Replace hard drive in HP Pavilion G7 (Windows 8)

[rubsley]

Hi, the drive went bad so I backed up Windows 8 (legit) with Acronis. Put in new 1TB hard drive. Tried to boot from USB and Windows XP disk. No joy. Says "Smart Disk Error 301". What to do?

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there rubsley,

It would be really useful if you could provide some more information on the issue you are facing.

What do you mean by went bad? It had some bad sectors on it or it became unrecognized? So you've cloned that drive right? Why would you boot from Win XP disk as you've already cloned your old HDD?

Do you get this error when you attach the new HDD? Generally, this would indicate that your HDD is failing. So, it may be good idea test the HDD with some HDD testing tool for DOS mode.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

 

[rubsley]

Hi, and thanks for that. I guess I mentioned trying XP as I have a working XP disk and just thought something was better than nothing.

I've progressed and got the computer booting from a flash drive. The new HDD is fine. But still can't recover to it. Windows 7 File Recovery doesn't seem to work, and nor does Acronis. But then, maybe the backup from the original hard disk was corrupted.

The original HDD still works, by the way, just very slowly most of the time (sometimes it's quick n fine). I've run HDD Regenerator several times and it generally finds bad sectors and repairs them, in different places each time. It's also failed other HDD tests. So best to replace, I figure, before it completely goes.

Anyways, I may try to back up and recover again, or perhaps get a Windows 8 disk from somewhere. I'm assuming the activation key is built into the computer so perhaps that's the best way to go.

Seems like none of this is as easy as it should be! 🙂