Is it just HP's?

[jimllfixit]

We have recently seen a lot of laptops come in with a failed HD. Thats fine we clone the disk and 9 out of 10 times it works fine, might have to do a repair of Windows but thats about it.

But we have 3 or 4 HP's/Compaq's that just wont take. We clone and nothing. BIOS can see the drive fine, the PC knows its there but just won't boot.

I was wondering if anyone else has seen this and if so is there a "quick" fix as such. The only soloution so far seems to be a reinstall and then copy data over.

Jim

[NYJimbo]

We have recently seen a lot of laptops come in with a failed HD. Thats fine we clone the disk and 9 out of 10 times it works fine, might have to do a repair of Windows but thats about it.

But we have 3 or 4 HP's/Compaq's that just wont take. We clone and nothing. BIOS can see the drive fine, the PC knows its there but just won't boot.

I was wondering if anyone else has seen this and if so is there a "quick" fix as such. The only soloution so far seems to be a reinstall and then copy data over.

Jim

If the cloning was error free then it should take, however its possible that something didnt copy or the drive wasnt marked active or something.

But remember, just because the CLONING went okay that doesnt mean all the data was there. So a perfect clone of a slightly corrupted drive will give you just that, nothing more.

ps - you might want to elaborate on how you are cloning a failed hard drive. Just how failed was it ?

[iptech]

is there a "quick" fix as such.
CHKDSK /F is usually enough if the problems were caused by a failing drive, but it could be a whole manner of other things such as malware, improper shutdowns, file fragmentation...

[jimllfixit]

ps - you might want to elaborate on how you are cloning a failed hard drive. Just how failed was it ?

Well the PC still boots into XP so not that badly. Just has a few read failures on it.

hmmm we do run the cskdsk followed by fix boot, fixmbr and boot cfg /rebuild. Its just been a recent wave of units that have come in and don't take.

For example our lastest one if you boot as you would normally then all you get is a blinking _. After all that and a repair nothing.

[TechProsSD]

you say "is it just HPs?"

i would ask... are you seeing a consistent make/model of hd's??



because.. HP (dell, lenovo, etc..) just buy whatever components they negotiate the best price for

[usacvlr]

HP/Compaq is complete and utter crap.

[studiot]

Have these laptops incorporated the HDD serial no into the boot record for security?

If you do this only the correct HD will boot the machine.

[l337]

the few read errors could be if say the customer has a scratched cd or something in the disc drive and the pc changes from dma to pio on both channels cd and hdd. which could cause some hdd errors to popup

pio is always worth looking for.

[Doctor Micro]

Are you doing a sector-by-sector clone, or just data? What cloning software are you using? SATA or PATA drives? Inquiring minds want to know. :)

[jimllfixit]

Are you doing a sector-by-sector clone, or just data? What cloning software are you using? SATA or PATA drives? Inquiring minds want to know. :)

I am doing a sector by sector clone, using Acronis or Symantec ghost. Both sorts of drives being used.

I'm aware that companies just go for best price on parts but there's been all sorts no one manufacture that we can single out.

So as usacvlr said there just rubbish.