My old laptop is eating harddrives

[MirageOfDeath]

So I've had this laptop (Acer Aspire 5571 AWXMi) for 6-7 years and I've just really used it for surfing the net and using Microsoft Office. About a year ago my hard drive got fried so I got a new one that lasted like a week before it too had problems. Luckily enough for me I was able to get a new one for free because of the warranty. Anyway, today I got this pop-up:

I already have backups so no problem there, but I'm scared to do anything or turn off my laptop. I have the same programs installed on my desktop and it's able to handle the same workload but I never have had the same problems. I was wondering if my laptop itself can ruin my hard drive since this isn't the first time it has happened. At this point I feel I may as well get a new laptop.

[Lord Diddy]

While there could be a few reasons why your hard drive is failing, have you noticed a lot of heat where hard drive is supposed to be? If you can have Speccy out while using the laptop and see how high the temperature for the HDD reaches. This may be either the laptop design was not efficient and will not properly cool down all your components or dust has accumulated and is preventing proper heatflow.

 

It could also be just bad luck with the new hard drive, considering you got it for "free" with the warranty makes it highly likely it is a refurbished product and may not work as great as a brand new one.

[MageUK]

It could also be nothing to do with the hard drive. It's quite possible for something to get screwed up on the laptop's motherboard which can cause it to literally kill plugged in devices. Wouldn't be the first time I'd seen that happen. The problem is how many HDDs you throw at it before deciding it's the laptop and not the HDDs which are the problem. What Windows is telling you there is that it's detected a SMART error, which is what HDDs use for detection of problems.

 

It would be useful to know what the SMART error is, so grab CrystalDiskInfo, install it (might want to uncheck the installation of "Hotspot Shield"), launch it, and tell us what you see. It should tell you the health status of your hard drive, and flag any attributes which have exceeded their thresholds (which will be what triggered the Windows error).