a buddy of mine has a laptop, a few years old and has been having all sorts of problems(can't restart correctly, shuts down on it's own, slow, etc.)

So we tried to reinstall windows xp(3 different official xp discs) and each time it won't copy/install everything. We click retry and most of the time we have to skip files. This problem happens for all 3 discs, but it's different files most of the time. Could this be a problem with the HDD itself? The lens is clean so it's not a problem of reading the discs(discs look new as well).

again, is the problem pointing to the HDD?

thanks

 

shutting down on it's own might be caused by an overheating problem, or a problem with the motherboard
on my old computer, it did the same thing you described, with 2 different installation cds. I eventually shelled out 40 bucks for a new hard drive and it installed no problem on the new hard drive.

 

Possibly. Let's get some more information. Make and model of laptop? What brand of HDD?

If there is physical damage to the HDD, you can zero fill it to repair it to factory specs using the manufacturer's tools. A zero fill is what's called a "low level format". Whereas formatting your hard drive just skims the surface, a zero fill actually physically writes a zero to every sector of the drive. This is standard procedure for me when I am repairing computers. I've done it dozens of time and have only had two bad drives out of the lot that wouldn't work like new afterwards.

 

Quite possibly bad sectors on the HDD... Like Itinerant said, find out the hard drive manufacturer (laptop HDDs are easy to get at through the bottom), and download/run the manufacturer's tests on it. From that point it's either RMA (depends on the manufacturer but some hard drives will carry a 2-5 year warranty - not sure about OEM ones, though), replace, or possibly something else.

Outside chance it could be something on the mobo, but it's pretty unlikely. Hard drive crap-outs are one of the more common problems, due to the moving parts, etc.. Motherboards have no moving components and are much harder to kill, outside of a bad BIOS flash or physical damage.

"dead motherboard" is probably the #1 incorrect diagnosis that I've seen. It usually ends up being either the HDD or power supply (in desktops).

Good luck - let us know how you make out.

 

it's a hp laptop. I don't have it with me, but it has some standard 80gb hdd. One of the guys said there was some minor corrosion along the connector pins. I think it's a faulty hdd just because of that and when trying multiple installation discs it would have random copy/install problems on each one.

 

A few days late but here's my $.02

If you have corrosion on the pins i'd suggest you just go ahead and buy a new HDD. Sure, there are utilities you can run and you can try cleaning the pins but once you've done all that there still might be other issues. New HDD's aren't that pricey ($40-$100 depending on size/speed) and the peace of mind is worth it IMO. Also, many HP models come with factory restore disk sets that will reinstall windows and ALL the HP drivers and software just like new. If you don't have the disks thet can be ordered through HP. I'm not sure of the cost but i'd doubt it's much when compared with the cost of a new comp. The time you save not having to scour the net for drivers and stuff is a major plus. FYI, even if you don't get that set HP will have a thorough list of downloadable software and drivers specific to your model at hp.com's support page.

FYI the 9200x series has some problems with the restore process where it requires a recovery partition to be present which negates the possibility of using a new OR reformatted HDD. I have not seen that problem with other series such as 9100, 8710, 6710 and the tablets, only the 9200's.