Pavilion notebook has two hard drives

[dana7254]

Hello,
I had a hard disk failure and ordered a 500gb hard drive to replace it. When I removed the cover, there are two hard drives, I assume 250gb each. What do I do now? Are they both bad? How can I tell?

 

[WR2]

Hello dana7254;

You did not list the model of HP Pavilion.

It's possible to attach a laptop hard drive as a 2nd hard disk in a desktop computer for testing.

 

[WR2]

Also might be a good idea to mention the make and model of the replacement drive as well.

 

[christop]

Like Wr2 said pull both drives and test them to see which one failed. I don't know if you have a ide-sata to usb adapter so you can hook it up to a functioning computer and see which one is busted.

 

[WR2]

I'm guessing it might have had a RAID setup.
But I don't know if it was RAID 0 or RAID 1. RAID 1 would be some type of 'Data Security' option and Windows would have reported 250GB HDD.

 

[simonyee04]

Hi,
Did you make a recovery DVD for the Operating system?

 

[dana7254]

I didn't have any of the things mentioned in your advice. The hdd in the 1st bay is apparently the one that's bad. I figured this out after a lot of trial and error. But my laptop did not like the 500gb hdd to be in the 1st bay. I took the 250gb hdd out of the 2nd bay, put it in the 1st bay, and put my new 500gb hdd in the 2nd bay. I had to request a copy of the recovery disks to restore my system. Everything seems to be working right now. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Thank you everyone for all your advice.

I didn't have any of the