It is a laptop HDD. SATA I think. So, that resumes it all.

To make things even more clear, I was playing some games yesterday night, (San Andreas, Windows 10, lots of bugs) and the game freeze. Kinda expected to happen in modern Windows versions. So I shutdown the computer via CMD. After the "Shutting down" windows message, the screen goes black, and after some time in black it actually shut down. Yesterday I wasn't in the mood to wait so I keep the power button pressed until it goes down.

My surprise came when I turn On the laptop again... There appears a BIOS warning me about an HDD malfunction. I analyze the HDD trough BIOS and it found that the HDD is damaged :'(

BUT, Windows does load, always start giving me a warning message about an HDD malfunction, suggesting me to make an urgent data backup and that stuff.

So far, I have like 1 hour making some data backups, and the computer hasn't freeze, stop working or something simirlar; it is working just fine. in fact, I am writing this lines in my laptop, no problems so far.

So, all this reduces to: Is my HDD damaged, or is some component in the Motherboard (The one that checks the HDD) who get damaged? How can I check what is actually damaged? And if my HDD is damaged, will a low level format fix it or LLF only works for an old mechanic IDE HDD?

If someone knows a good forum where I can get help, I will be more than grateful to get that site address.

Thanks in advance!

If the HDD is damaged (Ie, it has a mechanical failure or damaged sectors) just formatting won't do it.

If there's a mechanical failure the only way to fix it is by salvaging another hard drive of the same model and replacing the broken piece. This isn't always possible.

If you have damaged sectors, you need to fully check the disk structure so that damaged sectors can be marked as such and thus ignored by the disk. Formatting won't do this - checkdisk, however, will.

There's also always a chance that a mechanical failure can damage the plates. If this happens you're SOL and all data will be lost and impossible to recover. Plan ahead as if this was the cause and back everything up immediately. Then try with a checkdisk, preferably while booting from a USB (So the drive isn't being used for anything and you can fully check it). Then, depending on what the checkdisk tells you, plan to replace it or to keep it - but do keep in mind that if the disk drive is developing damaged sectors, or worse, clusters, it's likely that it won't last much longer. Once a disk starts having damaged clusters for no specific reason it usually goes the way of the dodo quite fast even if you manage to recover it.

Find Victoria 4.46b freeware.
Setup tab -> check Only non-destructive functions
SMART tab -> click Get SMART -> right click -> copy ALL to clipboard -> post here or wherever somebody may help you
Tests -> Start and see how really bad it is.. (make sure radio button is set to Ignore first..)

Reminds me i was having trouble with my gaming hard drive(storing my games), got it to work again and then copied all the games to another drive... about 2 weeks later the drive stops working...

Which is probably a good thing i got everything transferred...

Has a similar bunch of crap this year myself. While perhaps not immediately useful, this seems to be a good, cost effective plan for future backups / issues:

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/looking_for_the_name_of_advice_on_a_doohickey/post3

Use Hirens Boot CD, check the disk health, when it's fu**ed up, create a clone of the disk image, get a new hdd of the same size, put clone on the new hdd, done.

If the HDD is damaged physically, there is nothing to be done.

10:43:35 : Get S.M.A.R.T. command... OK
10:43:36 : SMART status = BAD

SAMSUNG HM641JI S25YJ9BB902587
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ID Name Value Worst Tresh Raw Health
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Raw read error rate 1 1 51 33115 •
2 Throughput perfomance 252 252 0 0 •••••
3 Spin-up time 89 87 25 3412 ••••
4 Number of spin-up times 99 99 0 1853 ••••
5 Reallocated sector count 252 252 10 0 •••••
7 Seek error rate 252 252 51 0 •••••
8 Seek time perfomance 252 252 15 0 •••••
9 Power-on time 100 100 0 22395 •••••
10 Spin-up retries 252 252 51 0 •••••
11 Recalibration retries 99 99 0 1036 ••••
12 Start/stop count 99 99 0 1841 ••••
183 unknown attribut 252 252 10 0 •••••
184 End-to-End error 252 252 48 0 •••••
186 unknown attribut 252 252 0 0 •••••
187 Reported UNC error 100 100 0 31103 •••••
188 Command timeout 252 252 0 0 •••••
190 Airflow temperature 60 46 40 40°C/104°F ••••
191 G-SENSOR shock counter 87 87 0 10034 ••••
192 Power-off retract count 252 252 0 0 •••••
193 Load/unload cycle count 83 83 0 181568 ••••
194 HDA Temperature 60 46 0 40°C/104°F ••••
195 Hardware ECC recovered 100 100 0 0 •••••
196 Reallocated event count 252 252 0 0 •••••
197 Current pending sectors 100 100 0 10 •••••
198 Offline scan UNC sectors 252 252 0 0 •••••
199 Ultra DMA CRC errors 100 100 0 3 •••••
200 Write error rate 100 100 0 12955 •••••

:(

And the TEST option does not work for me, it display an error message that only state "PRIVILEGED INSTRUCTION"


EDIT: Sorry for short answer, and thanks to everyone who gave me some helps. I am kinda short of time and internet, so I can't stop for long on this.

I think you already know the answer..
Use Hiren's Boot CD (burn a CD or make a bootable pendrive and boot win XP, Victoria is included) to be 100% sure.
Also the tool Sachys mentioned can be useful in the future. Using similar one for ages, however, while is good enough for backups, checking disk parameters through USB isnt very reliable..

edit:
There is one thing you may try to do, clean up HDD contacts.
Sometimes you may also need to unscrew bottom side of the HDD and clean up connectors there as well.. (attached picture, below BF41-00315A) Don't do it before additional tests though and do not open HDD itself.
But get yourself a new HDD first..

And what if that SMART thing is the damaged one due a fried chip or something like that? I have been using my laptop for almost 2 hours today, with no crash, slow down or any malfunctions yet.

My laptop BIOS always warns me about CPU fan not working (Since almost 1 year, being my laptop 3 years old or something like that) and suggest me to replace it. However, the CPU fan has worked like always, going up to down according to CPU ussage, which makes me thing that the component that check the fan is the one who is broken, and not the fan it self. Well, MAYBE, something similar is happening with the HDD!??

I will try to clean the junctions on weekend, when some free time comes to me.

Then you'll going to need a circuit board replacement for your HDD, if you can get one for a reasonable price..
Make yourself a Hiren's Boot CD/pendrive first. I think that's the easiest way to do some tests.

If you going to buy a completely new HDD, I'd reccomend Western Digital. Personally using WD Scorpio Black WD7500BPKT in my laptop.

Sometimes plugging the HDD into a different slot or even a different computer can work! Harder with a laptop though.

Also you can try plugging it into a portable drive case.... because of the change in circumstance to run through the USB, it might just be enough of a change to work? But the problem is these days they make portable drives incompatible with normal drives .... (as shocking and as unbelievable as that may be to hear of something being made incompatible)

Had to replace a 2TB HDD earlier this year myself. Sucks. Fortunately I could still read it and got everything I needed from it first.

>Samsung HDD
You had 1 mission....... Kill it with fire. Only their SSD-s are barely worth something (and I prefer Intel SSD-s for reliability)

SMART is failed, prolly because of the current pending sectors count

Well yeah, don't stop long on it, but don't whine when data is lost

Recalibration retries is bad, suggests a mechanical error
Reported UNC error is usually OK, but as recalibration retries is filled, it shows you may have impending doom coming
Current pending sectors is 10 - if you do a chkdisk it will rewrite the damaged sectors and move them under reallocated sectors, or do a bakup and a low-level format. You ave prolong the life of the HDD a bit, but it's going to fail hard someday. The signs are there. YMMV, but I usually have had bad luck with shit like that, but a friend of mine still runs a HDD on a laptop with shitloads of reallocated sectors and bad sectors.

Also suggest running HD Tune long test from Hirens after Victoria

Check out the Get Data Back program. I was able to restore all my data from a drive that windows would not even recognize, but this program mounted it and found all my files. I don't think it'll "fix" your drive... it'll just let you look at all your folders and files and copy the ones you need to another drive. https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm There are undoubtedly many other similar utilities out there.

If third party programs can do this, that means there is plenty of space for Microsoft to make their OS more adaptable??... wait, what am i saying,,, its Microsoft!!! hahahaha,,,, why can't i stop laughing my ass off?? hahahaha