my desktop is less than a year old and apparently crippled. ugghhh

[Remodeling Maidiac]

I don't know crap about computers now. I took dos in college eons ago but that's useless to me now.

I keep getting an error that says Windows detected a hard disk problem back up your files immediately and contact HP.

Well I'm doing the backup now onto disks and its taking forever. I'm out of work so I can't afford to take it in. In fact after the backup is done (seemingly some time before I die) I don't know what exactly to do. I don't have any software disks as it was all in it when I bought it. So if I do a restore will I be completely screwed? I don't even remember if I registered it when I bought it. I was so busy with work I may have forgotten.

 

[Ringel05]

I don't know crap about computers now. I took dos in college eons ago but that's useless to me now.

I keep getting an error that says Windows detected a hard disk problem back up your files immediately and contact HP.

Well I'm doing the backup now onto disks and its taking forever. I'm out of work so I can't afford to take it in. In fact after the backup is done (seemingly some time before I die) I don't know what exactly to do. I don't have any software disks as it was all in it when I bought it. So if I do a restore will I be completely screwed? I don't even remember if I registered it when I bought it. I was so busy with work I may have forgotten.

It's probably under warranty and it's possible your hard drive is going bye bye. What specifically does the error say and is there an error code with it?

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

I don't know crap about computers now. I took dos in college eons ago but that's useless to me now.

I keep getting an error that says Windows detected a hard disk problem back up your files immediately and contact HP.

Well I'm doing the backup now onto disks and its taking forever. I'm out of work so I can't afford to take it in. In fact after the backup is done (seemingly some time before I die) I don't know what exactly to do. I don't have any software disks as it was all in it when I bought it. So if I do a restore will I be completely screwed? I don't even remember if I registered it when I bought it. I was so busy with work I may have forgotten.

It's probably under warranty and it's possible your hard drive is going bye bye. What specifically does the error say and is there an error code with it?

Not any error codes, just that message I typed. It pops up like every ten minutes or so. I've ignored it for about a month. My kids and their boyfriends put a lot of gaming and music/movie crap on here. I deleted it all just now though. World of warcraft and torrent and other such nonsense.

I can run my website, angieslist and Craigslist from my laptop but everything I use is in my desktop.

Can I do the factory restore without the software disks from Microsoft and such? I remember in the old days you needed all the disks even if the software was preloaded.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Ok now I clicked on further details and it says the following.

The following disks are reporting failure:
Disk name: ST350041 8AS SCSI Disk Device
Volume: C:\;D:\

 

[Ringel05]

I don't know crap about computers now. I took dos in college eons ago but that's useless to me now.

I keep getting an error that says Windows detected a hard disk problem back up your files immediately and contact HP.

Well I'm doing the backup now onto disks and its taking forever. I'm out of work so I can't afford to take it in. In fact after the backup is done (seemingly some time before I die) I don't know what exactly to do. I don't have any software disks as it was all in it when I bought it. So if I do a restore will I be completely screwed? I don't even remember if I registered it when I bought it. I was so busy with work I may have forgotten.

It's probably under warranty and it's possible your hard drive is going bye bye. What specifically does the error say and is there an error code with it?

Not any error codes, just that message I typed. It pops up like every ten minutes or so. I've ignored it for about a month. My kids and their boyfriends put a lot of gaming and music/movie crap on here. I deleted it all just now though. World of warcraft and torrent and other such nonsense.

I can run my website, angieslist and Craigslist from my laptop but everything I use is in my desktop.

Can I do the factory restore without the software disks from Microsoft and such? I remember in the old days you needed all the disks even if the software was preloaded.

Reboot and as the computer is booting watch for the screen that says "hit F2 for" (whatever else it will say) and hit the F2 key then I believe you hit the F4 key which should start the hard drive self test in BIOs. If it's not the F4 key then read what is on the screen, it should list the self test or something having to do with diagnostics, allow the diagnostics to run then let me know what it says.
I'm pretty sure your hard drive is about to go as for reloading the OS you're gonna need at least a repair disc and that may not work on a replacement hard drive.

 

[Ringel05]

Oh and what size is the hard drive?

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Ok, thanks. It's got an option to create a repair disk. I'll do that next.

I've been stuck on 27% in the backup process for nearly an hour. If it doesn't click over to 28% in the next half hour ill abort the backup and reboot.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Oh and what size is the hard drive?

I dunno. I never pay attention to memory stats when I buy cause I don't use that much anyway. Stupid, I know. Best Buy loves to see me walk in the door.

 

[Ringel05]

Ok, thanks. It's got an option to create a repair disk. I'll do that next.

I've been stuck on 27% in the backup process for nearly an hour. If it doesn't click over to 28% in the next half hour ill abort the backup and reboot.

I have a couple of questions for ya.
Which specific model HP do you have, what specifically do you use your desktop for and does your laptop have a DVD burner or do you know someone who can download a burn a DVD for you?

 

[Ringel05]

Oh and what size is the hard drive?

I dunno. I never pay attention to memory stats when I buy cause I don't use that much anyway. Stupid, I know. Best Buy loves to see me walk in the door.

BTW when you do your back up there's no need to do the entire drive, just those files, address book(s) and e-mails you want to keep.

I'm assuming you have Windows 7, click on Start then Computer, look at your C drive and it will list the size.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Ok, thanks. It's got an option to create a repair disk. I'll do that next.

I've been stuck on 27% in the backup process for nearly an hour. If it doesn't click over to 28% in the next half hour ill abort the backup and reboot.

I have a couple of questions for ya.
Which specific model HP do you have, what specifically do you use your desktop for and does your laptop have a DVD burner or do you know someone who can download a burn a DVD for you?

HP Pavillion Slimline. I don't use it a lot to be honest. Mostly my kids did. I use it to manage my website, search for commercial jobs up for bids and watch theatre movies on the weekends. My kids did all kinds of gaming and social network crap. I bought the laptop as a backup when I started getting that message. Most of the time I spend on here or similar sites is done on my EVO phone

Yea, my laptop can burn dvd's

 

[syrenn]

I don't know crap about computers now. I took dos in college eons ago but that's useless to me now.

I keep getting an error that says Windows detected a hard disk problem back up your files immediately and contact HP.

Well I'm doing the backup now onto disks and its taking forever. I'm out of work so I can't afford to take it in. In fact after the backup is done (seemingly some time before I die) I don't know what exactly to do. I don't have any software disks as it was all in it when I bought it. So if I do a restore will I be completely screwed? I don't even remember if I registered it when I bought it. I was so busy with work I may have forgotten.

It's probably under warranty and it's possible your hard drive is going bye bye. What specifically does the error say and is there an error code with it?

Not any error codes, just that message I typed. It pops up like every ten minutes or so. I've ignored it for about a month. My kids and their boyfriends put a lot of gaming and music/movie crap on here. I deleted it all just now though. World of warcraft and torrent and other such nonsense.

I can run my website, angieslist and Craigslist from my laptop but everything I use is in my desktop.

Can I do the factory restore without the software disks from Microsoft and such? I remember in the old days you needed all the disks even if the software was preloaded.

Dont let them down load anything! A good deal of it comes with virus.

Try to get as much backed up as you can.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Oh and what size is the hard drive?

I dunno. I never pay attention to memory stats when I buy cause I don't use that much anyway. Stupid, I know. Best Buy loves to see me walk in the door.

BTW when you do your back up there's no need to do the entire drive, just those files, address book(s) and e-mails you want to keep.

I'm assuming you have Windows 7, click on Start then Computer, look at your C drive and it will list the size.

It says 292 gb free of 454.

 

[Ringel05]

It's probably under warranty and it's possible your hard drive is going bye bye. What specifically does the error say and is there an error code with it?

Not any error codes, just that message I typed. It pops up like every ten minutes or so. I've ignored it for about a month. My kids and their boyfriends put a lot of gaming and music/movie crap on here. I deleted it all just now though. World of warcraft and torrent and other such nonsense.

I can run my website, angieslist and Craigslist from my laptop but everything I use is in my desktop.

Can I do the factory restore without the software disks from Microsoft and such? I remember in the old days you needed all the disks even if the software was preloaded.

Dont let them down load anything! A good deal of it comes with virus.

Try to get as much backed up as you can.

One of the problems with HP is at some point they decided it was a great idea to put 2 hard drives in their cases and single RAID configure them, which takes, say two 250 GB drives and essentially makes them one 500 GB drive. The draw back with single RAID configuration is no redundancy, all the data is equally split between the two which means even with a back up you're pretty much screwed if one goes bad. The only way I found around that was to wipe the good drive, load the back up on it, put a new drive in the primary, load a complete new OS and make the old one a slave. That way you can still access your data from the old one which is now the "D" drive.

 

[Ringel05]

I dunno. I never pay attention to memory stats when I buy cause I don't use that much anyway. Stupid, I know. Best Buy loves to see me walk in the door.

BTW when you do your back up there's no need to do the entire drive, just those files, address book(s) and e-mails you want to keep.

I'm assuming you have Windows 7, click on Start then Computer, look at your C drive and it will list the size.

It says 292 gb free of 454.

So you either have a 500 GB drive or two 250 GB drives that are RAID configured. the best way to determine that is take the side off the case and physically look to see how many drives you have.
Here's another option to try:
Check your hard disk for errors

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Ok, I think I've backed up the important stuff. I lost the option to create a repair disk, where do I find that again?

 

[Ringel05]

Ok, I think I've backed up the important stuff. I lost the option to create a repair disk, where do I find that again?

Open Backup and Restore by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, and then clicking Backup and Restore.

In the left pane, click Create a system repair disc, and then follow the steps. Administrator permission required If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

It may ask for you to insert a Windows 7 installation disc if it can't find all the files it needs.

Create a system repair disc

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

I'm doing a factory restore now but I think its a lost cause. It says a hard disk failure is imminent and that I need to replace it.

 

[Ringel05]

I'm doing a factory restore now but I think its a lost cause. It says a hard disk failure is imminent and that I need to replace it.

When it's done, turn off the computer and unplug it, open the side panel and look to see how many hard drives are in there.
If it's only one then:
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

11 minutes till I know how bad I've screwed up. Lol

I appreciate your efforts to help