Laptop HDD failures and replacements

[Kirikoza]

I think I have the worst luck in the world when it comes to storage devices for my laptop. I've had this gaming laptop for 3 years now and have already gone through 3 (almost 4) drives.

 

Basically 3 years ago I was 14 so I didn't know shit about computers. Mine started having boot issues (blue screens and being snapped into bios immediately) so I took it to Geek Squad. They replaced my HDD for another 1TB (I forget the brand) and even installed a new 120GB SSD for boot. It seemed to have fixed the problem until a few months later when the problem returned and it only got worse. I installed Windows 7 (getting rid of 8.1) hoping that would help, and it did, until again the problem came back. I switched to Ubuntu for a little while and the problem was still there but not near as bad (I could finally boot into my system which I wasn't able to do because i'm pretty sure Windows 7 files got corrupted) It worked for a bit but I wanted Windows back so I could play some more of the steam games I owned. So I switched back to Windows 8.1. At this point my SSD refused to appear in any of my systems so I pulled it. My 1TB HDD started making a clicking noise so I just straight up threw it out before i installed something meaningful on it that I would eventually lose. I grabbed a 600GB HDD from my older sister's junktop and installed Windows 8.1 (which i'm using now).

 

So here are the major grievances:

Sometimes my HDD doesn't boot and it takes some fiddling with so I actually boot into windows instead of bios.

My gaming performance is cut in HALF. I used to be able to run games like CS:GO at 300 frames. Nearly ever game ran smoothly but now it's literally chopped. You could say this could be because of updates requiring a more capable machine but even older versions of all my games run way worse frames than they used to. Thermals are fine btw i've dusted this thing out several times these last 3 years, my most recent dusting being in February but it was hardly necessary and didn't help at all.

 

SO. What gives? Drives not appearing in any OS and my gaming performance being slashed? As well as frequently having to reboot and mess with the drives just to actually boot into Windows. What could possibly be the problem?

 

PS: yes i'm sure all drives are up to date. We're fine in the software department i'm sure this is mainly hardware trouble.

[xitywampas]

Do you move your laptop while its powered on very much?

[NumLock21]

my mind is acting like a immature 3 year old as I read your post...

 

13 minutes ago, Kirikoza said:

Basically 3 years ago I was 14 so I didn't know shit about computers. Mine farted having boot issues

 

 

Do you move your laptop around while it's on, Shock can cause HDD failures and use your laptop on a hard surface so it can vent. It's 3 years old, it's a possibility your components are failing and taking your HDD along with it, but for that to happen is rare.

[ARikozuM]

Are you downloading materials of a questionable nature?

[Kirikoza]

1 hour ago, NumLock21 said:

my mind is acting like a immature 3 year old as I read your post...

 

 

 

Do you move your laptop around while it's on, Shock can cause HDD failures and use your laptop on a hard surface so it can vent. It's 3 years old, it's a possibility your components are failing and taking your HDD along with it, but for that to happen is rare.

It rarely moves anymore but I used to take it to school like every day before this issue started. Ntm that it all started a year after I got it. But i've always made sure to use it on a cold hard surface.

[Kirikoza]

1 hour ago, ARikozuM said:

Are you downloading materials of a questionable nature?

I used to download emulators but that all stopped as soon as I had my first hard drive failure.

[Kirikoza]

1 hour ago, xitywampas said:

Do you move your laptop while its powered on very much?

I used to like I said to the other guy. It's likely it MAY have caused the first HDD to break but I don't understand what happened with the SSD

[xitywampas]

13 minutes ago, Kirikoza said:

I used to like I said to the other guy. It's likely it MAY have caused the first HDD to break but I don't understand what happened with the SSD

SSD should be hard to shock damage from normal use. You may have a problem with the port on the laptop itself. Does your laptop have more then one?

[Kirikoza]

On 6/22/2017 at 11:32 PM, xitywampas said:

SSD should be hard to shock damage from normal use. You may have a problem with the port on the laptop itself. Does your laptop have more then one?

I completely forgot to come back to this thread. Yeah I have two Sata ports. I considered them being broken too but i'm able to run this current shitty old HDD so I don't know what gives.