Sony Vaio - two failed HDs

naknakkus · 10 Jan 2011 at 03:43

My brother gave me his PG7Y1M to fix when Windows failed to boot. It turns out that the boot partition was corrupted somehow. The exact same thing happened last year and the hard drive was replaced. It seems like a weird coincidence that they'd both fail, so now I'm wondering why, and whether it'd be better for them to get a new laptop or to replace the hard drive again.

I've tried to install Ubuntu to see what happens a couple of times, but each time the installation has failed. The first time it seemed to complete successfully, yet upon restart, I got a "kernel unable to load" error. The second time it just crashed 3/4 the way through.

Another thing I should mention is that their 5yr old kid uses the computer sometimes and always turns it off with the power button, rather than shutting it down - if that happened often enough, could it be the cause of the hard drive failures?

I'm tempted to recommend they go for a new laptop (I managed to get most of their files onto an external HD using the Ubuntu live disc), but the money is an issue.

Thanks.

Speed · 10 Jan 2011 at 04:47

Are you certain the hard drives were actually faulty? There are of course a few ways to check, manufacturers testing tools booted from DOS (the UBCD is good for this) are a good start. SMART tools are another like Hard Drive Sentinel.

It could easily be something else corrupting the boot partition.

arknor · 10 Jan 2011 at 05:21

naknakkus said:
Another thing I should mention is that their 5yr old kid uses the computer sometimes and always turns it off with the power button,

what does the power button actually do?
is it set to put the laptop into standby? hibernation? or just flat out powers down

on my step sons laptop i had his set to enter standby if the button is pressed and its still working some 4 or so years later

naknakkus · 10 Jan 2011 at 15:16

Speed said:
Are you certain the hard drives were actually faulty? There are of course a few ways to check, manufacturers testing tools booted from DOS (the UBCD is good for this) are a good start. SMART tools are another like Hard Drive Sentinel.

It could easily be something else corrupting the boot partition.

The SMART checker on the Ubuntu live disc reports bad sectors.

arknor: It switches off the computer altogether.

beermonster · 10 Jan 2011 at 19:35

Laptop hard drives aren't the most repliable component, we fit hundreds a week.

arknor · 10 Jan 2011 at 20:17

naknakkus said:
The SMART checker on the Ubuntu live disc reports bad sectors.

arknor: It switches off the computer altogether.

if it just shuts the power down then yea its bad, its not the smartest thing to turn a computer off while the hdd is moving at 5k+ rpm

JonJ678 · 13 Jan 2011 at 01:15

Sony use Hitachi drives for some reason. It's entirely possible that you've got two Vaios with dead hard drives, they seem to be the least reliable component used in their assembly. Replace with a western digital and all will be well.