Windows 7 dvd not recognising HDD

[rishabh]

Hi guys......I am having a serious problem with my Sony Vaio E series laptop. All of a sudden when I was skyping with my friend, it hung up. So I forced shutdown. Then it could not load windows 7 and asked for start repair. Tried to do that but after hours of repair it said 'Operating System not Found' and has been like this.

I used a Windows 7 DVD to format and reinstall but the dvd does not recognise/boot my HDD. Moreover it gives the SMART warning at dvd boot up. I tried Ubuntu too but it also does not boot my hard drive. One interesting fact is that I tried Slax Linux also. After rebooting 3-4 times it does recognise my hard disk and I can read data from it. But windows 7 does not and hence I am not able to format and reinstall windows 7.

So I want to know that how can I confirm that my HDD is physically damaged and needs replacement or it is some data error which can be rectified at home. I never dropped or threw away my laptop and so I believe there should not be any physical damage. Any suggestions will help.

I am sorry for the long post but hopefully it shall make you understand the exact situation. Thanks in advance.

The Laptop is Sony Vaio VPCEB24EN i3 - 350M processor 2.26 GHz (India), HDD is: Seagate SATA 320 GB

.....Rishabh

 

[Maguscreed]

I hate to tell you this but it sounds like the hard drive is dead.
Especially if even ubuntu doesn't want to look at it.

 

[rishabh]

But Slax linux reads it only after rebooting 2-3 times.....so just want to make sure that HDD is dead before I get a new one..

 

[Maguscreed]

Well all these installations should read it the same. I'm guessing the tolerance on slax is just a little less.
a SMART error is a hardware level error though. S.M.A.R.T. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The very appearance of that error kind of lends to a failing hdd just on it's own.