About four days ago, my Toshiba Satellite A505 laptop provided an imminent hard drive failure warning. I did a backup. Since, it continues to function but it's "running" constantly. I suppose the hard drive is spinning or the fan is running? I don't recall it doing that constantly.

So, I wonder what to do. I note that I can get a hard drive for $90. Is it somehow possible to just transfer the entire contents of the current hard drive to the new one?

I admit I have done no maintenance on this laptop and it's about two years old. A 500GB drive, I've only used 70GB. 4GB RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo.

Should I defrag or do anything else? Getting a new computer is a hassle, I wish I could fix this.

Bill, I would back it up FIRST, either to external HD or on line, like Carbonite.
Then you can defrag, run Virus Scan, etc. to see if it can be saved or if it's terminal.
There are programs and/or cables to copy the entire contents. External HDs are cheap and you should have one for backup anyway.
DonM

Recently used EASEUS Disk Copy to clone the hard disc in my son's laptop
http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/

Put new hard disc into a USB disc housing.

The Disc copy program is a CD image. Burn to a CD and boot the laptop using the CD. Connect the USB hard disc and you should be able to clone the laptop hard disc to the usb hard disc. After that fit new disc into laptop and all should be wonderful. If you new hard disc is bigger than the original (which is what I was doing) you now use the inbuilt windows hard disc manager to adjust things.

Hope this helps.

John

Create an Image of your HDD on an external HDD using a program like Acronis http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/index.html then replace the HDD in your laptop, finally copy the image back to your new HDD and all should be well. (Depending on make and quality, HDD have guarantees between 2 & 5 years, and its best to change them when they reach 2/3 of the life expectancy.

Windows may require re-activating after the change, however this is a simple case of following the on-screen instructions and explaining what’s happened.

Hope this helps

Bill

You can understand if it is the fan by tracing your fingers around the sides of the laptop where a grill-like space/hole is usually found. You should feel a gentle breeze.

If it is the HDD that is "working" you should be able to see the HDD light blinking or hear the faint click-clack the head makes when moving back and forth.

If the HDD is working constantly it may be trying to remedy an error it found or installing updates in the background, or doing a scheduled virus scan or whatever and nothing will ever happen. But stay on the safe side and do a complete backup, most external USB hard drives have a kind of "complete backup" or "ghost" program in the box.

I noticed that the laptop is "about two years old". Why don't you check if the warranty has not expired? The Toshibas in my country have a "no questions asked" warranty policy, like if you are bored with it, you drop it on the pavement and they give you a new one, no questions asked.

For info, the disc I cloned is running Windows Vista Home and did not require re-activation.

Could just have been lucky - I have no idea how much of a PC's hardware you can change before reactivation is triggered!

Anyone got a clue...

My dog chewed the power supply to this laptop a few months ago. I bought a recplacement on ebay. Has worked fine but yesterday, I stepped on it and it was blazing hot! So hot, couldn't hold it. I immediately pulled the plug and ran the laptop off the battery until it ran out of juice.

Today, I am plug powered again and note that my laptop... the fan has quit running all the time.

I am curious if perhaps the culprit is not the hard drive but... could the power supply be going bad and have made the hard drive act weird? I guess too early to tell what is going on here. I have it backed up.

I have a pair of Satelit p25 toshiba top end computers now about 4 years old cost 2800.00 USD each new from Best Buy.
My wifes has failed but she never ever did anything but use and abuse it.
I take good care of mine, cleaning out the junk everyweek, do a disk clean, registry clean using JV16 tool and then a defrag. After all that is done, I do a back up to an external hard drive through usb.
Mine is just like new. Both have always run a really hot power supply. It is hot enought that I don't touch it when it is on and keep it on an insulator on the table. The fan runs most of the time once it is warmed up, unless it is hibernating. Both these computers have 17 inch screens if that makes any difference. The batteries lasted about 2 years and were replaced but not used a lot except on motorhome trips.
these have not been coddled but used a lot. The failure on my wifes toshiba is the cable between the mother board and the monitor screen. I guess two many times of opening and closing it. The cost to repair was such that I bought her a new Laptop because the value of the toshiba was less then the repair cost.
Bebop

[This message has been edited by BEBOP (edited 12-21-2010).]

2 things..
1 maybe that power supply is not the right one? It has to have the capacity to handle that PC.

2 maybe there is lots of dirt in the laptop? IF SO it will run hot and the fan may run all the time..not good for any of it.
I clean mine out once a year...remove the bottem cover if you can...then, with it OFF spray clean it with air (the air in cans you get for pc's)

Lee S.

[This message has been edited by leeboy (edited 12-21-2010).]

Talking of heat, my son's laptop (as mentioned above) started running hot and locking up. Turns out the fan outlet grill was full of fluff - something to do with having 3 cats I suppose! Had to remove the bottom cover of the laptop to get at the fan outlet but having cleaned it thoroughly the PC now runs very cool with no lockups.

Laptop power supplies can run hot in normal conditions, especially if they are only just powerful enough for the computer concerned, so it may not be a fault as such. However too hot to touch does sound rather suspicious! Nevertheless there are a lot of generic laptop supplies out there so it shold be possible to get an "over rated" PSU, which ought to run cooler.