Ok, I sit down in front of my hp pavilion a6010n desktop 'puter. First, I get a screen that says something like 'hard drive failure imminent', with the energy star logo in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Now, when I try to fire it up, it starts to, but then the screen goes black & theres just the cursor in the middle of the screen. I googled it, but all I see is stuff about laptops. I'm typing this from my laptop (my 'out of town' computer). So, just how screwed am I? I already pulled all my pics off it when that 'imminent' message came up, I was just hoping to retrieve my favorites list... d'oh...
Hi GreaserMatt.
If you haven't done so already, please read the manuals for your PC.
Link Removed
SATA II hard drives are now cheap. You may wish to get two of them: one internal 3.5"; and one external 2.5" (in a USB box which can be used with your notebook as well), then...
- remove the ailing drive
- install
only the new 3.5" drive
- install an OS on it, make sure that everything works OK, update the OS, and (if you are using Windows) install & update any anti-malware utilities, and then shut down the PC.
- next, temporarily install the old hard drive onto a different SATA connector, boot the machine with the OS on the new drive, and attempt to recover your files.
- then attempt to repair the old hard drive (with Windows' repair utilities) in case it's only suffering from a software problem.
If it is repairable, then you'll have a two hard drive PC to maintain a backup of all your files at all times.
If not, then please consider getting a second new 3.5" SATA hard drive for doing backups to.
TIP: Something like
THIS = free spare parts & upgrades harvested from discarded computers. They're also handy for tightening this & that, setting up basses, and clipping strings etc. The ones made of stainless steel are the best.
Link Removed
