While in the middle of using my laptop, all of the sudden, I heard LOUD clunking, grinding sound coming from it, then everything froze, then the screen went completely black with only "Operating Systems Not Found." I manually turned it off immediately and turn it back on again. Everything was fine and operate as normal again once I turn it back on. This occurrence happens 3 times in the lifetime of the laptop since I bought it two years ago: Once last year and twice this week. Exact same thing happens then when I restart, it goes on normal. I haven't do anything special so far, the only trick I know is "on and off and on" and preying it works and it works so far.
I'm pretty sure this is a hard drive crash. I know I have a pretty strain hard drive 'cause I'm working it pretty hard. I use my laptop about 20 hours a day nonstop (sometimes 24 hrs) for more than a year or so now. Everything is fine now as I'm typing this. But I'm sweating bullets worrying that one day when I turn it on, everything is gone with a complete crash. I have a feeling that the hard drive is on the verge of being fried, it's just a matter of time how much longer it can go without crashing.
In case this really happens (as the warning signs are pretty obvious now, eh), I should get a new hard drive now, right? What kind of hard drive should I get (and how much does a hard drive cost roughly)? I want to clone the old one to the new hard drive so I don't have to install everything again but how do I do that? Do I need to also get a physical share drive to do this cloning/copying hard drive endeavor? I know I can download the cloning/imaging program free somewhere but first thing first, what kind of hard drive should I get?
As for the technical aspect, I have a Sony VAIO VGN-NR100 Series with Windows Vista, and Intel Pentium Dual-Core processor, 1.00GB RAM, 32-bit Operating System.
Please note that I'm a novice about this and I might ask questions that may deemed extremely stupid. Thank you for your time and thank you for all your help in advance.
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P/S: Someone suggests that I should just buy a new laptop as a backup laptop instead of going thru all the buying new hard drive and whatnot and risking that even with all the troubles it may not work properly. I got this current Sony VAIO for $430 two years ago on sale at Office Depot. If I buy a new laptop now, my budget will remain the same. However, I am not sure if buying a new laptop is a smart move. I guess the main concern is if a new hard drive costs almost as much as a new laptop of my budget, then I would go with new laptop... Any suggestion which option is better?
hard drives are cheap, even laptops drives. In my local computer store a OEMwestern digital 320gb 2.5" 5400rpm sata hard drive is $70.00. The 7200k drives are about $20.00 more. At the larger stores the hard drives cost more because they come in a box. Just make sure you get the correct drive for your computer, it's always best to look at the old drive to see what connectors it has.
It would be a good idea to use imaging software to make a backup of your drive before it dies completely, right now it's running on borrow time. Theres plenty of free imagining software. (macrium reflect, paragon drive backup express,driveimage xml). You can make an image backup and save it on an external drive.
The only thing about laptops is when you restore an image backup, the new drive has to be inside the laptop (they call it a reverse clone).
