X201 500GB Hitachi HDD died

[aviography]

The 500GB Hitachi HDD on my X201 started making a light audible repeating pattern sound this morning and the machine hung up.

I finally used the power switch to turn off the X201, however things started to go downhill when I attempted to power it back up. It took forever and several tries to eventually get to some form of Windows 7 screen, and that's only after Windows 7 attempted to fix the start-up error it flagged, but it wouldn't allow me to log in as me/administrator, it seems to attach to the Wi-Fi OK, but the HDD is more often on than off, and I could not access my files on this machine since I could not log on.

So I ran the HDD test in BIOS by pressing F1 during power up, it's been 10 minutes with zero progress in the "Status" box, and the "Result" box shows "pass" in the Controller Diag, but "Error code 0000: Read verification failed".

I've alread called Lenovo EasyServe repair number, they are sending me a replacement hard drive and a set of recovery disks.

First time since 1998 that I've had a catastrophic failure with a ThinkPad product..........., fortunately this is more my back up laptop when I'm travelling, so I think most if not all files are backed up elsewhere, but the pain of having to reinstall all the software again is very unpleasant.

Think I will get another drive and clone the new hard drive after the software have been reinstalled, this will guarantee that the new hard drvie will never fail again!

[aviography]

On a related note, has anyone either purchased or received the recovery disks from Lenovo for their X201?

I'm curious if the recovery disk is going to come as multiple CD or one DVD?

Thanks in advance.

[aviography]

While waiting for the replacement drive to arrive, I decided to see if I can retrieve any files, and I seem to be using the ThinkVantage file recovery command, so I decide to see if I can rescue recover the hard drive.

Amazingly the X201 was able to rebuilt the OS successfully, I was then able to install multiple 3rd party software, including MS Office 2007, Lotus Notes etc., so far everything seem to be working just fine.

However, the BIOS HDD test still returns the Error Code 0000, Read Verification Failed, and a red warning message to contact Lenovo service.

The questions for you gurus are:

1. Am I out of the woods with the original drive?
2. Is the original drive on its' last leg and can still fail any moment?
3. Can I safely clone this drive onto the new replacement drive when it arrives? (this will save me a day or two of waiting since I happen to have another 500GB drive purchased for anothe laptop)
4. Would the hidden partition on the original drive containing the rescue recovery software be cloned onto the new drive? (I will use Acronis True Image Home)

Many thanks in advance.

[Harryc]

1.) Run the Hitachi drive fitness test, then you can answer your own question
2.) See #1
3.) Depends on the results of #1
4.) Yes you can clone the recovery partition onto a new drive using Acronis

[aviography]

Thanks Harryc.

I don't have an USB based 1.44MB diskette drive that is required according to Hitachi site........, who still uses 1.44MB diskette?

Maybe I will try the DVD to see if it works, after all the Windows recovery DVD does not require a 1.44MB diskette drive....

[tfflivemb2]

You can get the Hitachi DFT, along with many other awesome lifesaving tools, by getting the Ultimate Boot Disk.

[aviography]

Some answers to my questions:

1. Decided to try to clone the suspect OEM drive, Acronis crapped out shortly after the cloning process was started with the "cloning failed", I guess whatever problem related to the Error Code 0000 is preventing the cloning process from going through.

2. Windows 7 OS comes on one DVD, supporting software and drivers etc. come on two DVDs, the problem is that Lenovo sent me TWO "disk 2 of 2". , so I can't finish the reinstall until the disk 1 of 2 comes in.

Will definitely image/clone a backup drive now as Hot-Spare ready to go with all the programs installed, that process is taking me probably 5 or 6 hours if I didn't do anything wrong........., now I've got to do it again the second time in 3 days.