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Lizzie
@comcast.net

Lizzie to norwegian

Anon

to norwegian

Re: [Laptop] How do I replace my hard drive: operating system/s

Thank you!
I understand I need a "repair install" as the old one has something wrong on it.

But still not sure exactly how to do this: "completing a repair install and updating the O/S all over again".

Could you explain in detail what this involves? thanks again
Lizzie

Lizzie

Anon

Regarding eRecovery Management:

"Acer eRecovery Management does away with the need for recovery discs provided by the manufacturer. Acer eRecovery Management occupies space in a hidden partition on your system's hard disk and allows you to perform restore operations and to create a factory default backup on external storage media (optical discs or USB drives).

Acer eRecovery Management requires a specific hard disk partitioning structure to function. If the system detects that the hard disk does not use this structure, Acer eRecovery Management will be disabled. "

The eRecovery partition is on a 100mb partition.

Will this factor make it usable for the purpose of creating the
clone? It would only clone the operating system, nothing else, but that's ok with me.

Also what is "formatting"? Does the new drive need formatting first?

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian to Lizzie

Premium Member

to Lizzie
A repair install is where (instead of doing a fresh O/S install as if you were starting from brand new) you do a repair of the O/S you have.
This method leaves all your data alone and re-installs all of the operating system in the environment.
You then have to go to Windows updates and download all updates that are available after the initial install media you have used.

This covers anything that may have been corrupted from the smart errors reported (hardware related that may have lost part of your data from bad sectors etc).
However you will have to make some choices on what third party software may need to be re-installed, or installed over the top, to cover any corruption similar to the operating system. Checking as you go to see if any thing is broken or look for errors that maybe logged in the event viewer might help highlight if there are errors that need fixing for specific software/applications etc.

As a second option, if the original personal data is still available due to the HDD still working, you can just copy off your data, pictures, music files etc, and install a fresh operating system, using an install disk. Then just copy across your personal data. However this method will require installing all third party software again, licenses etc.
This option will create a system with no recovery partition - something you have at present; the HDD has a recovery partition, a system partition and possibly a third partition depending on how the laptop is setup. Loosing the extra partitions this way will in no way affect your day to day running of the laptop.

As a third option, on the hard drive you have, you could list smart data in a post here with a tool like HD Tune Pro trial to check if in fact there was any bad sectors etc by someone with the knowledge to let you know if the data has been tarnished or not by bad sectors. You may get lucky, you may not on data corruption.

The tool mentioned by aguen See Profile that is an option for you can image the data off the old drive or you can use the image back up options mentioned in my links to copy across your data, and there are other tools out there as well, but lets not complicate things.

The last link on how to do a repair install will show you how to download an .iso for the install disk if you do not have one. How to process this with the version of Windows can be explained in more detail in the Microsoft forum. Someone can run you through the repair process from start to finish off the link I've provided.

Hope this explains little more on what options you have here to get the laptop working again with a new HDD.

However, note, if the HDD in question does not load the O/S any more, personal data recovery is not an easy task, and you may need to look at this in 2 ways.
1. You can access the data by using it as a slave HDD and copying across data to the new primary HDD.
2. A recovery tool, and quite likely via a specialized recovery company and costs will be incurred for them recovering your personal data - hence why back ups are always best practice for this reason.

Lizzie
@comcast.net

Lizzie to Lizzie

Anon

to Lizzie
I found this:

Acer provides a backup and restore utility called as Acer eRecovery Management with its computers. The program allows you to create an entire image of your hard drive. Unfortunately, you're given only the option to save the backup to a set of CDs or DVDs, or the Acer recovery partition on the internal hard drive. If you want to save your eRecovery backup to a flash drive, you must manually copy the file.

So if I copy the hard drive to a flash drive, can I then use the flash drive once I install the new hard drive to copy the operating system onto it?

step 1: install new hard drive
step 2: insert flash drive with copy of old hard drive on it
step3: ??? turn on computer, then what happens?

would this work?
Lizzie

Lizzie to norwegian

Anon

to norwegian
I am running HD Tune Pro.

In the "benchmark" test it said it's ok. No it's checking it for errors.
Which test do you want to see on there? I don't see an option for smart test.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member

The smart data table itself after the test can be posted here.

Just copy/paste in it a reply between [ code ] & [ /code ] and it will keep the format of the table.
Take the gaps out of the brackets to have the code work.
norwegian

norwegian to Lizzie

Premium Member

to Lizzie
The should be an option to copy the whole HDD structure, not just the operating system partition.
Windows Backup only loads/checks the operating system partition by default as well it it's request to ask you what you want to image, and the extra recovery partition has to be checked manually for the job.
I'm gathering the eRecovery tool would do the same thing and you will have to manually select the recovery partition as well. You want the whole HDD imaged.
norwegian

norwegian to Lizzie

Premium Member

to Lizzie
There seems a little confusion in the wording, but there should be an option to check for all data.

Once the original hard drive has been replaced, eRecovery will no longer be installed on the new hard drive. This program is installed at the factory and can not be reinstalled on a new hard drive. Prior to replacing the hard drive, please create the eRecovery media to restore the system to factory defaults in the future.

»acer.custhelp.com/app/an ··· y%20tool
norwegian

norwegian to Lizzie

Premium Member

to Lizzie
said by Lizzie :

So if I copy the hard drive to a flash drive, can I then use the flash drive once I install the new hard drive to copy the operating system onto it?

For all steps in the process the general search shows all steps.

»acer.custhelp.com/app/an ··· search/1

I'll have to do some more reading and get back to you as I have not used this tool before.

Maybe someone in the mean time has - and if it gets too confusing, can you still use Windows Backup to a set of DVD's? If so we can always just use Windows internal backup image tool.

Lizzie
@comcast.net

Lizzie to norwegian

Anon

to norwegian
I ran the complete error check on the drive and it found no errors.

It also said the health was Ok after continuous testing for 2 hours.

HD Tune Pro: WDC WD5000BPVT-22HXZT3 Health
 
ID                                  Current  Worst    ThresholdData     Status
(01) Raw Read Error Rate            200      200      51       0        ok
(03) Spin Up Time                   177      173      21       2150     ok
(04) Start/Stop Count               95       95       0        5899     ok
(05) Reallocated Sector Count       200      200      140      0        ok
(07) Seek Error Rate                200      200      0        0        ok
(09) Power On Hours Count           93       93       0        5652     ok
(0A) Spin Retry Count               100      100      0        0        ok
(0B) Calibration Retry Count        100      100      0        0        ok
(0C) Power Cycle Count              99       99       0        1759     ok
(BF) G-sense Error Rate             1        1        0        512      ok
(C0) Unsafe Shutdown Count          200      200      0        70       ok
(C1) Load Cycle Count               180      180      0        62507    ok
(C2) Temperature                    108      102      0        39       ok
(C4) Reallocated Event Count        200      200      0        0        ok
(C5) Current Pending Sector         200      200      0        0        ok
(C6) Offline Uncorrectable          100      253      0        0        ok
(C7) Ultra DMA CRC Error Count      200      200      0        0        ok
(C8) Write Error Rate               100      253      0        0        ok
 
Health Status         : ok
 

I did find another utility, Smartmontools, that found a bunch of errors. It was impossible to copy, it was some kind of
command line thing and impossible to decipher except for about 9 errors shows, "fatal error".

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member

smartmontools is better.

You can copy via command line,

Easiest way is this:

1. Open up a Command Prompt (if on Vista/7, make sure you launch this as Administrator else some SMART functions on some setups won't get passed through to the disk)
2. smartctl -a X: > C:\smart.txt where X: is a filesystem/partition on the drive which you want stats for
3. Open C:\smart.txt in Notepad
4. Copy-paste contents into post here on the forum, within a code block.
5. Delete file when done

That will give you the output of that tool which is the best tool for deciphering HDD smart data.

The only items I can see by that data is:
gsense - banging/heavy handed use of the laptop enough to say it is registering the event
There is no log of sector re-allocation (C4) and (C5) which would be relative to lost data and would force you to do the repair install with the operating system, you may just be lucky there.

Lizzie
@comcast.net

Lizzie to Lizzie

Anon

to Lizzie
So are these the steps?

Do I first copy the operating system onto the new hard
drive before installing it?

step 1: buy new hard drive, buy SATA enclosure for it, put it into
the enclosure

step 2: attach the hard drive in its enclosure to the computer.
I think I can attach the enclosure I am looking at by
the USB ports

step 3: drag and drop the file of the operating system, which I
have made a copy of using eRecovery, onto the new
hard drive

(Do I need a software program like Norton Ghost or
not need it since eRecovery did the work already)

step 4: install the new hard drive into the net book and pray it
boots up

(curse myself for not just buying a new computer, and going through all this for nothing lol)

I don't suppose any of you live in the West Palm Beach Florida area???
Lizzie

Lizzie to norwegian

Anon

to norwegian
I opened a command prompt and
copied and pasted this in and nothing happened:

smartctl -a X: > C:\smart.txt

Didn't follow that, could you put it
exactly so I can just copy and paste it into a command prompt?

As soon as I open the program smartmontools, the command prompt takes off and does it's thing.

Not sure how to copy it, try again? thanks
Lizzie

Lizzie to norwegian

Anon

to norwegian
Ok, found this copies from that attempt, something went wrong:

smartctl 6.0 2012-10-10 r3643 [x86_64-w64-mingw32-win7-sp1] (sf-6.0-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-12, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

Smartctl open device: X: failed: \\.\X:: Open failed, Error=2
Lizzie

Lizzie to norwegian

Anon

to norwegian
Here you go:

[copy]

smartctl 6.0 2012-10-10 r3643 [x86_64-w64-mingw32-win7-sp1] (sf-6.0-1)
Copyright (C) 2002-12, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Scorpio Blue Serial ATA (AF)
Device Model: WDC WD5000BPVT-22HXZT3
Serial Number: WD-WXQ1A8121008
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 601c00966
Firmware Version: 01.01A01
User Capacity: 500,107,862,016 bytes [500 GB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 5400 rpm
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ATA8-ACS (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 2.6, 3.0 Gb/s
Local Time is: Thu Mar 14 21:13:49 2013 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: (11580) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 115) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x7035) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 177 173 021 Pre-fail Always - 2150
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 095 095 000 Old_age Always - 5921
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 093 093 000 Old_age Always - 5653
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 000 Old_age Always - 1759
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 512
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 70
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 180 180 000 Old_age Always - 62984
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 110 102 000 Old_age Always - 37
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 10% 5631 -
# 2 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 40% 5631 -
# 3 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 90% 5623 -
# 4 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 30% 5623 -
# 5 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 10% 5622 -
# 6 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 50% 5620 -
# 7 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 10% 5619 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

[/copy]
Lizzie

Lizzie to Lizzie

Anon

to Lizzie
I just got a reply to my email to westerdigital.

Apparently they don't know the hard drive they make
plays musical notes. I didn't think they would, it's so unusual.

Here is what they wrote:

"
We suppose when you say "musical sound" you really mean "clicking noises with a pattern", right? Because in a hard drive disk the clicking noises, or any other type of noises (like the faint buzz) means the drive is going defective. It means some sectors are going faulty. The issue will increase if you don't take the proper measures. "

No, westerndigital, the hard drive you make plays 3 musical notes every five minutes. Even detached from the computer. I will definitely do the youtube thing and send them the link.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

1 edit

norwegian

Premium Member

n/m
norwegian

1 edit

norwegian to Lizzie

Premium Member

to Lizzie
"X" is the reference to the HDD.

I will get someone to explain more for you.

Lizzie
@comcast.net

Lizzie

Anon

Yes I figured it out, and posted the informaton from the results of the test with smartmon above, about 3 posts above this one.
Lizzie

Lizzie

Anon

It appears to me that it passed, however the western digital lifeguard diagnostics test failed it on the smart self test, saying the test stopped at 98: fail.

The sound is very faint now. The power source must be getting weak.

Now my decision is to buy a new computer, or attempt to copy my software to a new hard drive, which I fear, as it sounds like it might not work for me, never having done it.

Thank you uso much for all your help. It appears to me that the drive is not so bad that it needs the repair done to it and can be copied as is.

I am wondering how to know what kind or size hard drive to get.
Thordrune
Premium Member
join:2005-08-03
Lakeport, CA

Thordrune

Premium Member

If you can get a video/audio recording of the drive, that would be awesome. I haven't heard a drive make such sounds when not powered, it would be quite interesting to hear it.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian to Lizzie

Premium Member

to Lizzie
said by Lizzie :

It appears to me that it passed, however the western digital lifeguard diagnostics test failed it on the smart self test, saying the test stopped at 98: fail.

koitsu See Profile suggested there is nothing wrong with the HDD and he is an engineer in HDD tech, so spending money might be a bit pre-emptive, but if you do, the imaged data will work fine and no repair will be required.

As above by Thordrune See Profile suggests can you record the noise?

Lizzie
@comcast.net

Lizzie

Anon

The sound grew fainter and fainter last night and finally stopped. I can't say I'm sorry it stopped. It was very annoying.

Had I known exactly how unusual this is, even to the point where the manufacturer doesn't know about it, I would have recorded it but now it's too late. Apparently the power source has discharged completely.

The computer works great.

I do believe there is a small fault somewhere in it but not enough to worry about at this point.

Much thanks to everyone especially Norwegian.

koitsu
MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
Humax BGW320-500

1 edit

koitsu to norwegian

MVM

to norwegian
I'm sorry, it appears I missed analysing the SMART error log portion of your post; bad formatting (use of "copy" not "code") made me miss this, but it's still my mistake.

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 10% 5631 -
# 2 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 40% 5631 -
# 3 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 90% 5623 -
# 4 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 30% 5623 -
# 5 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 10% 5622 -
# 6 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 50% 5620 -
# 7 Short offline Fatal or unknown error 10% 5619 -
 

Chances are what's causing these entries is is WD's own software ("WD LifeGuard Diagnostics"). The SMART self-test log contains a status_type field for each test, represented by 4 bits (range 0-15). A value of 3 indicates "Fatal or unknown error".

SMART short, long, and conveyance tests are basically implemented at the firmware level -- the drive itself does the analysis/testing. What the firmware chooses to look for is unknown -- this is implemented per-vendor and per-model of drive. Only Western Digital knows. The short test does not do a surface scan (LBA scan) of the platters; historically this test has looked for things like internal servo failures and some other low-level (often mechanical) things. However, servo failure is supposed to be indicated with a status_type code of 6.

If the short test is failing, especially at random completion percentages (vs. a constant point), then this does seem to point to some kind of internal oddity happening within the drive. I cannot explain this behaviour -- only WD would be able to explain what's actually causing that to fail. These type of "odd" failures, combined with audible noises coming from the drive (which presumably are not the drive parking its heads), probably indicate something mechanical that intermittently has problems -- something that is not tracked with SMART attributes, but is checked with an internal SMART short test.

I would suggest you tell WD Technical Support about the failed self-test when using WD LifeGuard Diagnostics. Show them the above data from smartmontools (the same data you provided earlier), and point them to the SMART self-test log section. If the drive is under warranty, they should have no problem issuing an RMA for it, and I suggest you do an Advanced RMA (where they send you a replacement drive before you send them the wonky one).

I should note, however, that sector/LBA-wise, there's really no indication of the drive ever having encountered issues -- so your data should be safe/intact for the time being.

If I was in your shoes, I would do exactly the above -- replace the drive solely as a precaution.

P.S. -- I would also appreciate an audio sample of some kind of what the noise is that you're hearing. It won't necessarily tell me what the actual problem is, but sometimes it's enough for me to say "servo problem" or "actuator arm problem". This is purely educational and doesn't help solve the issue in any way; only WD can do something about that.

Lizzie
@comcast.net

Lizzie

Anon

I can tell you this and describe it as best I can:

Imagine the Windows start up musical sound, which plays when Windows boots, which is 4 notes. This was almost identical only with 3 notes.

There was an extremely faint buzzing sound of 4 very brief pulses that played underneath the music.
Imagine the sound of a vibrator being flipped on and off
very fast 4 times.

It went of for 3.5 days, every five minutes, even when out of the computer.

The drive has a round silver thing in a recessed part of the front of the hard drive, with some copper wires, about 5 of them, going into the case of the hard drive, which I assume is the power source, as it looks like a battery. There are several small square holes along the edges of the drive which must be, one of them, a speaker.

I appreciate you coming back to advise me to swap out the hard drive for a new one. I doubt I will be getting another westerndigital one, as this is only 1.5 years old.

Msradell
Premium Member
join:2008-12-25
Louisville, KY

Msradell

Premium Member

I've never seen a hard drive that had a speaker built into it! Either the sound wasn't coming directly from the hard drive or the noise you were hearing was some kind of a squeak due to a mechanical problem. Since the noise was very repetitive, the squeak isn't very likely.

Lizzie
@comcast.net

Lizzie

Anon

I know it sounds crazy to have a speaker in a hard drive but it must have one. When it finally goes bad completely I will dismantle it.
Lizzie

Lizzie to Msradell

Anon

to Msradell
Have you ever seen one with a battery imbedded into it on the outside of the case?
This one has that too.
Lizzie

Lizzie to Msradell

Anon

to Msradell
Here is the latest email from westerndiital:

"We asked because these drives do not making any type musical sound or melody.

That music you hear is coming from another component of your computer, not the hard drive.

We will recommend you to have your computer checked by a technician. He will help you determine

where the melody comes from."

I didn't believe it could be happening either.
That's why I had to put the computer, minus the hard drive, in the farthest part of the house.

Then as I was holding the hard drive, outdoors, to make sure, found that it was the hard drive doing it.

I guess this will remain a mystery without an answer.