Repair or replace?

[RandBlade]

Dropped my new Laptop on the floor, now its not working. It cost about £600 2-3 months ago. Superficial damage to the top-left and top-right hand corner of the casing (its coming apart), its got a loud clicking noice repeatedly and won't get past the BIOS (no superficial damage to the screen that I can see, but only seeing BIOS boot so not exactly a full range of colours). Say's there's no bootable drive.

Suspect that its the HDD that's got stuffed. Tried unscrewing and re-screwing it in, just in case it wasn't seated correctly.

Not sure what to do. Can install a new HDD perhaps but not sure if I'd spend good money on that and realise down the line that other parts were damaged too. Or I can make a claim under the Home Insurance, got accidental damage cover but with the rider and excess on that it'll come to about £240 I think and don't know if it'll affect any future No Claims or anything? First year as Home Owners so first year with insurance and never made a claim before.

Any advice?

[Flixy]

I'd suggest to first drop by the store you bought it and ask how much it is to repair there (or if it falls under your warranty somehow). Once you know the price you can make up your mind better, I guess.

[CitizenCain]

Try booting from optical disc (or USB if that's an option) - either with the Windows CD/DVD that probably came with it, or with a Linux LiveCD. You can boot up an actual OS and see what (if anything) else is damaged for free, and then decide if it's worth the 50 bucks to buy a new laptop HDD, or if there's other damage that might make it more expensive to repair than the thing's worth.

(The clicking probably does indicate HDD damage/failure, FYI, as long as you're describing what I think you are.)

Anther option might be to put your HDD in the freezer overnight and then shove it in and boot real fast. Probably won't work on a drive that died in an impact, but it does tend to work really well, once, for drives that wear out due to age... might not want to do this though as a diagnostic, because you typically use the one boot from your freezer HDD to get all your stuff off the drive, not to see if the system works.

I would personally advise AGAINST taking it to a store and giving them a look - seems like every other PC shop on your island only exists to steal computers, or swap in inferior parts, or charge £120 to reattach a cable, etc. Besides, practically anyone knows as much as your average Tier I PC tech, so no reason you can't diagnose the problem for free, and then save money buying an HDD online.

[Flixy]

Well, I am a bit biased on the store thing since I bought mine through the university, and 5 year service is included, dropping by is for free and almost always the repairs are too (had mine fixed numerous times). But even at shops, a friend of mine threw beer over his laptop, brought it back, was fixed for free.

[coinich]

I never trusted my university's repair team after it took them 2 weeks to replace my HDD, after which they forgot to plug the bluetooth module back into the motherboard. Cain's got it right as far as I can tell; its predominantly a hard drive issue. If you can, borrow another hard drive from a friend to put in, then test your other components for errors.

[Flixy]

My uni's repair team can suck for all I care, as long as they fix my stuff for free, and I get a replacement laptop with my own HDD in it, so you can just keep working with your stuff, I'm fine with it.

[Ominous Gamer]

The clicking is the hard drive, you can buy new drives cheap enough, problem comes in what type of backup or restore system your laptop used.

[RandBlade]

The clicking is the hard drive, you can buy new drives cheap enough, problem comes in what type of backup or restore system your laptop used.

It does indeed. At least as far as the OS etc is concerned the restore that came with the Laptop was on another partition. Always find that stupid. Normally I don't want any of the crap that comes installed as extra "useful software", however just one small thing I don't want to lose is called HP SmartPass. Swipe the finger and it enters username and password.

For my work data it's all backed up quadruple so that's not an issue. Keep my Laptop, home PC, office PC and in the Cloud with MS in sync, so won't lose the data for that.

[Aimless]

Cain's first tip is the easiest and fastest first option. Make a bootable USB with eg. Linux Mint on it and then see how your laptop runs. If you don't want to spend too much money, why, you could probably just use that laptop with the USB henceforth Depending on fortune and skill you might also be able to get some data offa the hard-drive that way.

[Hazir]

Never .... drop ... an .... active .... HDD.


NEVER

REALLY NEVER DROP AN ACTIVE HDD

CRIES

[RandBlade]

Gee thanks, because I really did it on purpose . I thought it'd be funny to see how high it'd bounce.

[CitizenCain]

I thought it'd be funny to see how high it'd bounce.

Dude! Don't use your PC for those kind of tests - that's what Macs are for.

[RandBlade]

Update: Spoken to insurers to identify how much it'll cost to go with them, it'll cost £225 premium to make the claim under Accidental Damage insurance, plus I'd lose 10% No Claims Discount when I renew (about another £20).

It'll cost ~ £60 for me to buy a new HDD, though that obviously won't fix the superficial damage.

[Omega]

Sunken costs have plagued us for thousands of years.

You have a car that recently broke down. It costs 2000 dollars to fix it. You originally paid 10,000 dollars for it. You could purchase a pre-owned (the bullshit marketing slogan for "used") car for approximately 5000 dollars. Now your car is prone to breaking down, but you decide to invest 2000 dollars in replacing the broken part. A few months later, you end up shelling out another 3000 dollars because of engine problems.

I know this analogy doesn't really fit since taking care of a laptop is a lot easier and its less prone to becoming an unsalvageable mess, but hey, you never know when time and chance might strike.

But, computers double in memory, capacity, speed, and etc in approximately two years (double power), but two to three months is still long enough for your laptop to become obsolete and the equivalent of an archaic stone. I think you mainly use it for work rther than gaming, so this shouldn't really affect you.

[CitizenCain]

If the superficial damage bothers you that much, for whatever reason, you can usually find a "selling for parts" computer of the same make and model. Or at least, I can (craigslist, ebay), so that might be worth exploring.

[RandBlade]

Got impatient so bought a new HDD on drive home. Wish me luck!

[Kazuha Vinland]

Cancel your order, and rather buy a Crucial m4 128GB SSD. More expensive, sure, but it's like using a... Mac in terms of snappiness. You want to upgrade to a SSD at some point anyway, so buying a HDD now is sorta throwing money out of the window. The exception is if you need more capacity than 128GB, but if you rationalize, it usually isn't an issue. I use a 80GB unit and store movies on an external drive. Works smooth.

As for laptops they hit a performance point where you should rather worry about thermals (TDP), linked with noise and battery life, and PARTICULARLY exterior factors like display quality where most producers falter. MacBook Pro 13, Dell XPS 15 w/ full HD are among the few models with stellar display quality. Remember that not all Lenovo models are high end, and that you need to raise your budget to get good display quality (Lenovo X220).

[RandBlade]

Installed new HDD, installed Windows clean. Got Firefox up and running, just trying to update Windows and get the device drivers back up and running.

One thing not up and running yet is my finger-print reader. The only bit of software I really want that came from HP is Smartpass, I have to get the finger-print reader up and running and find how to download that (or an equivalent).

Installed Windows from the link in my other thread recently so that works fine.

Kazuha, last thing I want is to be using a Mac . Got no urgency to go to a SSD and I don't think you're remotely right in saying I'll upgrade to a SSD at some point anyway so it's like throwing money out the window. I have zero intention of getting a SSD and if I ever did (don't see why I would right now) then they'll be far better and cheaper than buying a model now.

[Flixy]

My HP fingerprint sensor also suddenly stopped working If yuo figure out how to fix it, please let me know.

[Hazir]

Congratulations on un-destroying your laptop.

[CitizenCain]

Kazuha, last thing I want is to be using a Mac . Got no urgency to go to a SSD and I don't think you're remotely right in saying I'll upgrade to a SSD at some point anyway so it's like throwing money out the window. I have zero intention of getting a SSD and if I ever did (don't see why I would right now) then they'll be far better and cheaper than buying a model now.

Good call. You wanna wait for the next generation of NVRAM before buying an SSD drive. Current generations can only handle ~3,000 writes before failure, which means they start piling up bad sectors before they go obsolete... unlike spinning disks, which can last well over a decade... unless you drop them or get them wet or something.

[Hazir]

Which reminds me ... do ... not... drop.. an .. HDD ... while.... it's .. active... don't... really ... don't.

[RandBlade]

OK, something's still wrong. Windows re-installed very quickly but its going dead, dead slow to install the updates, keeps hanging forever on parts.

[CitizenCain]

That's not unusual. Even on my screaming-fast cutting edge boxes, some updates take forever, and stay at the same spot forever, even when I'm not running anything on the boxes. I'm thinking of the .NET platform updates in particular, but they're not the only ones. Hell, as I recall, it took over 15 minutes to install a .NET service pack on a VMfarm server during a maintenance window... and that thing had 64 CPU cores and 128 GB of RAM, with nothing running when I applied the update. Meh... Windows.

If it exhibits that behavior during normal use, that's a problem. During software updates, that's "expected behavior."

[RandBlade]

Its taken 8 hours from starting to install the HDD to now but I've just got the graphics driver updated and Aero activated and that seems to be the last piece of the puzzle.

My HP fingerprint sensor also suddenly stopped working If yuo figure out how to fix it, please let me know.

Got it sorted. Had to go to www.hp.com/uk/ and from there could enter my model number and then the files could be installed. Had to install both software and device driver manually from there. Frustratingly I went to www.hp.com first (American site) as that's where Google took me and it just comes up blank on the model number there, only on the British site could it find it. Try the Dutch or whatever site there and maybe it'll have what you need?

Now going to test the machine properly as being working - by installing Civ IV: Colonization - if it passes that test, I'll install Microsoft Office. Got to have priorities

[GGT]

Anticipated Failure is like Planned obsolescence. Both very profitable.

Call me cynical, but this seems to be nothing more than exploiting the consumer. Either people buy extended warranties (which, IMO is the first sign that quality and reliability are "issues" about quality and reliability) or ask questions like....Repair or Replace. The premise is that YOU did something wrong, and want to know how to minimize your risks/money.

The better question would be why are brand new laptops not tested for their ability to be dropped on the floor and come up working? AND why aren't consumers demanding this kind of durability test?

Seriously, it's like the old Timex test---it takes a licking and keeps on ticking---became passe. What the hell is up with that?

[coinich]

Um, its not like computers have ever been able to really survive being dropped on the floor. Its just that its only now become an issue in the dawn of laptops and tablets and smartphones. Of course they're trying to avoid that possibility, but since it hinges on user error, why should they try to change?

And yes, there are a few bricks designed to not be broken when dropped, but the price and sacrifices you make for durability usually aren't worth it.

[GGT]

The "dawn" of laptops and smart phones doesn't necessarily mean the "demise" of older durability standards. Being dropped on the floor is probably the most basic thing to test for. That's not rocket science.

The impetus for the curly cord was to give people more stretch for their phone, going farther while doing other things.....which led to the desire for a cordless phone....which led to.....

ie, the user/consumer is supposed to be the driver for these things. Not what the provider decides is in their best interests.

[DecoyMilk]

The "dawn" of laptops and smart phones doesn't necessarily mean the "demise" of older durability standards. Being dropped on the floor is probably the most basic thing to test for. That's not rocket science.

The impetus for the curly cord was to give people more stretch for their phone, going farther while doing other things.....which led to the desire for a cordless phone....which led to.....

ie, the user/consumer is supposed to be the driver for these things. Not what the provider decides is in their best interests.

Are you really comparing the length of phone cord to being able to make computers that defy gravity?

If you're clumsy, you insure it. If you can't afford it, you buy a case/cover.

If you can't afford that then you need to be really, REALLY, careful.

Accidental damage <> Poor manufacturing

[RandBlade]

The "dawn" of laptops and smart phones doesn't necessarily mean the "demise" of older durability standards. Being dropped on the floor is probably the most basic thing to test for. That's not rocket science.

No, its really not. Considering that HDDs were designed and invested in for PCs that sat stationary on/under a desk its probably the last thing to test for. Considering even Laptops will normally be on a desk/lap etc or held properly its not really that major even for them. BTW if the Laptop is off while you're moving it then it's far, far more likely the HDD would survive. Its active HDDs that are vulnerable to being dropped.

Its my own damned fault. I'd rather they make HDDs reliable for what they're used for, rather than for freak user-error problems.

ie, the user/consumer is supposed to be the driver for these things. Not what the provider decides is in their best interests.

And the consumer is. The consumer doesn't have a desire to be dropping active HDDs on the floor regularly, so the producers don't develop with that as the main goal.