One of two hard drives on my laptop died, can I still use it with the working one?

[Hobbes777]

I have a laptop I’ve used for probably four to five years. It came with two hard drives: a small SSD that Windows 10 was installed on, and a large mechanical hard drive that served as the main bulk of storage. Well, this week my old faithful finally broke down on me. The computer won’t boot to Windows, only serving me up something called a S.M.A.R.T error, telling me I need to back up and replace the SSD drive. The problem is the computer will not even boot to Windows, only showing me this error every time I start it.

So my main goals are I’d love to continue to use the laptop, or at the very least, have a chance to salvage some things I’d like to keep off the main mechanical hard drive and maybe even a couple things off the SSD. My questions is obviously how could I do that? I’m not an idiot but I’m not a computer genius or anything. My one thought is, since my one hard drive is presumably healthy, is there a way I could boot from that drive? It probably has 10 or more free gigs of space so if I solution required more I’d need to find a way to be able to delete files off of it first.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer. If I could get this working again this week it would be a life saver.

[phillpower2]

You have post on a tech forum asking for help but have provided zero information about your computer other than it being a notebook, this makes it impossible for anyone to even hazard a guess as to what is going on, post the brand and model name or number.

It probably has 10 or more free gigs of space

For Windows to be able to run efficiently and to be able to update you need to have between 20 and 25% of the partition or drive available on a HDD and an SSD between 10 and 15% as free storage space at all times, if you don`t you risk Windows becoming corrupt or not being able to update which puts you at risk of malware attack.

Data only storage devices should not be allowed to get any lower than 10% of free storage space of the full capacity of the drive/partition on the drive, this also to avoid data corruption.

Please note that storage devices can physically fail if the amount of free storage space is allowed to drop below the required 10 or 20/25% minimum.

[Hobbes777]

Hi, apologies. My laptop is a ASUS ROG Strix G17 G713. 17 inch Windows 10 laptop.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I did not know that about keeping hard drives less full like that. That is really good to learn.

If the model isn’t enough let me know and I’ll try to dig up more info any way I can. Sorry for not being clearer in my initial post.

[Rustys]

What exactly is the error message.

If you disconnect the mechanical drive does the system boot?

[phillpower2]

I’ve used for probably four to five years. It came with two hard drives: a small SSD that Windows 10 was installed on, and a large mechanical hard drive that served as the main bulk of storage

Strange as the specs for all models of your notebook state that there is only a 1TB PCI-E SSD present, see specs here

Are you sure that the SSD is not just partitioned or failing that the model number of the notebook info possibly wrong.

[Hobbes777]

The message says:

“Port 0: HFS128G39TND-N210A
S.M.A.R.T Status Bad, Backup and Replace.
Press F1 to Resume…”

Pressing F1 reboots to the same message.

I can’t disconnect the mechanical drive as it’s inside the laptop, it came with the two drives and I wouldn’t know how to open up the laptop to take it out.

[Rustys]

Have you tried running Linux like was asked on the other forum that you posted this on?

[Hobbes777]

Strange as the specs for all models of your notebook state that there is only a 1TB PCI-E SSD present, see specs here

Are you sure that the SSD is not just partitioned or failing that the model number of the notebook info possibly wrong.

That’s strange. I bought it from a retail store’s website and never upgraded it. I’d get more info but the computer won’t boot. I can tell you that’s how it came, I’ve never upgraded the device.

Have you tried running Linux like was asked on the other forum that you posted this on?

I’m going out soon and will buy a USB flash drive for that express purpose. I already have a USB HDD. I just hope I can figure out the Linux instructions as I’ve never done anything like this before.

[Rustys]

There will be no need to do an install on to the system you will be running what is known as Live Linux directly from the USB drive.

I just hope I can figure out the Linux instructions as I’ve never done anything like this before.

You can also purchase a HDD to USB and connect to a different system and see if you can get the information that way as well.

[Hobbes777]

I was able to use the linux on a USB and save my files. Thanks for you guys taking the time to offer suggestions!

[Rustys]

Not a problem anytime.

Happy computing…