Laptop, replace hard drive

Came home the other day and found BSOD screen , tried restarting but didnt work so tried system recovery, and reformatted and reinstalled Vista. That didnt work either, now it says it cant load windload.exe I ran the hard drive diagnostic from Bios and it failed the test, so i checked online and said if that happens i should replace hard drive. My question is i didnt make system recovery disks when i set up my laptop (i ran system recovery from the computer), so can i buy another hard drive and since i have a Winxp installation disk use that and set up the new hard drive with that laptop?? I could order replacement disks from HP and wanna know if i can do this first
Laptop is HP dv 6258se amd Turion x2, 2GB memory Vista

Thanks

 

yeh, you can install xp, but more than likely you are going to have problems finding the correct drivers for everything. if it were me, i'd order the disks from hp, the last time i did it, they were like less than $20 with s&h, for xp though. g/l, sos

 

this is a follow up to my problem... i ordered the recovery disk and popped it in. It loads the window files, then it shows me a windows saying "determining user partitions driver letter" on the top of the window says x:\windows\system32\cmd.exe I waited and nothing seems to be happening, does anybody know what to do???

thanks
tommy

 

it got to recovery manage after 20 min and its on "refomatting the windows partion on yoru hard disk drive" but it seems to be not doing anything and the hard drive light is lighting up or making any sounds...is this normal????? should it be taking this long?

 

bump..anybody???? how would i know its a faulty hd???

 

hmm, do you know what brand h/d you have? you might be able to run some diagnostics on your h/d to see if it's good.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Ultimate_Boot_CD_Full_d4981.html <-- UBCD (ultimate boot cd)

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Nero_8_Ultra_Edition_d2228.html <-- nero 8

when you run this program, i think it makes an .iso file, and you can use nero or some other program to burn it to a cd. then just pop it into your cd drive and go from there. hope this helps. g/l - sos

 

i dl and popped the cd in, went hard disk tools and didnt know which one to do, so i did Salvation HDD Scan and Repair all the scans produced "did not find hard disk drive"
I also did the WD Data lifeguard diagnostic and it said "error-no drive found"
I really didnt know what to with the programs and two said no drives founds soo.......

thanks again sosaman

 

another test said "problem detected on a non hitachi disk drive please contact your HDD supplier

The hard drive is a Seagate drive, cause the utility says Device 0 is a seagate device ST920821as so i ran the seagate utility it had. I ran the short test it failed, so ran the long test, its 1% and it already found 20 errors

 

if the hard drive is the culprit of my problem laptop would any of these hard drive work and which one would u recommend ??
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N=2000150380+1309729183+1035907918+1035507777

ps. sorry if we are not allowed to post links with prices..

 

are you sure it's a sata drive? i'd make sure before you order it. i'd say any of those would work, but i tend to like western digital (out of those listed). i tried looking at the warranty, and the only 1 listed is for the wester digital h/d. if your not sure what type of h/d you have post your part #'s or any info on the label of your h/d. g/l, sos

ps. out of curiosity, how much did your recovery disk(s) cost you?

 

when i ran one of the utilities it gave me "st9120821as" for the hd , and when i googled it, it gave me Seagate 120GB 5400RPM 8MB SATA/150 2.5'' 9.5mm NBB HDD but i havent opened the bottom of the laptop to check, and thats what they specs on hp website said. Also, since i couldnt finished any of the tests for the hd , both failed that probably means the hd is the problem, right?

thanks again, and the disk cost of the disk was 12, then plus s/h, tax for total of 22.36 (thats what happens when u dont make recovery disks like instructions tell you when u get the pc)

 

bump

 

well, more than likely if you say it failed the tests, then i'd say it's bad, or on it's way out. as i mentioned, the h/d's i like out of what you posted on your link are the western digitals. i'm assuming that's what your bump was for?

fyi, i'm sure all the h/d's in that link are ok, but as i stated i was looking at the warranty. i've had good luck with western digital. i don't like maxtor as their tech support sucked when i needed help, and they were almost non-existint (sp). western digital was right there when i needed them. also, when i bought my h/d's and registered them with western digital, i was able to purchase an extended warranty for like $15 for like an extra year or two. this doesn't really mean alot if you h/d goes out, but if you mostly have your stuff backed up, it shouldn't really impact you alot. you would mostly benefit from not having to buy another one right away. g/l - sos

ps - let us know how your reinstall goes...

 

Happy to say that i'm typing this message using my laptop again. Everthing went smooth installing the new HD, only thing when i took out the old one i didnt know that i had to remove the adapter from infront of the old HD and put in on the new one to fit rolleyes. Anyways the installation from for recovery disk took a couple hrs and everything went smooth, the new HD WD2500BEVS is way quiter than the seagate and much impressed . Thanks again to Sosaman for all help

Cheers!

Tommy

 

cool, glad we could help. - sos

 

Yes you purchased Windows ... just use disk and put in the numbers, might need to call them to validate windows, it's automated, or keep pressing 0 till you get someone from india. most likely india..