Question: Hello…
I have a Dell laptop with one mechanical hard drive in it. It will only boot to the blue screen of death. It will not boot to safe mode. In the BIOS of this Dell, you can select a computer check. I have run it. It takes many hours to run. After the test, it found everything OK with the computer but for the hard drive. It found three bad blocks.
Can I find shareware or store bought software that will let me repair the hard drive so I can make this computer boot? If I can get it to boot, I am going to clone the hard drive to a good Samsung solid state hard drive.
I tried system restore so I could move to a old restore point, but that did not work. I booted to a windows 10 CD and tried everything, and that did not work.
If it all fails, I thought I would pay for a new copy of a full Windows 10, install the solid state hard drive, and then format the SS drive and load a new copy of Windows 10.
I wold like to save the data on this drive if I can help it. Any suggestions welcomed.
Thank you
mraroid
Answer:No.
“bad blocks” are a physical fault.
It is a dead drive.
If this is a laptop with a preinstalled OS, you do not need to purchase a new Windows license.
Put in a new drive, install Win 10. It will figure out the OS licensing on its own.
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