My Lenovo X131e laptop won’t start Windows10. Pressing the laptop Start button takes me right into the BIOS settings screen. Sometimes there’s a “click…click” sound from the harddrive.
I can boot the laptop using a Linux Mint live USB drive, and using the Mint file manager, can see and open files on the harddrive.
Should I assume the harddrive has a mechanical problem and is beyond repair, or is it worth troubleshooting?
If worth troubleshooting, and you point me in the right direction? There are a number of youtube videos, but don’t want to waste time if the harddrive is beyond repair–
Look up “click of death” and listen to some clips of it. If that’s the sound it’s making, get your stuff backed up, like yesterday, and replace the HDD or entire computer.
Back in my day, we’d stick the hard drive in the freezer first.
Sometimes you can briefly revive a click of death drive by putting it in the freezer overnight (in a plastic bag or something to control moisture.) Worth a shot if you really need something off of it.
It the laptop boots with a bootable USB stick but not from the main hard drive, and you’re hearing clicking sounds from the HDD when trying to boot from it, that strongly suggests an HDD failure. The “click of death” is the mechanical HDD trying to seek to the right track but failing to do so.
I wouldn’t be too optimistic about the freezer trick. But instead of a new laptop, you might consider replacing the HDD with a new SSD, downloading the appropriate version of Windows 10 (Pro or Home, retail or OEM) and re-installing Windows. If it’s an OEM version of Windows (most likely) the license key is already built into the BIOS, but you have to install the OEM version of Windows. You’ll then likely need to download and install the appropriate drivers specific to your laptop from Lenovo. They might even offer the necessary Windows 10 installation package for your specific laptop.
Make sure you have all the software you need before investing in a new SSD.
Does this have a program on it called gsmartcontrol? If it does, then you can use it to run short and extended SMART tests on the drive. If either of these fail, then the drive is as good as dead. Copy off any data you can, and move on. If they pass, the drive still may be as good as dead, but you haven’t confirmed that yet.
The fact that you can see files on the drive suggests that it is at least working to some extent. Try reading and copying the files away. As you are reading or copying files, particularly if it becomes stuck, in a terminal run the command dmesg (or possibly sudo dmesg) and see if there are drive errors. If so, they will be at the bottom of the output. Even if you don’t know what you’re looking at, drive errors tend to look really bad in the output.
Booting straight into the BIOS setup may be as simple as the MBR or EFI partition being corrupted, or the BIOS trying to boot from the wrong device. In the BIOS setup, double check the order of boot devices, and make sure your hard disk, Windows Boot Manager, or something of that nature is near the top of the list.
If the SMART checks and reading data suggests the drive is healthy, but you still can’t boot into Windows, then start looking for methods to fix the Windows boot loader.
You haven’t told us the specs of this system but there are a lot of these used in working condition on eBay for $50 to $100. Unless you are completely broke I think you should probably upgrade to a better computer (new or used).
I have an X130 and it is perfectly adequate for most uses. It’s a secondary laptop for me, but I think yours might be worth saving.
I’d suggest this: Purchase an SSD similar in size to your HDD and replace your HDD. Purchase a USB to external SATA 2.5” HDD adapter. (They’re handy to have anyway and are $10 or less on Amazon.) Use one of the many Linux-based rescue USBs to boot your computer with the bad HDD connected. You should have tools available on the Linux USB to check your HDD and repair it. Then use Clonezilla (or whatever you have on the rescue USB) to clone the external HDD to your installed SSD.
You may still have problems with your SSD afterwards. For example, there may be corrupt files from the HDD. But you then have the option of running Windows repairs or even reinstalling while retaining other files. If all else fails, just install Windows fresh to the SSD.
I think you’ll be pleased and see a real performance improvement with the SSD installed. Trash the old HDD and consider getting another SSD or HDD to use for backups. The USB to SATA adapter will help you do this.
Agree with everyone saying to just replace it with a SSD. A new drive is cheaper than a computer repair store.
However, if there are no critical files on the old drive, you can also consider NOT cloning the old drive and just starting fresh, with a Windows installer on a USB boot drive. It’s a good opportunity to start with a clean slate, free of malware and junk files and old Windows backups and such. Between a new SSD and a fresh install, the computer would probably feel much faster afterward.
There is no economically worthwhile repair you can do with the old drive. If there are critical files on there that you can’t access after even from another OS, specialist companies can do a data recovery for thousands of dollars, but otherwise it’s just e-waste once it’s dead.
Definitely true. I don’t think consumer hard drives have ever been repairable, at least not in this century. There have been data recovery methods and companies like @Reply pointed out, but they’re typically for high dollar data, not for just some person’s home hard drive.
Well, I think there was an era where you might’ve been able to replace the controller on a drive with one taken off an identical model, assuming the spinning disks were still OK. I don’t know if anyone still does that, but the labor alone would be more than a new drive.
I’ve also heard–only HEARD–that spinning-disk drives can sometimes be revived by removing them and spinning them. This would work if the problem is that the bearings are going, so the stiction (yes, that’s a real word) is keeping the platters from spinning at startup: when YOU do it with great energy, the theory goes, you break it loose from the sticky spot. Obviously if this DOES work, you copy the data off ASAP.
How do you propose to “spin them”. The platters are in a sealed sanitary contaminant free compartment. Unless you own a clean room and special tools, you’re not getting that cover off, turn the platters w a screwdriver or whatever, then put the cover back on with the requisite cleanliness.
If the drive wasn’t already dead, you just killed it.
Sorry, I guess I wasn’t clear: you spin THE DRIVE about its center axis, on a table. Then stop it abruptly. Again, the idea is to overcome the stiction that’s keeping the platters from spinning. Also again, I’ve only ever read about this. But it’s at worst harmless (well, I suppose if a head has broken loose, it’ll cause more damage, but unless you were thinking of spending five figures with Ontrack, you’re toast anyway).