Laptop Repair

[Crazy Flamer]

So I have an HP laptop that's about 2 years old. When I turn in on, I get two warnings: That the battery needs replacement and that the SMART hard drive has suffered an "imminent failure" and that I should back everything up ASAP.

I'm not a very technical guy so I'm looking for a place that can assist me in repairs for a reasonable price. I'm in the far SE, if that helps, but I'm willing to travel if I can find a good deal.

Any suggestions?

[psicodude]

Memory Express. It's probably not going to be very cheap though, depending on the amount of damage to the hard drive.

[photon]

Replacing the hard drive itself would probably be pretty cheap (I recommend an SSD, costs more for less storage but the speed makes laptops feel better than new), backing up and moving over the data would probably cost more since it'd be more time consuming.

Take the warning seriously though, back it up ASAP.

And anyone who doesn't have a backup for their critical data, imagine your hard drive failed and all contents were lost right... NOW. If you can't handle that, wtf are you reading this thread for you need to go set up a good backup system!

[rbochan]

Originally Posted by photon

...Take the warning seriously though, back it up ASAP...

And don't buy HP again.

[Hack&Lube]

All you need is a new harddrive to clone your existing one to. Take that warning very seriously as you could lose all your data any day.

Your battery needs replacing because you've probably abused the charge cycles on it (allowed to drain completely too many times) or left it plugged in too much (if HP doesn't have smart technology to stop trickle charging from happening).

[CMPunk]

My hard drive apparently decided to corrupt itself yesterday. Things were working fine til I rebooted it, not it's basically unusable because it's so slow. It's a Dell that's less then a year old. Super strange and very annoying

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by CMPunk

My hard drive apparently decided to corrupt itself yesterday. Things were working fine til I rebooted it, not it's basically unusable because it's so slow. It's a Dell that's less then a year old. Super strange and very annoying

That's not what corruption does. Corruption would usually make the drive unbootable. It sounds like you can load the OS, just that things are slow?

[CMPunk]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

That's not what corruption does. Corruption would usually make the drive unbootable. It sounds like you can load the OS, just that things are slow?

I managed to run the boot options and do a diagnostic and it said there was issues with the C drive. I tried to do a restore from a save point and it said it couldn't due to some sort of hard drive issue. Here's the error I get:

http://en.community.dell.com/support...534/t/19582361

Slow is an understatement...you can't even click on anything because it'll either not open or take ten minutes to open.

[Crazy Flamer]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

But I still don't know where to take it for repairs. My initial thought was Memory Express, but sounds like they are going to be a bit pricey.

Any other ideas?

[photon]

http://www.memoryexpress.com/TechZone/Index.cm.aspx

I'm sure there are random kijiji people that could be cheaper, but I wouldn't know which ones would be trustworthy.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Crazy Flamer

Thanks everyone for the replies.

But I still don't know where to take it for repairs. My initial thought was Memory Express, but sounds like they are going to be a bit pricey.

Any other ideas?

Do it yourself? It's not difficult.

You can get a free program like http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx to clone your old drive.

Buy a replacement hard drive of the same size (to make partitioning easier), a $13 hard drive enclosure (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX25441), then use the software to clone the old drive to the new one. Then usually it's a matter of removing one or two screws to pull out the old drive and slide the new one in.

It boils to plugging two things in, a few mouse clicks, and using a screwdriver.

For the battery, you'll have to order one online and it just swaps straight out with the old one.

[burnin_vernon]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Do it yourself? It's not difficult.

You can get a free program like http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx to clone your old drive.

Buy a replacement hard drive of the same size (to make partitioning easier), a $13 hard drive enclosure (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX25441), then use the software to clone the old drive to the new one. Then usually it's a matter of removing one or two screws to pull out the old drive and slide the new one in.

It boils to plugging two things in, a few mouse clicks, and using a screwdriver.

For the battery, you'll have to order one online and it just swaps straight out with the old one.

I replaced my own hard drive when I got the same warning as the OP. I'd never done it before but it was very easy. There's likely step by step instructional videos on youtube with your exact computer

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by burnin_vernon

I replaced my own hard drive when I got the same warning as the OP. I'd never done it before but it was very easy. There's likely step by step instructional videos on youtube with your exact computer

Agreed. Just try it out as burnin_vernon said. His advice about looking for a youtube video is good advice.

Since it's your first time, I assume it'll take around 30 minutes or so (+/-10 minutes). Not including your decision to clone or just fresh install

Spoiler!

cloning can take 2-6 hours, fresh install usually around 30 minutes not including installing updates. I usually do fresh install unless there's some configuration I don't want to lose because it takes less time and I have a functional computer sooner. Drivers have been ridiculously easy since Windows 7 so doing it yourself isn't difficult. Basic ones all come in MS updates and work reasonably well.

I believe most HP component layouts are similar.

Spoiler!

They usually have a cover on the bottom. Unscrew the screws that hold it in place, remove the cover and you should see a HDD with maybe 2-4 screws that hold the HDD in place. Swap HDD/SSD, put everything back the way it was before, boot it up, install updates (ie: HDD/SSD driver, or the whole shebang if you clean install), restart the computer and you're done.

I think many repair shops probably would charge you minimum 1-1.5 hours +/- a diagnostic fee to do this. I'm guessing around $200-300 to get a tech to do this for you including cost of SSD (might as well replace a laptop) and about half that cost if you do it yourself.

[Stealth22]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Do it yourself? It's not difficult.

You can get a free program like http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx to clone your old drive.

Buy a replacement hard drive of the same size (to make partitioning easier), a $13 hard drive enclosure (http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX25441), then use the software to clone the old drive to the new one. Then usually it's a matter of removing one or two screws to pull out the old drive and slide the new one in.

It boils to plugging two things in, a few mouse clicks, and using a screwdriver.

For the battery, you'll have to order one online and it just swaps straight out with the old one.

This to the power of this.

Don't take it to Memory Express. They'll charge you 1 hour of labour minimum (at $50/hr) just to clone and swap your hard drive. If the clone takes a few hours, they will bill you for ALL of that time.

Just do it yourself, seriously. It may seem daunting, but it's really not difficult. Like DoubleF and burnin_vernon said, you could find YouTube videos on how to do it on your exact model.

I've used Macrium Reflect...its great, and its free.

Just buy a new hard drive to clone your current drive to, or if you're willing to do a clean install of Windows, I would recommend backing up your important files to Dropbox immediately, and then replacing your hard drive with a solid state hard drive, also known as an SSD.

SSD's are infinitely more faster than traditional hard drives; they are more expensive because of that, but the speed benefit far outweighs the cost in most cases. It will make your 2 year old laptop feel brand new.

If I had the time, I would offer to do this for you, anyone familiar with IT can swap a hard drive in 5 minutes, not including the cloning time. That's how easy it is to change the hardware...you're literally unscrewing the cover, unplugging one drive, and plugging the other in.

For god's sake, don't pay someone $50/hr to do this for you. Feel free to PM me if you need any help...I can try to help you over PM's any way that I can.

[Rathji]

If you honestly don't feel you can handle it, I would be willing to walk you through it if you bring it to my place.

I have all the needed equipment and software, you would just need to pick up the drive from Memex.