SMART message. I have rung two repair people, but am waiting for them to get back to me.

As well as logging my food diary online, and logging my progress on here, I also work from home. I don't strictly need the internet to work. Pen and paper would suffice for a while, but still... how will I survive without the internet?

Anyway, if I don't log in for a bit it's not 'cos I've fallen off the wagon.
 
The laptop screen died yesterday morning, I could see the mouse cursor but nothing else, I checked on my lads laptop and someone said to remove the battery pack and hold down the ON button for 30 - 60 seconds, I did this and it was fine afterwards.

Not saying this might help in your case but it's worth a try, not clued-up on tech things but do shop around for the best price on the repair.
 
What a dilemma, if you are like me you will get withdrawal symptoms.

Have you tried the usual remedies? Run a full scan on your anti-virus programme, clear all your cookies and cache and temporary internet files, empty any rubbish you have? Worth a try if not. Good luck.
 
Get a quote before you get any repair done on a laptop. Sometimes it's not worth it and better to bite the bullet and get a new one. There are always good deals out there. Hopefully you can back up any data files you want to keep ?

Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 
Only one thing to say here:

BACK-UP NOW.
 
Yup, follow the advice your computer is giving you and back up your stuff right away. External hard drives are very affordable now, so I recommend getting one of those even if it's just for peace of mind. Depending on your knowledge, you could probably just buy a new hard drive for your laptop - they're surprisingly easy to replace and the only thing you'll really need is a disc you can put in that has Windows on it
 
Yes, everything is backed up, especially my writing and our photos. It would be pretty horrible to lose those. I have a spare hard drive I've been meaning to use as an external back up. I must get on to that.
 


Just to add there's some excellent videos on Youtube about laptop repairs.
 
If it's an old lappy that you're about to chuck out stop!
Get someone who knows how to download an iso file.
Get them to download Linux Peppermint 5 operating system.
Reset lappy to boot from USB stick or dvd on which your hero will have put the iso.
Get rid ow Microsoft and cover it over with Peppermint.
Your lappy should run faster than it ever did before.
No need for antivirus anti malware defraging and all that other nonesense.
Very very slight learning curve like the knobs are in slightly different places.
 
The SMART is an inbuilt diagnostics program which tests the hard disk and gives warnings about impending doom. Do not take these warnings lightly. You definitely need to back up all your documents, photos etc as soon as possible.

Then as has been said the procedure will be too buy a 2.5 inch internal hard disk , a usb to sata connector, and download some cloning software. You connect the new hard disk to your apply, clone your existing hard disk and then swap the hard disks. You'll be back to where you were.

Of course this is easy for me to say,but then I have thirty five years of mucking around with them.

I'm sure if you ask around you'll find someone who can help, but if you go to the repair at least you have an idea of what they will do.

Cost for hard disk <£75 max (for a 1TB one and £10 for cable, Software free, Time to do: a couple of hours to clone and five minutes to swap the disks.
 
SMART has never been quite as smart as people think.
I've seen the impending doom warnings on desktops and laptops over the years ... damaged sectors over heating etc etc.
Nine times out of ten the system carries on ... and on.
Bad sectors and malicious **** can spark SMART off into a frenzy.
Back up/save whatever and try installing a faster smaller operating system from scratch before lashing out your hard earned.
Reformat the hard drive with G-Parted then install a Linux system to revitalise the old thing.
I say Linux because it's fast and has a smaller footprint than Windows and is much less resource hungry and it's free.
An old machine of any description can be made to run faster than it ever did under Windows by installing Linux.
If you'r a serious gamer forget it cos there aint that many games running on Linux but for everything elsee no problems.
Post some specs ... HD size memory processor graphics etc.
Hardly worth forking out a hundred quid and more to keep an old machine going.
For a hundred quid you can buy a very good second hand bit of kit.
 
Thanks Jack. It's still going. It is showing bad sectors and running hot, but I have everything backed up on a spare hard drive. I'll have a research into how to install a Linux system. I'm not completely IT illiterate, but that will be a big learning curve for me!
 
If it's an old machine try peppermint five 32-bit version or the latest Linux puppy.
If you can download the iso file and then burn that to disc you can boot from the disc not your hard drive to try it out first.
Even working from a disc you'l see how fast it is and how simple ... the learning curve now is very very small.
Looks pretty much like Windows runs pretty much like Windows but you don't do defrag or have anti virus anti malware scanners running etc.
The beauty of creating a live disc for yourself is you can carry on online without even having a hard drive in the machine. You can copy and paste watch Utubes send and receive emails etc but won't be able to save anything until you install it.
Don't hesitate to ask.
 
SMART may be a little suspect, but I wouldn't take the risk with my data - as you suggested make the back up (and you did).

Since the OP mentioned several shut downs I would be taking the warnings a little more seriously. SMART isn't totally useless.

However, I agree totally with the rest of the post, but make sure you don't have any software that only runs on windows. A major problem for working with Linux can be printers for instance. For instance if you have spreadsheets that use specialised macros and VBA might these might not run under Libre Office

If you can clone the disk to a new one then you still have a valid copy of windows and your existing system that you essentially paid for already.

As JACKTHELAD said, let us know...
 
You know your stuff Mister Moore!
 
The beauty of the live disk is you can run it from your cd tray by booting from the cd/dvd.
You can t ry everything out including printing to make sure your the operating system is compatible with your needs and your hardware.
It's handy having a live cd around just in case your hard drive ever does pack up ... you can still do everything till you get a new hard drive or whatever.
You can't save stuff though but but but you can even do that if you use a usb stick/pen drive as a hard drive.
 
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