S.M.A.R.T HDD Error-would appreciate some help

[Toolman55]

Hello,

A co-worker asked that I look at her laptop. She was getting an error eveytime she started her laptop.

She has an HP G56 with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. 3 gb of ram, 250 gb Western Digital hard drive and Celeron processor. It is maybe 1.5 yrs old (it was a Black Friday purchase in November 2010).

On every start I get a black screen with a SMART HDD error warning of "imminent hard drive failure".

Choosing to continue to start normally, from the push of the power button to a desktop with icons takes literally 5 minutes (I timed it). All functions after starting take an incredibly long time to execute.

To be sure, I downloaded WD's data lifeguard utility. On opening I see an immediate SMART "FAIL" next to the drive. When I try to run the 2 minute Quick Test within the first 20 seconds it fails ("Corrupted sectors"). I ran the Extended Test because it offered the chance to possibly repair said sectors. It ran for 3.5 hours, and "FAILED". The attempt at repairing the sectors also failed.

The answer seems pretty straight forward: replace the hard drive. But here I have questions. The OEM hdd has a C;\ drive, a Recovery D:\drive and a Q drive--labeled "MS Office 2010 xxxxx 0 of o bytes--Protected".

If I clone the C: and D: drives, will I be cloning corrupted software? She has no software discs. Can I possibly clone both, then run the recovery manager and return it to "like new" condition? I was trying to avoid buying a new OS and/or other software. And what's with that zero bytes protected Q drive? I haven't seen that before.

Am I on the right track? Or do I have my head in the clouds? Any suggestions you have would be appreciated.

Thanks very much,
Don

[Midknyte]

If I clone the C: and D: drives, will I be cloning corrupted software? She has no software discs. Can I possibly clone both, then run the recovery manager and return it to "like new" condition? I was trying to avoid buying a new OS and/or other software. And what's with that zero bytes protected Q drive? I haven't seen that before.

1) Probably. 2) I doubt the recovery partition is intact. The OS partition already sounds corrupted. 3) She would have had to make the recovery discs when she first got the computer. Otherwise, you can order them from HP. 4) The Q drive sounds like the Quickplay partition, but I'm not sure why it says MS Office.

You can contact HP and order a recovery set. They should be way cheaper than buying a new retail Win7. Then replace the drive and use the recovery to restore the OS and apps.

[Toolman55]

Midknyte,

Thanks very much for your help. I'm gratefull for your suggestion on getting a recovery disk from HP!! I ordered it this morning, I'll have it working soon.

Thanks again for your help.

Don

[Midknyte]

That's par for the course now. Customers need to create their own recovery discs for most OEMs now. There is a message like "create recovery media now" when the computer is first started, but a lot of people ignore it.