[KelMil29]

I have SMART failure on Hard Disk 4 on my HP pavillion. It asks me to press F1 but nothing happens... I'm confused on how to remove important data since whenever I press F1 nothing happens, any advice on what I can do... I have important documents, photos ect. and stupid me hasnt backed up any of it Can a professional assist? Can someone lay out my options please?

Thank you for your time

[Advertisements]

Ontrack.com

Edited by SpywareDr, 14 March 2011 - 03:39 AM.

[SpywareDr]

Ontrack.com

Edited by SpywareDr, 14 March 2011 - 03:39 AM.

[KelMil29]

Thank you for the reply but I can not install this because I cant get past the home screen. It says press F1 to continue but when I do, nothing happens... Any advice? I really dont care about the computer at this point. I just would like to get my files, photos and music ect. Thank you for your time!

[phillpower2]

Hi KelMil29
Your safest option is to remove the HDD and use an external USB HDD enclosure to copy your data across to another computers HDD for safe keeping.
Your OP only states that the computer is a HP Pavilion and unfortunately there are laptop and desktop versions so we cannot suggest the exact type of enclosure that you will need so below are the different types;
laptop Sata HDD: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817392032
Laptop IDE HDD: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817182145
Desktop IDE HDD: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817182154
Desktop Sata HDD: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817182155
There are enclosures available that are compatible with both sizes of the same type of HDD but if you let us know what model HP Pavilion you have we can suggest the correct type for you.
If your computer is a desktop model you also have the option of fitting the HDD in a 2nd desktop (if available) as a slave drive and then copy your data across to the existing HDD.

[SpywareDr]

Thank you for the reply but I can not install this because I cant get past the home screen. It says press F1 to continue but when I do, nothing happens... Any advice? I really dont care about the computer at this point. I just would like to get my files, photos and music ect. Thank you for your time!

You don't install Ontrack ... you send your hard drive to them so they can recover your data.

(Note that this option can get expen$ive. That's why we preach about making backups [copies] of stuff you don't want to ever lose).

[MrBlueEyes]

You probably've fixed it by now, but others may benefit foom the following..

Have the same HP Pavilion laptop (actually I have two of them) and had the same SMART error msg showing when powering up.
To bypass the SMART error msg, press F10 and then F1. Your laptop should then boot up normally.
Then, if possible, buy, download and install "HDD Regenerator", http://dposoft.net.
I tried many other tools to fix the obviously bad sectors on the hdd., with no luck.
Running HDD regenerator twice fixed the problem, the "SMART" error message is gone. The program is able to regenerate bad sectors on any hdd, any OS, formatted hdd or not. Of course, backup your data first. Will be interresting to see if the fix is "forever" or if the problem is just postponed. Doesn't matter much, this laptop is used by my wife for surfing etc.
Of course buying a new hdd isn't so expensive, but the technician in me always try to fix things first. And besides, it happened on a friday evening, which means a new one wouldn't be in the mail until monday.

In my case, I got the blue screen while the system was trying to boot after pressing F10 and F1. Luckily, I had a Hyatek HDD adapter laying aroound, so I connected my SATA laptop hdd to the adapter and hooked it all up to one of my desktops via a USB cable. I have an extra 32 bits XP desktop for purposes like this.. easier to work with than Win7.

After a cple of minutes all the logical disks on the laptop hdd appeared on the Windows Explorer, and it was time to run HDD regenerator, selecting the bad laptop drive. Yup, a lot of bad sectors appeared. As already mentioned, running the program twice finally got rid of the SMART error msg. Gone was also the blue screen of death.

Cheers and good luck.

I have SMART failure on Hard Disk 4 on my HP pavillion. It asks me to press F1 but nothing happens... I'm confused on how to remove important data since whenever I press F1 nothing happens, any advice on what I can do... I have important documents, photos ect. and stupid me hasnt backed up any of it Can a professional assist? Can someone lay out my options please?

Thank you for your time

[SpywareDr]

When a hard disk starts having trouble reading a sector after repeated efforts, it moves what data it can from that sector to a new sector and then marks the defective sector as bad.

For $59.95 HDD Regenerator will apparently unmark the sector(s) marked as bad.

I don't know why you would want to use a defective sector to store your data but, it is your data, and your money.

Note that if a hard drive has suffered a head crash in a sector and subsequently marked it as bad, attempts to continuously read the sector can result in further damage.