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I've an oldish HP laptop which is really only used from browsing.
It's got a Samsung 500GB SSD hard-drive (of which about 350GB is still free). It (the laptop) crashed the other night with a green screen of death. I got it booted again and ran a variety of HP and Samsung diagnostic tools.
Both report some errors with the Samsung Magician diagnostic reporting one bad LBA (whatever that is...). I've attempted to fix it using Magician and I've also run CHKDSK
It seems as though it can't be fixed as repeating the scan shows the same bad LBA
Having said all that, it now boots up ok in Windows. So, bearing in mind it's just used for browsing (mostly streaming), I'm tempted just to ignore the fault. Thoughts?
(I have a old Windows 10 image on a USB and I can, at the moment, take a copy of folders/data I need. Would a format and fresh install of Windows be able to circumvent the bad LBA?
Alternatively, are there any other tools for fixing an SSD I should try?
Would a format and fresh install of Windows be able to circumvent the bad LBA?
If you're going to do that, you might as well replace the SSD while you're at it.
If that error definitely relates to the SSD, then it might be worth just replacing it - you can get a 500GB SSD for £30 or so.
I'd not be taking the risk with it, but then if you have no data on it I suppose it's not super-critical to fix.
Feel your pain, just had to teach myself basic command prompt skills after my HP laptop got stuck in a boot/bios loop (as the drive had insufficient space to use the backup/reinstall options)
I'd backup, create a boot usb stick, swap in a new drive and reinstall. The only other suggestion would be if you can partition out the damaged section of the drive to prevent it being used but I don't know anything about whether that's possible.
Having said all that, it now boots up ok in Windows. So, bearing in mind it’s just used for browsing (mostly streaming), I’m tempted just to ignore the fault. Thoughts?
My limited experience here is that once faults develop they spiral quickly. Replacement SSDs are so cheap it’s mad not to. You could buy a cheap exclosure for the old drive and use it as a portable or backup drive if you wanted.
My limited experience here is that once faults develop they spiral quickly
Hmmm...so is there any point in paying significantly more money for a "named" brand. This Samsung is only about three years old...
You could buy a cheap exclosure for the old drive and use it as a portable or backup drive if you wanted
Unsure I’d be using a failing drive as a ‘backup’.
Replace the drive OP
If you only use it for browsing, I'd probably ignore the error until it dies. Where's the downside here?
Storage is cheap these days and a Samsung EVO would be my first pick, I wouldn't let one failure put you off the brand.
Slightly different topic but the laptop in question does have about 30GB of files under my username.
I'm ~80% confident that the vast majority of this data is already backed up on an external HD and any current/important stuff is backed up to One Drive or Google Drive.
As a sanity check, is there any recommended software for scanning and comparing internal and external HD to check for/consolidate any duplicates?
As a sanity check, is there any recommended software for scanning and comparing internal and external HD to check for/consolidate any duplicates?
Yes. You can compare using the command line. if I remember correctly Diff is the command. Or it could be winmerge or windiff
Easier would be to use proper backup software as your method sounds a bit risky.