RAID 5 - 2 disk failure

Hi everyone,
I have OSX server 10.6 on a MacPro with a RAID 5 array (4 disks). After a power failure OSX cant mount the array anymore. In RAID utility the 4 disks are OK (GREEN for status and SMART) but only the 3 and 4 are inside the array now. 1 and 2 are "itinerant". The matrix is "not viable"
Is there a solution to recover the full array without erase all and use a backup?
Thanks in advance.
Julien

What hypervisor? Version?
This forum is specific for Virtual Server 2005, but my guess is you're not using that platform.
For Hyper-V, the best place for support is here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverhyperv/threads

Similar Messages

RAID 5 Disk Failure

I have 4 1 TB HDs configured in a RAID 5 configuration in a Mac Pro. I just had one drive fail. I have replaced the drive and need to know if I need to format it using Disk Utility or will the RAID card automatically rebuild the drive or do I need to use raid utility and manually start a process. This is the first time that I have had to replace a drive. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike

Hi
If an accident was to happen: eg: accidental deletion, dual drive failure, fire, water damage etc - regardless of what RAID configuration you had it won't prevent any data loss resulting from that accident. If you regard your data being absolutely necessary for the running of your business you should implement an effective backup strategy. At the very least a backup that can be taken offsite and be restored from if the worst was to happen.
Don't assume that everything is 100% safe. A RAID is not a backup. There is always a chance (albeit a slim one) it may fail.
Basically ask yourself one question. What value do I place on my data? Once you have the answer plan and budget everything else accordingly.
HTH?
Tony

NAS200 RAID 1 - disk failure - how do i get to good disk?

it appears that the top drive of my NAS200 has failed
it was setup as RAID 1 mirror
i can't access the bottom drive
what do i have to do to get to my data?

You may need to connect the drives directly to a Linux PC. The drives are using a Linux- based file system so they won't be readable on a windows PC. If you don't have a Linux, you could try the DiskInternals Linux Reader. This will give you read only access to your files using windows explorer to view and select. You can also look into their data recovery software in case the files on your HD have been corrupted.

Hard Disk Failure, No Backup, OUCH!

I have suffered a fatal hard disk failure on one of my drives and I had to buy a new disk. Due to the nature of the striping RAID-0 array I use the other disk is rendered useless and I lost everything. Must reformat and reload software which is a lot of work but is at least possible. That operation is ongoing as we speak. It's the lost data that really hurts. Lesson learned. Conduct regular backups. "OK ComputerGods, I hear you now...I repent."
Here's my problem for this forum. I had roughly 2,500 songs on my iTunes which were ripped from my own CDs. The ripping operation took a lot of time and energy to do. Like I said I don't have a computer backup of those songs. I still have the CDs of course but I would like to avoid spending all that time and effort ripping again. I need to move my iTunes account to the new disk anyway and I'm not sure exactly how to procede and more importantly I have no idea how to retrieve the (ripped) songs from my iPod and get them back onto the new disk. I already know that I can simply reload the music I bought on iTunes. That's not the issue. It's the 2,500 or so songs I ripped that I don't want to lose.
So my questions are:
1) How to move iTunes account to (basically a new machine) without starting from scratch?
2) How to salvage the ripped music I already have on my iPod and get it back onto my computer?

*How to salvage the ripped music I already have on my iPod and get it back onto my computer?*
iTunes has an option to copy your iTunes Store purchases directly from an iPod to the computer, you'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
For everything else (music from CDs, other downloads etc) there are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists from your iPod. You'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer movies, videos, photos, podcasts and games as well. You can read reviews and comparisons of some of them here:
iTunes & iPod software
Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Comparison of iPod managers
A selection of iPod to iTunes utilities:
TuneJack Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
SharePod Windows Only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod2PC Windows Only
iDump Windows Only
YamiPod Mac and Windows
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows
Floola Mac & Windows
iPodRip Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
Music Rescue Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iGadget Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TouchCopy Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
There's also a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to a Mac or PC. The procedure is a bit involved and won't recover playlists but if you're interested it's available on page 2 at this link: Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide

Raid with disk utility

Hi there
I have an odd setup, however let me explain the whole situation.
I recently bought 2 external firewire drives with the idea of setting up a raid mirror so i could backup all my data safely.
However, it appears I cannot plug both drives into my mac at the same time using firewire, or they drop off the mac. I have read some other forums and found that you need to plug each drive on a different firewire card. As my G4 has only the one set of ports this is not possible without buying an additional pci card.
However they support usb as well. I can plug one drive in as firewire and the other via the usb at the same time fine, but now cant get the disk utility to raid the drives.
Is there a way to do this or to "trick" osx into thinking they are both firewire drives? Any hack or workaround welcome - even if it requires editing odd files via the terminal as this is a test system anyway and can reinstall if i need to.
Pete

Hi Pete;
RAID 1 or mirroring is NOT a good backup solution.
The primary purpose for RAID 1 is to protect from disk failure.
By way of an example as to why RAID is not a backup solution, consider what would happen if you had an application which had a dozen files opened. The application aborted taking all of the file with it.
How could recover with RAID 1? You could not because as soon as the application aborted all of the files would be removed from all of the disk in the RAID array. You would have no way to recover without a backup of the data. Hence data on RAID 1 must be backed up.
If you still want to create this RAID 1 array, I would certainly recommend that you don't mix USB and Firewire. Any RAID is dependent on the various parts of the array being similar as to connectivity and hardware.
Allan

"Create" button dim when attempting to setup mirrored RAID in Disk Utility.

I'm trying to setup a mirrored RAID in Disk Utility (v10.5.6) in MacOS 10.4.11 on a PowerMac G5. I've got the System and all of my files on a 500 GB Seagate internal drive and I've added a blank 500 GB Western Digital internal drive to be the mirror. When I boot from the Seagate drive and run Disk Utility, I can follow all of the instructions for setting up a mirrored RAID (except the last instruction):
1) Launch disk utility.
2) Select my boot drive.
3) Click on the RAID tab.
4) Enter a RAID Set Name and select a Volume Format (Mac OS Extended Journaled).
5) Drag a drive or volume to the set. Okay, I actually have a problem here, because if I drag the boot volume or drive to the set, nothing happens (it doesn't appear in the selection box). So I drag the blank volume to the set and it shows up in the selection box.
6) Select RAID type (RAID Slice).
7) Click the "Create" button.
That's the step that I can't complete; the "Create" button is dimmed (grayed out, disabled). My boot drive isn't partitioned (it has just one volume), I've run Disk Utility to repair Disk Permissions before I attempted to set up the RAID, and both drives are formatted as "Mac OS Extended Journaled." The only potential cause I can think of is that the two drives I'm using, though they're both 500 GB drives, are from different manufacturers. I can't imagine that would make a difference though.
Why is the "Create" button dimmed?
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks,
Scott

Hi there,
Thanks for your help!
Your explanation makes sense. I've just recovered from a hard drive failure and although I'd backed up most of the files the night before, I still lost a day's worth of email and several days worth of other files. Mirroring appealed to me because then I'd always have a completely up-to-date copy of everything, but your bad experiences with it give me pause.
Is there another backup strategy you can recommend that would give me really up-to-date backups of my entire boot volume?
Thanks again!
Scott

Raid 0 disk partitioning

Anyone know how to create a new partiition once up and running. 2 sata 80 gig maxtor's running in raid 0. Partition magic 8 doesn't work and windows won't do it.
any suggestions?

Do you really need to partition a RAID 0 array?
I'm asking because I found it just complicated things un-necessarily when I tried it with x2 160G Samsung SATA drives.
Firstly,a Raid 0 array offers no protection anyway so a Partition isn't going to make any difference to disk failure or data loss.
Also,the real benefit from Raid 0 is speed,not security,hence the trade off with Raid 1 Mirroring.
Last,Windows does allow you to change disk status through Disk Management .
Try it anyway and let me know how you get on.

Storage Spaces Disk Failure Notifications

Hi there,
I work with backup & recovery systems on a daily basis & am always seeing disk failures - it comes with the turf, high data turn over means more wear & tear... Now Server 2012 I'm a big fan on & I thought "Why not give Storage Spaces
a chance"... At present I'm facing a critical flaw... notifications of disk failures... I can't see any easy out-of-the-box solution in place.
Is there something I'm missing? All I want is email notifications in the event of a disk failure & also some visible notification when I log into the server to say "Hey... dead hard drive, fix your $"
I don't want to have to rely on the Hot Spares & the manual checks to catch something as critical as disk failures.
Kind Regards,
Si

Thanks Shaon,
Perhaps I was mistaken, but I thought Microsoft was attempting to remove need for Hardware RAID & Reliance on the Hardware for Redundancy. Based on no built in reporting for the Hardware Status, this isn't really a usable product... disappointing. :-(
Kind Regards,
Si

Neo4 K8N Plat SLI - Boot Disk Failure :(

Having installed Windows XP Proffesional, I installed the graphics card drivers and was asked if I wanted to restart. I went ahead and restarted, and was confronted with the "boot disk failure..." error message.
I eventually decided to reinstall Windows but when the "press any key to boot from CD" message came up, in an act of defiance, I decided that I wouldn't press any key at all.
I was suprised to see Windows load up.
Booting without the Windows CD in the drive results in the error. With the CD in the drive it boots - what could be causing this? The mobo, the HDs, the OS?

The Samsung ... yes, that's a sad story ...
I'm one of the people who believes that two disks in a SATA Raid don't nessecarely have to be the same brand. It even haves some pro's to not use the same types of disks, but that's another topic. They should, however, be the same size of course. I used one Samsung spinpoint (120GB) and a Western Digital Caviar (120GB) in a Raid-0 array. On the Dutch forum this array is known as "RAID-UI" . It worked pretty well, no crashes, pretty fast data transfers ... but then, one day, I had a hickup using Ghost. I saw: Creating image of C: 23% complete ... And it stood there for a very long time. After that, Ghost shut down giving an I/O error. I investigated the error and becam aware that there were disk errors on C: (one partition of two on the SATA RAID-UI). I had the whole lot repaired using CHKDSK and everything seemed OK again.
I looked in the VIA Raid tool and saw a difference in size between "capacity" and "real capacity" of about 0.064MB on the Samsung. Well, nothing to cry about yet. But I kept on getting disk errors and I kept on having to run CHKDSK. After a week I lost over 25MB and every day I lost more to bad clusters. Knowing that two striped disks have to be the same size, I started to wonder when this raid would crash. But, since I don't like the idea of suddenly loosing a 220GB disk array, I decided to throw out both the Samsung and the WD. (The WD is in another PC). I bought two Seagate disks and didn't go back to Samsung, because of the terrible answer I got from Samsung Holland.
I mailed them about the broken disk and asked for a replacement (disk is about 13 months old and there's a two year waranty). They simply refused to give me a replacement. They stated that I probably messed around with the disk, cause of the bad clusters. Stupid anser, to my opinion. The disk simply died from one day to the other.
Note that this disk has always hung right behind an inlet fan! So it never got hot.
I'm very happy with the seagates now. They're more quiet and ... FASTER! I get data-transfers of about 94-96MB/s, while with the other array the max was about 88MB/s.

E9250t with Intel Matrix RAID1 (2x 1TB seagate) gives repeated disk failures

I have a new (November 2009) e9250t Win7 64 bit desktop which shipped with one 1TB Seagate drive. That machine couldn't be factory configured with RAID1 2 x 1TB, but I confirmed with HP Tech Support that it should work ok, so I purchased an identical Seagate 1TB drvie (ST31000528AS, aka 7200-12), installed it, and used Intel Matrix Storage Manager (IMSM) to create a RAID1 set. All went fine.
However, within a few days the 2nd drive was marked as failed by IMSM. I simply did a right-click on the drive in IMSM and selected "Mark as normal". It then proceeded to rebuild the RAID1 mirror, and all seemed fine for quite a few days.
However, over the next month I had at least four more failures - in one case both drives "failed" and the machine crashed back to the prompt "Reboot and Select Proper Boot device, or Insert Boot Media in Selected Boot Drive and press a key". Each time I recovered by unfailing the drives and the RAID set was rebuilt. Finally, on January 2nd, I got another single-disk "failure" and finally replaced that drive with a brand new 1TB Seagate. While the RAID set was being rebuilt, the other drive also "failed" (back to the reboot prompt), and at that point I couldn't recover a bootable system. The original drive at this point failed bios diagnostics with a "BIOHD-2" error.
I read aboutthe firmware issues discussed on this forum on older Seagate drives earlier in 2009. The factory installed 1TB Seagate had firmware HP34, which appears to be much later than the firmware upgrade proposed on that earlier thread. I don't recall the firmware on the drives I purchased, but I believe they were something like CC45 or similar. IMSM is version 8.9.0.1023, which is the latest from what I can tell.
At this point I had a dead machine. HP Tech Support was pretty useless, but they did agree to replace the 1TB Seagate drive since it now failed even the bios diagnostics. Curiously, their replacement drive was a 7200-11. Maybe old stock or maybe that is more reliable?
I decided instead to try another brand of drives altogether, so I purchased two 1TB Wetern Digital Caviar Black drives (WD1001FALS). I installed one drive, reinstalled via the recovery DVDs, reinstalled all the apps, reinstalled my backups (yes, I'm paranoid - RAID1 and backups), and then I installed the second drive, created the RAID1 set using IMSM and finally I had a working system again.
However, within 4 days, one of the new WD drives was marked "failed" again. Arggghhh!!!!
At that point I broke the RAID1 set, and confirmed that both individual drives were bootable and worked fine without RAID. I decided to abandon IMSM and RAID altogether. I've been running with a single 1TB WD non-RAID drive since then, without problems.
Obviously I've wasted a lot of time and had a very unreliable RAID experience. This feature was meant to increase reliability and save me time in case of an (unlikely) disk failure.
So my conclusion is that Intel Matrix Storage Manager RAID1 with 1TB drives isn't reliable. Perhaps it's a hardware problem, but it's certainly not a disk drive problem (multiple drives and multiple brands), nor a SATA cable problem (drives on both ports and cables were "failed" by IMSM), and I'm confident the AC power supply is solid (I log AC voltage, frequency and THD, plus the PC runs off a small UPS), and the system has been 100% reliable with a single non-RAID disk.
Has anyone else had such a woeful experience as me with IMSM and RAID1?

Further searching shows this has been reported by many people as a problem with IMSM 8.9.0.1023.
http://communities.intel.com/thread/5036
(Subject is: Random drive fails with new Matrix Storage Manager 8.9)
This thread has almost 1000 posts, and is now locked. It reports that the lastest IMSM version 9.5 might fix the problem. People also report that downgrading to 8.8 or 8.7 fixes the problem too.
There is also this thread:
http://communities.intel.com/thread/4432
Conclusion: IMSM 8.9.0.1023 is buggy. Do not use it. It's very disappointing that HP is promoting this feature when it was widely known since July that it doesn't work reliably.

Toshiba Satellite L650-07U, Hard disk failure and replacement

Hi all,
I have Toshiba Satellite L650-07U Laptop, Model: PSK1EC-0700Q with 4GB RAM, 650GB HD, Windows 7 Home Premium installed. At the time of first use, i made Recovery DVDs which took 4 blank DVDs using Recovery media creator.
From 2 weeks it is giving problem, at start its slowdown with every application, then suddenly it started Hard disk failure error and ask to backup important files. From that instant i did all my backup save in another portable Hard drive.
I had hiren boot CD, and ran RAM test and found it OK, and then run Hard Disk test and found few bad sectors at few certain point, As 650GB Hard disk was taking alot time of time for checking bad sectors, so i stopped that application.
First I tried Recovery DVDs to restore Windows, but it failed as Laptop DVD-Writer was unable to boot from those created DVDs (DVDs are OK as had checked it on Desktop computer DVD-ROM), Laptop DVD-Writer is also working as I test few more bootable CDs and it booted perfectly, but it is not booting from Recovery DVDs.
Than i tried to restore from Recovery partition using Factory restore settings, it erases all data and reinstall new and fresh copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. It works fine for few hours than again pops up Hard Disk Failure message again and again. I searched here in Toshiba Forum and have found similar problem with other members and finally decided that it need to replace Hard Disk with new one. As It is now two and a half month old, thats why i need to buy new Hard Disk for my Laptop.
I checked all partitions of drive using Hiren Boot CD, and had found that there are four default partitions in Toshiba original laptop drive,
One hidden partition of 1.5 GB
One hidden partition of almost 21 GB
One hidden partition of almost 12 GB
One partition of 561 GB, which was the original partition where windows 7 was installed along with all of my Data.
Now I want to replace faulty drive with a new one and have a lot of question in my mind which I need to share with you guys.
At the time of first use I installed Windows 7 64 bit edition, and made Recovery DVDs, and at second time of restore to factory setting I had installed Windows 7 32 bit. I have confusion about recovery DVDs (which is not booting from default DVD-Writer of Laptop), either it has 64 Bit recovery data or 32 bit? Or have both 64 and 32 bit Data.
Toshiba restore to factory setting without using any recovery DVD/USB is the best possible way to restore Windows 7, How can I make same recover hidden partitions from original/faulty hard drives to new hard drive partitions? Is this possible and how?
On Default hard drive there was one partition of 561GB instead of two or more partitions. Is this possible to split partitions in new hard drives instead of one big partition?
As Recovery DVDs are not able to boot from laptop default DVD-Writer, is it possible to open those DVDs on another System and copy tem in USB drive and use it for booting? If it is possible than please show me the steps for making bootable USB from these Recovery DVDs.
Thanks,
masterleous
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Satellite L650-07U (PSK1EC-07U00Q)
This site is for US computers. I doubt you'll get your questions for that Canadian model answered here.
There appear to be two recovery partitions. Maybe one for 32- and one for 64-bit Windows. Or maybe one is for English and the other for French.
Your User's Manual isn't much help either. You probably need to ask Toshiba tech support in Canada.
About all I have to offer is this: Be wary of drives with advanced-format technology. See my message about that.
-Jerry

IMac 27'' mid 2011 hard disk failure with FileVault 2

Hi,
Recently I had had some troubles with my iMac and everything is pointing out to the hard disk.
2 weeks ago I rebooted the iMac and i lost all my data because of a hard disk failure. The disk just got corrupted according to what i could see. From there, i had a lot of troubles trying to reinstall the last version of OS X (10.8). I indeed formated the disk and i even securely erased it. When I tried to reinstall it from external HD or from a USB key i usually (not always) got error in the final steps of installation. However, if i use the Recovery partition to install from Internet i ain't got no errors.
With OS X already installed, i also tried to encrypt the disk using FileVault 2 and i got an error again. This time, when 2 hours left to finish the encryption. Specifically this error: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4218952?start=0&tstart=0 (Trying to encrypt but it always fails). It seems to be a common error which a lot of people is suffering, but i still don't know if my case is a hardware problem or, on the other hand, a software error.
I carried the iMac to the tech support in my city and they discarded a hardware problem. They gave format to the disk and installed OS X with no problem, so they told me to check if the iMac keep spitting some error or just it has any anomalous behavior. Actually it seems to run fine, no errors yet excepting FileVault 2, which is generating the same error.
I have always used FileVault without any kind problem (in all my macs, including this one), so could it be a Mountain Lion issue?

Back up all data immediately as your boot drive may be failing.
If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
syslog -k Sender kernel -k Message CSeq "I/O error" | tail | open -f -a TextEdit
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard (command-C).
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window (command-V).
The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.
A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command.
Normally the window will be empty. If you get output like this:
kernel[0] <Debug>: disk0s2: I/O error
the boot drive is failing, or there's some other hardware fault in the storage subsystem.

Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation it gives me an input/output error and stops. Any tips?

Hi, I have a hard disk failure so to recover my data I am using disk utility to restore the data on an external drive while booting from a second external hard drive. When I perform the operation and after having selected both my destination and source drives, the operation begins but soon fails due to input/output error. If I try to create an image of the drive it gives me the same error message. Any help would be much appreciated.

Disk Utility only creates a image of the drive, so it's no help getting exactly what you want, which is your files. If the file structure is messed up or the drive is failing then it's no help.
If you have a external boot drive and you can't access the internal non-booting drive though the typical Finder and windows to transfer your files via drag and drop methods, then you need to install Data Rescue on the external boot drive and it will do as best as it can to recover your files. (works on non-encrypted/non-Filevaulted drives only)
.Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
Are you sure you have hard drive failure, or that OS X isn't merely not booting?
Because if the drive is working physically, then there is a host of fixes
..Step by Step to fix your Mac
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro?view=documents#/

Music Files Deleted After Hard Disk Failure and First Sync After Hard Disk

Hi,
I recently had a hard disk failure and lost all of the data on my hard drive. I replaced the hard drive and reinstalled all of the software including iTunes. I am running Windows XP Home. The first time I plugged my iPod Nano into my computer after the hard drive replacement it synced to iTunes and since iTunes had no music files it deleted all of the music files on my Nano. How do I get them back and why on earth would iTunes do such a stupid thing??? My Nano contained many songs that I bought from iTunes and I want to get them back. I have found some third party software that will undelete the deleted files but it costs $69. I don't feel that I should have to pay to correct a defective feature in iTunes. Does Apple have an undelete utility? Can I redownload the songs that I purchased from iTunes?

*The first time I plugged my iPod Nano into my computer after the hard drive replacement it synced to iTunes*
When you connected did you get a message that your iPod was linked to another library, and then press Erase and Sync? When an iPod is set to update automatically and you connect to a computer with an empty iTunes and accept the message above it will erase the originals completely (as you have discovered). Also as you've seen, none of the recovery programs are particularly cheap so you have to decide if in your particular circumstances it's worth it to get your songs back. It may be if you have a lot of purchased tracks which you will have to pay to download again. If they came primarily from your CDs then it's most likely not as you can re-rip them.
*Can I redownload the songs that I purchased from iTunes?*
If you didn't make a back-up of your purchases to restore from then I'm sorry to say that the policy on lost purchases is that you have to pay to download them again:
"Once a Product is purchased and you receive the Product, it is your responsibility not to lose, destroy, or damage the Product, and Apple shall be without liability to you in the event of any loss, destruction, or damage." iTunes Store: Purchased content can be downloaded only once
You could try contacting the iTunes Music Store Customer Service and you might be able to persuade them to sanction a second free download. There have been occasional reports in the iTunes forum of this happening, however just be aware that they are not under any obligation to do so. If you click on any of the links on this page you'll find a space at the bottom to email your query: iTMS Customer Service

Satellite A215-S7414 Hard Disk Failure

Hi. I purchased my laptop 16 months ago and this is the third time I have had hard Disk Failure. The first two times were in the first year and I received a new harddrive after sending it in to Depot for repair. Here we are the Third time and now Im outta warranty and apparently outta luck. Here are my many questions, first of all I didnt have the opportunity to back anything up, so if I were to replace the Hdd on my own, does that mean I would also have to purchase a new Vista package? Also, I have a Western Digital External harddrive that Im not using.....would that be of any assistance to me in trying to recover anything from the laptop?
Everyone tells me it is cheaper to just get a new one, but that isnt practical and I dont want to just trash a laptop that is only 16 months old.
Please help
Thank you
Model #PSAFGU0IU002

I'll try to answer the questions you've asked. First, you don't need to buy a new Vista package. You should call Toshiba customer service at (800) 457-7777 and order a set of recovery disks for your notebook. They will want the serial number and a credit card to cover the shipping and handling ($19.95 standard, $24.95 overnight). The recovery disks will restore the system to 'as-shipped' condition with all of the appropriate drivers and utilties. You can purchase a replacement drive reasonably from any number of sources. Replacing the hard drive is straightforward. You would remove the cover from the bottom, slide the drive out and transfer the hard drive 'caddy' to the new drive. Slip it in, boot from the recovery disks and away you go. You could install the old drive in an external USB housing and see if you can recover anything from it. I can't think of a role for your current external drive other than as additional storage.

G72 Hard Disk Failure and Replacement

I have had a HP g72 laptop for just over two years. Within the first year, right before the warranty expired, I had a charging issue that was resolved under warranty. Last year, I began to get warnings on startup that I had an imminent hard disk failure. I backed up most of the important things on my computer and kept using. Finally, it seems that my hard drive has failed for good. I have tried to restart my computer about 10 times and everytime I get the same message: insert boot disk and press any key. I am contemplating replacing the hard drive instead of the whole computer, but I am not sure what I need to do. Also, if this is such a problem, why hasn't HP done anything to fix it. It has been so frustrating with my HP laptops that I am considering going to another company. HELP!

Hard drives fail. That is why backup is so critical. HP does not even make hard drives so I am not sure what they could do to fix the general issue that hard drives are about the most fragile piece of technology that most people encounter.
You can get a replacement hard drive for under $75. This one would be good:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145455
Here is the Manual:
Manual
Hard drive replacement instructions start on page 4-8.
Did you make recovery disks? If not we can direct you to a place to download a Windows 7 image to use with your Key Code to replace your software.

RAID 5 - 2 disk failure

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