So I was asked to look at a friends laptop they said they had been using windows and the screen froze only option they had was hard reset, after they did this it went into troubleshooting mode they tried to fix the startup and it failed and oddly there was no option to do a reset they dropped it to me and a little google shows that Lenovo has a weird paper-clip reset mode, you push a paperclip into a little hole by the earphone socket that starts a reset and then there are 4 option and 1 is recovery great but recovery should take about 2 hours at best and so far it has been running all night and is only at 12% (82 hours remaining) I don't want to power off as its resetting but I cant help thinking the Hard Drive or recovery partition is stuffed any suggestions ?
No idea what is going on, but if I was in your place I would....wait. The HDD might be on its way out, or not.
yeah waiting is my first thought but 12% over 21 hours of time and potentially 80+ hours ... It wont be done till Sunday if im lucky
I wouldn't wait that long, but leave it be for a bit more, and, if there is no progress, then perhaps try again.
Always though I would make it worse by turning off, I did consider just grabbing win 10 and a USB and trying a fresh boot install from that
I thought you/he needed to recover the original installation, to save programs etc. Obviously if you have W10, do that. Having said that, make sure to test the drive...
Remove the drive and use it on another PC? Either through a USB enclosure or inside a PC case. Though there is always the risk of malware/virus so... I guess install windows on it from fresh and test it through that installation. If it doesn't even install Windows, then at least you will know what is probably the issue.
Ah removing the drive involes stripping the laptop down a bit I think its doable, I will float the idea by them
Or... use a USB bootable drive testing software like SeaTools, or HDTune, or (if you are one of those rare people that still have some blanks) grab the Ultimate Boot CD ISO for a CD bootable utility disk. This way you can test it on the unit itself. BTW, the hard drive is located in the bottom right of the unit (at least with the 510's I've dealt with). As you boot up the system I would put my ear in that location, and take a listen for any clicking noise. If you hear anything I'd assume the drive is in trouble, and needs to be replaced.
As luck would have it, I opened an IdeaPad 510S some 10 days ago to try some basic cleanup and potentially move the SSD into another machine (although we just ended making a copy of the important data and the laptop back together). It was pretty easy, I'm not sure, but I think an ordinary screw driver was enough, plus a 'guitar pick', there were no special screws and I didn't have to remove any of the feet. The drive was easily accessible too, although slightly awkward to detach and re-attach. My co-worker was mortified at the sight (she has been using the little machine for a couple of years and has become attached to it), but it came back together no worse for wear. Although, I now searched for the IdeaPad 510 on YouTube and it seems to have a different case from the 510S, but, if anything, it seems that it makes getting to the drive even easier, as it has a dedicated door for the storage bay.
Cheers for the advice they are having a think I should know by tomorrow BTW during the unnecessary slow recovery process there was a definite click from the drive about once every 3 minutes Im still pushed towards the HD being the issue
Well this morning it was 17% done and has been running for 37 hours with 73 hours to go ... so I figured what the hell told them what was going on and they agreed to turn off and try a Win 10 USB install So powered off and now nothing ..turn on and the Lenovo logo appears but I cannot get into the bios not with the f keys or using the safety pin reset on the laptop its instant freeze ..so it looks like the Hard Drive is dead as I cannot even start the setup ah well
Pulled the laptop HD and plugged in a new one and its boots to recovery instantly so I'm ordering a new one for the laptop, also when I plug the old HD into a caddy I cannot get windows to recognise that there is anything there, the HD does look dead Figure ill grab a 500Gig hd of ebay and just do a clean install
You are not going to have the HDD replaced with a SSD? The experience will be far better with an SSD even for simple tasks and an older system. Just thinking out loud.
Ah I see what you mean and TBH no its an older laptop that is being used mainly to help their 10 year old son with school work during lockdown its just for Zoom and homework so realistically the SSD would be uncalled for, once this is over I think it will go back in the cupboard
