I've just woken up to a dead hard drive, and now I can't boot up or access recovery mode. The BIOS diagnostic says "Hard drive short DST check failed." Since I don't care about retrieving data from the old drive, I just want to get back to gaming quickly. I was thinking of buying a new 2.5-inch SSD, as my motherboard (HP 82f1) only supports that size. I'm a bit confused about compatibility, especially since my PC specs aren't the best (i5 7400, 1060 3 GB GPU, and 16 GB RAM). How will components like RAM or CPU impact the SSD's performance? Also, if I got the SSD today, what steps would I take? My OS was on the failed drive, so would I need a new copy of Windows or is there a recovery option? I've heard about external SSDs, but I'm skeptical about using one full-time. Any advice or suggestions would be really appreciated!
1 Answer
A SATA SSD should work well with your system. You might consider an NVMe expansion card if you're up for it. You'll need to set up Windows from a USB stick, which is fairly straightforward. You can grab the install image from Microsoft's site. Just keep in mind you'll need access to a working computer to create that USB installation media.
Related Questions
Lenovo Thinkpad Stuck In Update Loop Install FilterDriverU2_Reload