Need help with my HP laptop

[johnshaw1917]

I have an HP ProBooks laptop that seems have a HDD problem. I have Windows 7 installed on a 500 gig Hitchachi Deskstar and the OS works alright, but when I try to install new hardware, or software, it runs very slow. Also, when I try to create a system image, it quits working and tells me I have an error on either the source or destination HDDs. Since I have an esata port on the laptop, I hooked up one of my spare HDDs and installed Windows 7 on it. After that, I booted Windows 7 from the external HDD and everything works fine there. I can install software normally and was able to create a system image. So, it has to be some issue with the HDD installed in the laptop, but when I run check disk, windows says everything is normal. If anybody has any ideas about what could be causing this, I would greatly appreciate hearing them!

Thanks in advance, John

[Ande]

Run a chkdsk on you hard drive from a command primpt. This is check your drive of errors and fix them if possible.
Reboot, press F8 during reboot to get to the safe menus, pick boot to a command prompt.
Enter chkdsk /F
It can take a while and will tell you when done. when done, do a ctl-alt-del, pick restart.
De-frag your hard drive. Use either the system tool in your OS, or a third party program like My Defragger.
reboot. Your problems should be gone. If not, report back and we can try a few other things.

[INDRANIL]

Hi john check your hdd for bad sector. Two useful tools Active@ Hard Disk Monitor &
HDD Health users.

[johnshaw1917]

@ Indranil Thanks, I will look into those two softwares.

@ Ande

When I tried to run chkdisk /f using a command prompt, I got the message that the disk was write protected and it couldn't do it, but I remembered that if you open "Computer" and right click on the C drive a tool dialog box comes up where you can schedule a full disk scan upon reboot. When chkdsk began to verify the file data, it said it fixed bad clusters in 4 different places, but then it seems to have stopped working at 13% complete. The LED on the face of the laptop is lit up, so the HDD is apparently still spinning, but its stayed at 13% complete for about 45 minutes now and hasn't moved. I'm not sure if this is normal, but I know it does take quite a while to do a full scan of a 500 gig HDD, so I haven't shut it down. Please advise if you think I'm doing wrong. Thanks, John!

[JayCub]

Hi John my PC has a quad-core and a 500 Gb hard drive and it takes about 50 min to check the disk .. i do my chkdsk the same way right click on C drive and and schedule a full scan on next reboot.. i would hold out for a bit longer and see if the scan finnishes
sometimes it appears if nothing is happening and i don't think you have done anything wrong

[johnshaw1917]

Thanks Jay. I let it run for about an hour with no change in the percentage of being done, so I restarted my laptop and re-ran chkdsk, and once again, it stopped at 13% done. This time however, I didn't get any messages about bad clusters being repaired. I'll wait a bit to see if anybody has some good advice, but i'm considering a complete wipe of the HDD and then reformatting it. It would take many hours to wipe a 500 gig HDD, but at least I still have my old reliable PC to use.

---------- Post added 08-28-2010 at 12:57 AM ---------- Previous post was 08-27-2010 at 07:13 PM ----------

The problem is taken care of. I finally decided to wipe the HDD and then re-install windows. HP had it partitioned into dynanic disks for some unknown reason and now that I've re-partitioned it to primary, things seem to be running much more smoothly, even better than before, when I first took it out of the box a few weeks ago. Thanks to all for your responses!

Best regards,
John

[JayCub]

Seems disheartening to buy a new Laptop and to run into trouble so quickly John, i believe Raymond made the right suggestion at least for me anyway to do a fresh install when you get your new pc and in this case laptop as you have far more control over it than factory installs ..
Im delighted you have the problems sorted John and you went with your gut feelings as more times than not this has worked in my favor..

[Ande]

The problem is taken care of. I finally decided to wipe the HDD and then re-install windows. HP had it partitioned into dynanic disks for some unknown reason and now that I've re-partitioned it to primary, things seem to be running much more smoothly, even better than before, when I first took it out of the box a few weeks ago. Thanks to all for your responses!

Best regards,
John

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner - but you did as I would have suggested. If the chkdsk stops running, there's usually a problem with the low-level formatting. I'm happy to see that your recovery was okay with a standard format. Any incorrectly formed sectors were probably marked bad and replaced. If you have continual problems with this disk, you may need to either low-level format or if in warranty, just get the disk replaced. You don't want to continually fix the disk with chkdsk, as the disk will degrade in performance as bad sectors are replaced.

[johnshaw1917]

@ Jay When I noticed that HP had the HDD partitioned as dynamic, I had a bad feeling about it. For one thing, you can't use any of the standard partitioning tools, like Easeus, on a dynamic disk, or disk imaging software. Windows would create a system image but when i tried to re-install it, it gave me an error message. Also, HP had a partition supposedly with a full system recovery, but I couldn't access it. I thought about calling them for assistance but in the end, decided just to redo things the way I wanted them. I kinda of stubborn that way!

@Ande No problem Ande. After I got done re-installing everything, I ran a full disk check and it found no problems on the HDD. I really hope I don't have anymore problems, but I don't think I will. I should have bought a laptop like my PC, which is a build to order box, on which I had to install the OS and drivers myself. At least then, you know what you got! Thanks for your help!