HP Laptop Fixes: Hewlett Packard Hard Drive Failure

User case: Hewlett Packard hard drive failure

If you receive this error message from Hewlett Packard laptop, that means your hard disk has something wrong. You may wonder “How do I know if my hard drive has failed?” or “Can a failed hard drive be repaired?” In this passage, we will give you the answers with easy fixes for removing hard disk errors on HP devices.

How do I know if my HP hard drive has failed?

If you want to get an accurate and detailed results for your Hewlett Packard hard drive, it is better to choose a reliable third-party software like AOMEI Partition Assistant. This is a comprehensive hard disk manager that can be compatible with Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7. It offers many options for you to check hard disk error on HP laptop. You can free download it and follow the instructions.

AOMEI Partition Assistant

The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer

Free Download
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7

Option 1. Surface Test

Step 1. Download AOMEI Partition Assistant and launch it. At the main interface, click the "Test" menu and select “Disk Surface Test”.

Step 2. Click Start to do the surface test. You may want to tick Quick Check to perform a fast test.

Option 2. Check Partition

Step 1. Open this tool, right-click the partition that you want to check, select Advanced, then select “Check Partition”.

Step 2. Select the way of checking errors to perform. As you can see from the following screenshot, there are three choices, simply choose the last one “Check whether there is a bad sector on the partition”. And click OK to go to the next step.

Step 3. Click the Start button to check.

Option 3. Health check

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. When the program is successfully launched, it will automatically obtain S.M.A.R.T. information on all hard disks in the background.

Once the tool detects that the disk health status of one hard drive is poor, a red exclamation mark will be displayed on the disk icon. You can also right-click on one hard drive and choose Properties-->Health(SMART) to see detailed S.M.A.R.T. information on this disk.

Step 2: There are 3 states of hard disk health.

• State one: Good. The disk is in good condition and can be used with confidence.

• State two: Caution. Except for the temperature, one or more attributes are close to the threshold. The disk still can be used normally, but it is recommended to back up the disk regularly.

• State three: Bad. One or more attributes are equal to or less than the threshold. The disk may be damaged soon and cause data loss. It is recommended to clone this disk and replace it with a new one.

Click "View details" to see specific S.M.A.R.T. values, red text indicates that the value of the item is equal to or exceeds the threshold.

Option 4. Disk Speed Test

Step 1. Open AOMEI Partition Assistant, click the "Test" menu and select “Disk Speed Test”.

Step 2. The default mode is Simple Mode, click “Start” to run a simple speed test. Or click "Pro Mode" to get a more comprehensive test we introduced above.

Step 3. After the test, you can click “Export” to see the test result.

▶ Tip: The above features are also available for external hard disks.

How to fix hard drive failure on HP laptops

If you are sure your HP hard drive is failed with showing errors. You can try these fixes to repair it. Generally, the causes of HP hard drive failure can be concluded as below:

► The BIOS is outdated.
► There is something wrong with the BIOS settings.
► The hard drive cables are failing.
► There are bad sectors on the hard drive.
► The MBR of the hard drive that holds operating system is corrupted.

Based on these, we prepare some solutions. Follow it to learn how to fix hard drive failure on HP laptops.

Solution 1. Update BIOS

Outdated BIOS can cause “A disk read error occurred”. At this time, you can upgrade the BIOS to the current version: Download the latest BIOS version from the manufacturer website to a bootable device > install the BIOS for your HP computer from the bootable device. After that, reboot your HP computer to see whether the error disappears.

Solution 2. Check hard drive cables

It is possible that a disk error on HP laptops can be caused loosed hard drive cables. So, you should check the cables, or check if the power cable has deteriorated. If this is not the case, the condition of the ports can be assessed by connecting cables to the various ports. If the ports and cables are working properly, but the errors continue to occur, the next step to take is to consider whether there is a problem with the hard disk.

Solution 3. Create a bootable USB and rebuild MBR

When your HP hard drive is failed, the system will not able to boot up properly in most cases, and pop out some error messages like “Operating System ▸Not Found”, “Invalid Partition Table” and “Missing Operating System”, and so on. This situation may result from the corrupted MBR. At this time, you can run the installed AOMEI Partition Assistant to create a bootable USB and rebuild the corrupted MBR.

To create a bootable USB: Connect an empty USB to a working computer, download the free software, install and run it on the working computer. Click “Tools” in the top toolbar, and choose “Make Bootable Media” to create a bootable USB. (PS: it will contain installed AOMEI Partition Assistant.)

Then plug the bootable USB in the computer with a corrupted internal hard disk. Enter BIOS and change the boot order to make your computer boot from the bootable USB just created. Once login, you will be in the main interface of AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. The follow the steps below to rebuild MBR and check RAW partition.

Step 1. Right click the internal disk and select "Rebuild MBR".

Step 2. Choose a proper MBR type for the current OS you are using and click OK.

Step 3. In the main interface, click "Apply">"Proceed" to start rebuilding the MBR.

Tip: Effectively replace your corrupted hard drive

If you cannot fix your hard drive by following the guides, maybe it’s time to replace a new one. Luckily, AOMEI Partition Assistant also provides Clone Disk function. It allows you to effectively clone all data from the original disk to the new one without any reinstalling process, including the Windows operating system, installed programs, pictures, documents, and so on.

AOMEI Partition Assistant

The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer

Free Download
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7

With this powerful disk clone tool, you can enjoy these benefits:

Cloning only the used sectors of the hard disk to new one, so you can clone a larger disk to a smaller one, no matter you are using HDD or SSD.

Cloning hard disk with bad sectors.

It allows you to resize the partitions on the disk before cloning starts.

Automatically making 4K alignment for SSD during the cloning process.

Step 1. Open the installed AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, click "Clone" in the main interface, and select "Clone Disk".

Step 2. Choose the hard disk that you need to clone as the source disk like SSD and click "Next".

Step 3. Select the destination disk to store the data on the source disk, and then click "Next".

Step 4. Then, you can check the source and destination disk in the next window or change to "Sector to Sector clone", and click the "Confirm" button to continue if there is no problem.

Here, you can also click the "Settings" button to adjust the partition size on the destination disk or tick "4k alignment" to Optimize the performance of SSD if the target disk is an SSD drive. 

Tip: If you want to clone Windows to a smaller drive, the "Clone without resizing partitions"  button will be greyed out. Then, a Note about how to boot OS from the destination disk will pop up. Read and keep it in mind.

Step 5. After returning to the main interface, check the pending operation and click "Apply" and "Proceed" to commit the operation.

▶ Boot Windows from SSD after cloning

If you cloned the system disk and kept both the HDD and SSD on the computer, you may need to go into the BIOS to set SSD as the boot drive.

Step 1. Reboot your PC and constantly press F2, Del, F8, or F12 to access the BIOS menu. 

Step 2. You can use the arrow key to choose the Boot tab.

Step 3. Then move the cloned SSD to the first position in the list. Save the changes and exit the BIOS setup utility.

Conclusion

Here are all about Hewlett Packard hard drive failure. With AOMEI Partition Assitant, you can not only check whether the disk is failed, but also you can fix the corrupted hard disk. If you want to replace the hard drive, it also gives you convenience. If you are a Windows Server user that want to repair disk errors on HP or other computers, you can choose its Server edition.