Is my hard drive failing?

CK SatGuy

Formerly ckhalil18
Original poster
Feb 7, 2011
4,023
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The Motor City
I have an Acer Aspire 5741-3541 that I've had for about 3 and a half years now. For the last week, whenever I do anything on this laptop and gently move it from one spot to another (either on my lap or on a table, etc.) the screen just crashes resulting in a blue screen and me having to restart the computer. I ran AVG and Windows defender, and it hasn't found any viruses or malware. The hard drive was 11% fragmented according to AVG, but I fixed that issue. Still though it keeps shutting down randomly and I keep having to restart it. Last night it happened again twice, the 2nd time it happened right after it booted up from the 1st restart, triggering a hard drive check during the 2nd restart. I couldn't tell what it was trying to check or fix because it was scanning pretty fast and after it finished, it restarted by itself to do a normal boot. To me, this is a sign that the hard drive is failing, but I need help from some computer experts here.

Acer support stinks. They just told me through their chat support to do a power reset and reading through the Acer forums, saying that loose screws on the bottom of the laptop could be causing the screen to crash. Well, I tightened all the screws on my laptop and it's still shutting down randomly. At this point, I don't know what else to do, and I'm ready to throw this laptop up against the wall because it's really frustrating.:mad:

Basically I need help on this matter. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
 
This doesn't look good:

Test Option:EXTENDED TEST
Model Number:WDC WD5000BEVT-22A0RT0
Unit Serial Number:WD-WXL1A30M0149
Firmware Number:01.01A01
Capacity:500.11 GB
SMART Status:PASS
Test Result:FAIL
Test Error Code:08-Too many bad sectors detected.
Test Time:13:25:05, March 11, 2014
 
Let us have a moment of silence......

Perhaps you can -quickly- get an exact replacement HDD and clone the old one, then install the new one and be good to go.
 
Let us have a moment of silence......

Perhaps you can -quickly- get an exact replacement HDD and clone the old one, then install the new one and be good to go.
I'd think I'd rather backup my most important files on some flash drives and take my chances on a new windows 8 laptop then go through that painful and time-consuming process.
 
$ure. No problem there what$over. Certainly ea$ier.

I'm not sure what greater functionality you'll really get with a new laptop. And, as you noted, it will be infested with W8. Enjoy the learning curve. You might post your experience if you go that route.
 
Acronis true image can clone that drive in less than an hour.it has saved me at least twice.
 
I start the bidding for the old laptop at $2.

Seriously, if it was doing all you needed, best and cheapest to slap a new HDD in it and move on. Maybe wait for Windows 9, or 10, or for Linux to take over the world.

There are many disc cloning programs out there; some, such as the Dynamic Disc Converter, are free.
 
I personally would use TI to make a backup image file to an EHD. Get a new hard drive, install it and restore the image to the new drive.
 
Western digital has a disk cloning utility for free. Get a new drive. Get an external usb drive adapter doohickey. Clone drive. Swap drive. Done.
Doohickey ($8 free shipping): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001OORMVQ/?tag=satell01-20

The WD clone program is a version of Acronis True Image. It works very well and is free. You can download it from the WD website. Just tell them the drive that you have and download.
 
Regardless, make sure to run the surface scan and attempt fixing bad sectors.
 
...and you'll probably buy some time. Don't hope for a miracle. Now is a good time to get in the habit of daily backups. Heck, a daily overnight clone costs you nothing. Grandfather, father, son.

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys
 
The WD clone program is a version of Acronis True Image. It works very well and is free. You can download it from the WD website. Just tell them the drive that you have and download.

That's exactly the one I use.I have a couple of WD drives with warranty,but it works fine with other hdds as well.
 
Fat. Fat cat.

I offer $2.50 and the flat cat I saw on the side of the road yesterday. ;)

Seriously. The OP can probably order a Haswell-based laptop with Win 7 on it since Win 8 is a dismal failure. Much easier to pick up a new WD 750 GB Scorpio Black and clone/expand the original 500 GB onto the new disk. The 750 GB are about $80 and the software can be had for free. I use the utilities on Ultimate Boot CD or Hiren's Boot CD. Both have the HD tools provided by the major drive manufacturers as well as tons of other diagnostic/repair tools.
 

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