Possibly failed hard drive?

[MattBee2k2]

My friends laptop suddenly stopped working and just got stuck in a loop at boot asking to select a boot device. I finally just re-installed windows because nothing was working.

I backed up his files on my computer which needed to be done in safe-mode because I couldn't get access to the folder he wanted backed up, windows explorer just loaded the folder forever.

Now when I try and transfer the files back to the laptop they go over and take up space on the drive but the files themselves aren't there and a chkdsk will get that space back.

It seems to me, with everything that's happened, that the drive is failing but is there a definitive way to tell before telling him he needs to buy a new drive?

Thanks

 

[RamboOC]

download hitachi drive fitness test (it's bootable)

 

[Snortan]

If you run

chkdsk /r

and let it run for a while(or it could happen in seconds if the drive is in a really bad shape), it should give you errors of sectors that it can't access.

 

[MattBee2k2]

If you run and let it run for a while(or it could happen in seconds if the drive is in a really bad shape), it should give you errors of sectors that it can't access.

I did, several times. I did chkdsk C:/f/r and it'll do the same which is linger at 27 or 28% for a few hours then finish.

Although when I did a scan for errors from my own computer, it did things differently, it actually incremented up until it completed.

 

[MattBee2k2]

download hitachi drive fitness test (it's bootable)

Thanks, I'll give that a shot after a few more different things to try.