Sager NP8130 / Seagate Momentum 7200rpm Problem

[robinjtanner93]

I'm going to try my best to explain this problem going on with my old 2011 laptop. Before I start, I want to say that I cannot buy any spare HDD / brand new laptop. I am in between switching jobs and can't afford buying such.

What is going on is that my C:/ drive, or the internal hard drive (Seagate Momentum 500GB 7200rpm HDD) is faulty. But it's not dead, I know it's not. I say this because:

1. When starting the laptop up with the HDD in it, it is frozen, it cannot go into the BIOS setup or start from other media (ie. a CD or USB drive). When it IS NOT in the laptop, aka HDD is out of the laptop by my hands, it CAN select another boot device (ie. a CD or USB drive), AND can also go into BIOS setup.

2. If I boot up with Windows Media Creation, if I plug up the HDD in and out, it will see the HDD and its partitions. It can't install Windows on it, though, as it says it doesn't have enough space, or because the HDD may fail soon - depending on which partition I try to install it on.

To be more specific when I say "if I plug up the HDD in and out", if I start the laptop up without the HDD, then go into BIOS Setup, plug in the HDD before I exit it, take the HDD out right after I exit it, then go boot up from a USB containing the WMC (Windows Media Creation), and lastly plug the HDD in it while WMC is loading, it will find its contents (which are formatted because I thought that may have fixed it).

I have 2 pictures showing that WMC can see the partitions and empty drive.

I know since it's formatted I'll have to install Windows 10 all over again - no problem, I have it. But it won't even install on it.

I'm making this thread from my wife's laptop and am beginning to wonder if I just switch hard drives if it'll work.

I'm also extremely pissed because none of this would have happened in the first place if it weren't for an August dated Windows Update corrupting the HDD (I believe that's the problem).

So thanks to Windows 10. Really appreciate it. It had W10 months before and was fine until this minor security change update. Ugh.

Anyways, here's the two pictures.

http://imgur.com/a/W6rJf

Lastly, if push comes to shove if I have to spend $50 on an HDD, same make and model, I will. If you can recommend a better one at the same price, I'd appreciate it. Only if I have to though. I'm willing to try anything and everything to get this current one working.

Thanks.

 

[hang-the-9]

A Windows update would not have damaged the drive, the system not working properly with the drive shows it's physical damage not some file system issue. Using a drive you even suspect is bad is just waiting for it to fully die, taking anything you did not backup with it. Would you drive on bald tires and only change them when one explodes on the road on you?

Since you need to re-install the system anyway, get a solid state hard drive, a 120 or 250 GB one is fine seeing your space usage and install Windows on that. The reason you are getting your messages about Windows cannot be installed on the drive is because you are trying to install it on the wrong partition. If you really want to try to re-use your existing drive that is having issues, and you have all your data backed up, wipe all partitions off the drive, create a single one and then run the Windows setup on that. You said your drive is formatted, it does not look like it is, what you formatted was a single partition, not the full drive.

 

[speedtrap.91]

I'm going to try my best to explain this problem going on with my old 2011 laptop. Before I start, I want to say that I cannot buy any spare HDD / brand new laptop. I am in between switching jobs and can't afford buying such.

What is going on is that my C:/ drive, or the internal hard drive (Seagate Momentum 500GB 7200rpm HDD) is faulty. But it's not dead, I know it's not. I say this because:

1. When starting the laptop up with the HDD in it, it is frozen, it cannot go into the BIOS setup or start from other media (ie. a CD or USB drive). When it IS NOT in the laptop, aka HDD is out of the laptop by my hands, it CAN select another boot device (ie. a CD or USB drive), AND can also go into BIOS setup.

2. If I boot up with Windows Media Creation, if I plug up the HDD in and out, it will see the HDD and its partitions. It can't install Windows on it, though, as it says it doesn't have enough space, or because the HDD may fail soon - depending on which partition I try to install it on.

To be more specific when I say "if I plug up the HDD in and out", if I start the laptop up without the HDD, then go into BIOS Setup, plug in the HDD before I exit it, take the HDD out right after I exit it, then go boot up from a USB containing the WMC (Windows Media Creation), and lastly plug the HDD in it while WMC is loading, it will find its contents (which are formatted because I thought that may have fixed it).

I have 2 pictures showing that WMC can see the partitions and empty drive.

I know since it's formatted I'll have to install Windows 10 all over again - no problem, I have it. But it won't even install on it.

I'm making this thread from my wife's laptop and am beginning to wonder if I just switch hard drives if it'll work.

I'm also extremely pissed because none of this would have happened in the first place if it weren't for an August dated Windows Update corrupting the HDD (I believe that's the problem).

So thanks to Windows 10. Really appreciate it. It had W10 months before and was fine until this minor security change update. Ugh.

Anyways, here's the two pictures.

http://imgur.com/a/W6rJf

Lastly, if push comes to shove if I have to spend $50 on an HDD, same make and model, I will. If you can recommend a better one at the same price, I'd appreciate it. Only if I have to though. I'm willing to try anything and everything to get this current one working.

Thanks.

Hey Robijn,

I had just solved this issue in a strange way actually but it worked for me and might work for you too.

So the harddrive and Windows 7 I have found dont like each other very much and the reason is that in the BIOS the drive was under AHCI mode while windows 7 doesn't have the drivers for it.

So option 1 was to download the drivers for your harddrive and Usb 3.0 and place it on to a flash drive and install them during the installation process for windows 7 (You will have to brows all the way to the folder it is in.

Option 2 however is a little easier but I know people don't like going into the registry but here it goes. Before installing Windows 7 switch the harddrive mode from AHCI to IDE and install windows (You will probably still need to install the USB 3.0 drivers).

After that and once you are in windows; head over to the registry and switch the registry entry for Msahci>Start (Right click and modify) set value to 0. Once done, turn off your pc safely and start it up again while holding F2 to enter bios and switch back to AHCI.

If all is good then you should be fine by this stage. (I would first suggest doing some research into the method I described as I had to do it too and formed it from multiple pieces of forums and explanations online)

Hope it works out for you,

Regards,
Shadi

 

[hang-the-9]

So the harddrive and Windows 7 I have found dont like each other very much and the reason is that in the BIOS the drive was under AHCI mode while windows 7 doesn't have the drivers for it.

The setup was for Windows 10 not 7.