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The disk may soon fail?
Anyone got this error while installing windows 7, or know anything about it?
"Windows cannot be installed on Disk<#> – The disk may soon fail, if other hard disks available install on that location."
I can go ahead and install Windows anyways though, and it goes through the install process just fine, but Windows will start to slowly bog down after a few minutes of use, and it shuts itself off while it's installing windows updates (making it need a system repair). My guess is the HDD is about to crap itself. I've tried the reinstallation disc it came with (which installs fine, but the other problems happen), and then I've tired my disc, and that won't even finish the install process.
It's a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop. Other than some sort of pentium CPU, 4GB DDR2 RAM, and a 500GB HDD, there's not much else I know about it, my cousin brought it over last night, and tells me Windows won't boot or repair and it's been that way for the past 2 months. I've never seen this error before, and am not that familiar with Dell products (or laptops in general).
0118 999 881 999 119 725... 3
Comments
The error looks likes it pretty much telling you the same conclusion you've already come to, your HDD is about to crap out.
I'm sure a few seconds on google will tell you the same thing.
Sounds to me like the hard drive is old and broken . If you one of these peole who dont know the first thing about pc components, then all i can say is, find someone who can take out the hard drive in your pc so you can look at the make and model number. Then go out and buy a replacment drive with those details you just looked at. Basically buy a exact same hard drive from the internet and swap it for the old one. This should solve your issue
Im about 90% sure its the hard drive but because you got a very old pc, youll get that hard drive possibly off ebay for about £15-£25
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1651869499.png
I'm not sure how old it is, but It must have been purchased within the last 1.5 years (give or take) simply because of the windows 7 sticker on it, so I would assume it was bought sometime during the release of WIn7. That said, I'm sure the parts are shoddy (and probably old too), it being a cheaper laptop, and from Dell (I've not heard any good about them).
But yeah I know how to replace a laptops HDD, I just wanted to make sure that was the problem.
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From my experience with building my own pcs for the last 3-4 years, I would be buying a new hard drive next from what you say if it was my pc. Im pretty sure that is the issue because of the type of issue you are having. When a pc has problems you have to go through the components one at a time ruling out which component to replace next. My advice is swap the hard drive with a brand new one that is the same make and model. I wouldnt advise on changing it for a better make and model because I dont know how dell pcs are. For example my young brother had one of these SPECIAL pcs, it was one put together by a company rather than buy himself. When i had a look inside the pc it was nothing like how a normal pc is. If i can remember correctly certain parts of the insides of the pc were not removable unlike a home made pc. I think dell might be the sdame but you need to look inside and find out for yourself if the hard drive is permanently stuck to the motherboard or not.
anyway again I say from the description of the fault you have, id say swap the hard drives as the first thing to do .
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1651869499.png
Or it could just be that the power and data cables have gotten a little loose over time. Turn it off, open it up, unseat and reseat all cables. Turn it on and test it before closing it back up. Find some free drive testing software, preferably by the hard drive manufacturer. Run, don't walk away from any software you have to buy.
This is very good advice. There is an awful lot of hard drive testing software out there, just as much is paid as is free, and just as much of either category are crap. And really, all you really need is already on the Windows install DVD (if you go to the command prompt from Windows Recovery options during install, you can run CHKDSK from there: it's not the best checker, but if something is really broke it will probably come up with some sort of error.
Once you've checked all of that, do a full (not quick) format of the drive - this will flag any bad sectors: it can only be done during a full format. If it finds any bad sectors, replace the drive (more will surely pop up sooner than later). Apparently Windows can also throw that error if you are trying to install on too small of a partition. I would remove all partitions, create one large partition of the maximum size, and do the full format on that partition. Then see how the install goes.
There is also a thing called SMART built into hard drives, which is supposed to predict drive failures. It could be that WIndows is detecting a SMART error and that's the reason it's showing you the error message. The problem with SMART is, that it isn't very smart, and doesn't really do a good job of predicting failure: 3/4 of the drives I see fail never throw a SMART error, and when I do see a SMART error, half the time the drive continues to work fine for a good long while (although I certainly don't keep anything critical on them).
Laptop hard drives see a very hard life: they are built to tighter tolerances, often see higher temperatures, and they get jostled around a lot. All it takes is setting the laptop down on your coffee table at the wrong time and that hard drive is toast: once the read head actually touches the platter, the drive is dead, it's just a matter of time until you figure it out.