possible harddrive failing?

Hi,

I am posting here in regards to my mom's computer. I'm here computer go-to person.

Acer aspire: Model m3400 Windows 7, home premium 64bit OS.

Last week, one day, she went to boot up her computer and it took 1/2 to boot. It was making an odd clicking sound after she pushed the power button. Once booted it seemed fine. No error messages, nothing, and everything worked normally.

On Saturday 6/24/13, she came home and her computer had turned off on it's own. This is when she let me know of issue.

At first I was thinking bootloader issue. Now I am thinking, after further research that perhaps the harddrive is failing.

She hit the power button, that clicking started and nothing more happened. It didn't boot up at all, not even to a DOS screen with any kind of error message, etc.

It didn't boot up again until this am. She tried for heck of it and it clicked 2 times then booted up and everything worked fine. I had her plug in her flash drive and talked her through saving backups of her 'important files" (just in case).

I haven't found out what to do in this situation. She did call a couple tech folks and they also suspect possible harddrive failure. I'm not sure what to suggest to her or what to do. Is this something that can be fixed with a recovery cd, or is this possible a physical issue with actual components in cpu? Is there anyway to determine which it might be and what to do? I don't have direct access to her computer. I'll have to get down there over the weekend, if there is anything I can do to try to address this issue. Frankly, it's way to costly (for her or me) to haul the computer to a 'tech person' who charges $85-$100.00 just to 'diagnose', let alone repair. It would be better in the long run, if cost comparative, to just replace her computer I suspect. I am fairly handy with computers as long as I have step by step instructions.

Thanks.

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Leho

Emelda

If you can get it to boot up one more time, backup EVERYTHING to an external harddrive. That way when the harddrive packs it in (which is what this seems like) you will be able to get your mother's files back onto the new hardrive.

Leho

Alliciat

Yes I was on the phone with her for an hour today coaching her on saving her files to a flash drive. She's got everything she really wants to keep on that now. Far as I know we cannot save programs she's installed on the computer.

At least this way, her most critical stuff is on the flashdrive (hopefully). I couldn't be there to make sure it was put successfully, but when she tried to save to the flash somehing already on it, it would tell her.

Alliciat

Does the lack of any suggestions mean that either no one knows or perhaps nothing can be done to salvage this computer? Maybe everyone's just busy. I know this is a great forum for help. I'll check again later on.

If that's the case can someone let me know so we can move onwards to finding another computer for Mom?

Thanks. Smiley Happy

Leho

Emelda/Alli [btw, are you one and the same?]

From afar it is difficult to tell accurately if the computer is dying or a harddrive replacement will rejuvenate it. This is a judgment that you have to make on site. You need to balance cost of repair of an oldish computer (and ending up with a functioning old computer) versus cost of a new replacement. You should make this decision while you can still boot up the old one in case you want to transfer old files directly to the new one.

I don't know if this will encourage you or discourage you. I had an oldish (8 to 10 year) old computer that developed a clicking harddrive. Sometimes it would boot first time but mostly it required several aborts and retries. I bit the bullet, purchased a new computer, transferred files and reloaded desired old programs unto the new one. About a week later the old one wouldn't boot at all. My decision was made easier by the age of my computer. I could justify to myself that I had gotten my money's worth from it. It is your decision as to what to do.

Leho

Alliciat

This is mum's account, but I (alli) am the one helping her try to fix computer so I am also following this post, since it's me that will also be working on the computer if anything can be done, when I can get to hers. If she gets email saying reply to this post she forwards that to me, so I can follow up.

We have saved most of her 'important' files, but some of her programs can't be replaced if she goes for a new one. We have been pricing them online. She does NOT want a windows 8 OS based system. However, if possible she would rather keep her computer that is not that old (really), though a 4 yr old computer today is like a 10 yr old one from years ago. So that's why we decided to post here first. It's not sounding to promising though. From what I've read, I can see it's kinda hard to be sure if a hardrive is failing. Like you posted, hers sometimes boots up fairly well, other times...takes day or more of tries. Thank you for weighing in. Sorry about the confusion on who is who.

Emelda

Well, come to find out, a friend of mine knew someone who does computer tech work as a side job.

He came and got the computer, and ran a diagnostic on it.

He says it is the harddrive failing. Sad news.

So now we know. At least I had a chance to back up 90% of my data onto a flash drive Smiley Happy .

So, with this thread, we didn't really solve an issue, so do I still mark it resolved or what?

And sorry about the confusion about Alli. She's the one that told me about this help forum. She's also my computer go-to person, so is following this thread as well.

Thanks for the feedback/advice everyone.

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