Do I have a Bad HDD or a Bad Windows Install?

[chasfh]

I have a Lenovo T530, Win 7 Home.

My computer was starting to act a little buggy the last few days, while on vacation. My intention was to diagnose it when I got home, but the machine wouldn’t wait.

Last night it got stuck shutting down. I hard shut it down.

This morning I get this error trying to boot up: 2100: Detection error on HDD0 (Main HDD). Apparently common on Lenovo machines.

I get past this into Startup Repair, which failed.

I then get the option to System Restore, which I have several points established, but they all failed.

At this point I get the Windows startup screen, which is on for only a couple of seconds, before it goes to this BSOD for a millisecond.

Then it gives me some options like, again, Startup Repair, System Restrore, or Lenovo’s reformatting option.

The last of which I am loathe to go right to, but would be a last resort. (I do have a partitioned drive on which I created a second drive for data, so hopefully it reformat only the original C drive and not the new E drive.)

Is there any other thing I can try here before I go to the last resort? I appreciate any insights you can provide. Thanks.

BTW, I could only upload one screenshot to this forum via iOS. If my laptop were working and I could log into it, I could upload all the screenshots!

 

[samuria]

A hard shut down could cause file structure errors so first step is get to a cmd prompt and run chkdsk c: / r second is to goto disk makers site and download their disk test tool which will tell you if the disk is ok

 

[chasfh]

FYI I went ahead and reformatted since the machine needed it anyway. I lost some data and a few emails because it was a crash and not a planned reformat, but I'm back on the horse and things look OK out of the gate.