# Solved: SMART Errors 1720, HDD test 07 fail



## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

I have an Hp pavilion ze4600 laptop. When the computer starts I get a 

"SMART Failure Predicted on hard disk 0: Toshiba MK4025GAS-(PM)"
"1720 At least one driver attribute has exceeded the maufacturers threshold, please run Drive Self Test in ROM setup"

When I run the Drive self test in the BIOS I recieve the Error "07 Fail"

Also, the user said that the computer would easily freeze and she would have to restart it manually with the power switch.

I don't want to buy a new Hard drive if her computer is going to keep freezing. If that is the case it might be time to buy a new laptop. I can't seem to find any results on an "07 fail" error either. I just thought I would post and see what you uys think. Is it worth buying a new HDD or is this laptop almost dead?


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## Wolfeymole (Jun 18, 2005)

It could well be that the hdd is history, you could of course try freezing it overnight and see if you can get it to function.
I can see you saying "What!! Freeze it" but it can work, doubt me? Look here
If you can't, then get a new drive, the laptop it's self is still ok.


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

Freezing it and then slaving to another system is fine for reading it, but it sounds like you can do that now so I would be copying and backing up what you can and buying a new drive quickly.


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## gurutech (Apr 23, 2004)

That blog says he only froze the HD for an hour. I froze mine overnight, and was able to get a bunch of data off of it. (Mine too was a Maxtor)


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

The reason the laptop could be freezing is that the drive is failing, or it could be a Windows/software error.

A new hard drive is a lot cheaper then a new laptop.


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

Alright thank you guys for replies. I wanted to get a few opinions before I just started tearing into things. I'm a little new to hardware repair with laptops. I just didn't want to replace the drive and find out that something else was cuasing the freezing. You guys make it sound like the freezing can only be cuased by either software or a bad hard drive so I'll probably try replacing the hard drive. Depends on what the owner wants to do.

I haven't tried hooking the HDD up to another computer yet. I didn't know you could freeze it though. If my desktop computer can't read the disk I will have to try that. I'm sure that it will though, becuase the laptop bios does recognize the disk and it trys to boot. If it does read it I will probably run chkdisk too just to see what it says.

Thankyou guys for the replies. The freezing the HDD technique will be useful for me even in the future. I'll probably only try it as a last resort method though. If you guys have any other Information let me know. I probably won't try repairing anything for a while though becuase the windows disk and drivers that came with the computer aren't available.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

No, it can be caused by a lot of things, sorry if it seemed like those are the only causes. But since the drive is failing its a very likely candidate for the cause. If you replace the drive and do a clean install of Windows and it stops then you'll know its the drive or the software that was the cause.


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

Oh one more little question before I do something stupid. Like I said before, Laptop hardware repair is a little new to me. I know that to replace a part in a laptop (system board especially) you want to get a replacement part from the same manufacturer or it might not fit in the case. Does this apply to HDDs, or can I order a 2.5" HDD from any manufacturer? Obvioulsy, it would have the same connectors: SATA or IDE. Just didn't want to order a part and then have to send it back becuase it doesn't fit. I thought I would get a little reassurance.


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## Wolfeymole (Jun 18, 2005)

The only downside to me would be if it was still under warranty.
Obviously if Sony made the laptop they would recommend the hdd that they use etc.


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

Brum said:


> Oh one more little question before I do something stupid. Like I said before, Laptop hardware repair is a little new to me. I know that to replace a part in a laptop (system board especially) you want to get a replacement part from the same manufacturer or it might not fit in the case. Does this apply to HDDs, or can I order a 2.5" HDD from any manufacturer? Obvioulsy, it would have the same connectors: SATA or IDE. Just didn't want to order a part and then have to send it back becuase it doesn't fit. I thought I would get a little reassurance.


 A 2.5 hard drive is a 2.5 hard drive...not to worry!


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

Well I ran into a problem that I didn't see coming. This particular HDD has an interface that I have never seen before. It looks like the old ISA ports that predated PCI.

Laptop Name: Hp pavilion ze4600

HDD Name: Toshiba MK4025GAS

If I find a Picture I'll post it but I couldn't find one very quickly.

Any Ideas? I Can't hook it up to my desktop computer with that interface.


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

LOL!!! Wow, I just had a huge brain fart. When I looked the drive up on the internet I could only find drives that were IDE. I finally took the HDD out of the 'frame' or removable holder and figured out the the peice I was looking at was just an IDE to whatever that was connection. Ill hook it up to my desktop now and see what i get.


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

Well, I am running out of dumb ideas. I went to hook up the drive and found out that it is ATA-6. I can't hook it up to my desktop without some sort of connector. Any Ideas?


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## Wolfeymole (Jun 18, 2005)

Have a look at this


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Unless he's in India, this is probably easier to get. 

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HD-108&cat=HDD


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## Wolfeymole (Jun 18, 2005)

I could have sworn the question was about adapters not Where to go for my next Holiday.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Since the link you posted was only available in India, I assumed you'd be going there to pick it up for him.  FYI, he's in the US, Nebraska.


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

lol, INDIA!?!?!. lol. anyways.

I did find one on tiger direct. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2329310&CatId=68

I find it pointless to buy a cable online and then pay more for shipping and handling though. Instead, I went down to my local computer hardware store. I also figured I could get it instantly there. When I asked the guy, he wasn't sure if he had one at first. He went in back, looked, and brought out a broken one. He told me that those converters cost around $35-40 and he could sell me one for $45. He also told me that the $45 would be cheap becuase they didn't mark it up much. He then grabed a 2.5" external case and tried to sell me it for $30. Told me it was the best route to go and any IDE converter for $5 is broken. Normally I would buy the external case becuase it would be easy, but he made me angry so I told him he was full of himself and left.

So, lol, now I am trying it the cheap but harder route . I already have a 3.5" external hard drive. I figured I would just install winXP onto the external drive and then pull the files off. I don't think the laptop supports that though becuase when I tell it to install I get the error message "Your computer's startup program cannot gain access to the disk containing the partition or free space you chose. Setup cannot install Windows 2000 on this hard disk." I checked the BIOS and looks like everything is enabled to me.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=244919

Also, the guy at the hardware store recommended a repair reinstallation. I was worried about loosing the data that way becuase of the damaged HDD. Would you guys recomend that?


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

bump


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Well a Repair install will NOT doing anything to fix a failing hard drive so that pointless.

If there's no markup why can they be bought for $5 online? $5 versus $45 is a big difference. And why did he try to sell you one for $5 dollars more when he said they only cost $30-40, a broken one at that. Shipping from most sites for something like that is going to be about $7.

You could buy a USB IDE drive enclosure if you wanted too, it'll do the job and its funny how it costs less then just the adapter and yet has a lot less electronics and casing...

You can't install Windows XP on an external drive, Windows resets the USB controller during the bootup and then it'll blue screen, and it would be slow and the laptop must support booting from a USB drive.


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

Thanks for the info Triple6. I have no idea what that computer hardware guy was talking about with his pricing stuff. All I know was he had me angry and going off on a tangent. (hint to why I type that big long paragraph with not much of a point to it, lol). One more question though before I break down and spend the money on either an adapter or USB Enclosure.

I realize that doing a repair reinstall will not fix a broken HDD. What makes sense though is it will rewrite the files on the currupt sector somewhere else. I have seen windows completely reformated on a dieing hard drive. It was pointless, but it did give the user about a week of use on his computer before it crashed on him for good. The question is, should I try repair reinstalling windows to get the data off of the dieing hard disk drive?


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

I thought the computer did boot Windows though? If so why do a Repair?

If you want to move the data from the corrupt sectors then just run CHKDSK /R on the drive from the Recovery Console or if its booting Windows then initiate the scan from Windows by going to a Command Prompt and typing CHKDSK /R or by right clicking on the drive in My Computer and going to Properties and Tools, and selecting both options for CHKDSK.


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

The computer trys to boot windows but it crashes and restarts. That is the entire reason I need to get the drive hooked up to my desktop. I can't get any data off of it and I don't want to make it die and loose the data. Thats also why I wanted to boot from an external drive. I didn't care how slow it was becuase it was only temporary. I just wanted to be able to get data off of the other drive so it can be replaced. 

I didn't even think about being able to use recovery console to run chkdisk! Thanks for the idea. I tend to forget about using recovery console. I'll try it and tell you how it worked. (I feel like an idiot for not thinking of that one.)


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

I didn't know I couldn't install windows to a USB drive though. (I also realize a computer must support booting from a USB device, just to make sure that is clear.) My next thought is taking the external drive out of the USB case and installing windows to it. Problem is that winXP won't boot on another system. WinXP will only boot on the system it is installed on becuase it loads drivers for that particular hardware setup. For future reference though, does win98 work the same way? Could I install win98 to a drive, place it in a USB enclosure, and boot win98 from a different computer that it was installed on using the USB enclosure?


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

Not straight up but you can go and boot into safe mode and them into Control panel and uninstall everything in Device manager and then reboot and let Windows out it back using 98.
There was also a registry setting you could delete (enum) that would accomplish the same thing in Me or 98.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Windows 95 to Windows XP do not take well to being moved from one set of hardware to another - its possible that they may work just fine, or may need to little work to be moved, or never work at all. Its was easier to move Windows 98 and ME then it is to move XP but its still possible to move XP almost perfectly. But thats a side note.

Honestly the solution here should be to buy a laptop IDE converter and just copy the data off.

Windows 98 will not be able to access the drive if its NTFS and not FAT32 anyway without third party software anyway.


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Another option is if you do have an external drive already is to download the free version of Acronis 7: http://www.acronis.com/mag/vnu-ati7 and make a backup image of the hard drive. That image can then be mounted on another computer that has True Image installed and the data that you want can be copied off.


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

Rich-M, I think I cught most of what you were trying to say but I think you lost me.

That is a good point Triple. It doesn't do me any good to boot a computer from win98 if win98 can't read NTFS. Acronis might come in handy if I need it some other time.


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

As for the data I need off of the Laptop: I finally got it. Windows recovery console pulled it off. I ran chkdsk and it rewrote all the bad sectors on the hard drive. Thank you for the idea Triple6. You saved me 15 bucks. I still can't beleive that I didn't think of that. 

Anyway, I'm going to tell the owner that the HDD is shot and give her the options she has to fix it: 1) check to see if the warranty is still good. The computer is only 3 years old. 2) buy a new hard drive. or 3) buy a new computer. 

Thanks for helping me out guys. Its always nice to get outside opinions. You never know what you might overlook.


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## Kalstolyn (Oct 28, 2006)

Honestly, Dell's policy is to replace hard drives that fail with an error code 07. If your warranty is still good, it won't cost you a cent. If not, you'll have to buy a new one.

chkdsk /r marks the bad sectors so that windows won't try to use them, but they are still there, and you are going to have more and more bad sectors over time until your drive fails completely. Please please please make sure you're backing up your data on a regular basis, as a total faliure could occur at any time from this point on.


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## Brum (Sep 26, 2006)

Kalstolyn,
1) First of all, the laptop isn't a Dell, its an Hp. 

2) Obviously, using the warranty would be the cheapest route. That is why I listed it as option number one. 

3) I realize what chkdsk does. Thats why I ran it. So, that way I could get the computer to boot and get the data off of the HDD before it fails. (Once again, Thank you triple6, you saved me 15 bucks, by reminding me that I could do that from recovery consule.) 

4) The reason I needed the data off the HDD was becuase it needs to be replaced, so obviously I am trying to back up the data so I can replace the HDD.

So Please Please Please don't tell me what I already know. It's kinda insulting.


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