Unfortunately, error 301, which, when the computer system starts up, fails to initialize the hard drive, is a serious problem, and for some reason it occurs mostly on HP laptops. Of course, the appearance of this failure may indicate the beginning of the failure of the hard drive, but in some cases the error can be eliminated without replacing the hard drive.
HP laptop: error 301. What does it mean?
So, before proceeding with a direct solution to the problem, you need to find out what its essence is.
The error of the hard drive 301 indicates that the so-called bad sectors are present on the hard drive itself, because of which, when accessing them, the system starts to crash and freeze, sometimes even displaying a blue screen. But this only applies to the operating mode when the OS is already loaded.
When the OS starts, after checking the equipment in the BIOS, when it loads the components necessary for its operation, accessing the bad sectors in the same way leads to the fact that the system cannot read information from them. At first, as evidenced by the reviews of many users, you can get used to the constant appearance of a message at startup. But after all, it is possible that error 301 will prove itself in a fatal way in the future, when the old hard drive just has to be thrown away. Therefore, it must be fought.
The causes of the failure and its consequences
But, regardless of how to fix the 301 error, all owners of HP laptops are primarily interested in the question of why the bad sectors appear on the hard drive.
It is impossible to answer it unequivocally. But most often this is due to errors on the hard drive, which usually appear due to incorrect operation of the cooling system.
There are cases when the temperature of the processor when trying to access the bad sectors reached about 90 degrees Celsius. It is easy to guess that if the elimination of this malfunction is left to chance, it can reach the point that both the processor and the motherboard will fail.
Disk check
Now, directly about how to fix the error of the hard disk 301. First of all, in a working system, you need to check it for bad sectors, using the standard system tool in the properties of the main and virtual partitions on the service tab. In this case, it is desirable to indicate automatic error correction.
But this method may not work, so it’s best to use the command console with the chkdsk command with additional parameters like / x / f / r. If this does not give the desired effect, you can try to boot from the installation or recovery disk, and then do the same operation on the command line caused by the combination of Shift + F10. If the system denies access or in an attempt to initialize, it will be offered to check at the next start of the OS. It will remain to restart the laptop and wait for the end of the procedure.
Using Victoria
However, the above described method cannot identify all bad sectors. The main way to fix the problem when the error code 301 appears is to isolate the bad sectors if not corrected, if the hard drive started to crumble.
At the first stage, this will have to sacrifice space, about 5-15% of the total. But you need to identify with which particular sector braking begins.
To do this, use the universal program Victoria. In its results and statistics of accesses to the hard drive, it will be possible to find out the exact amount that will have to be cut off so that the system does not simply access them in the future. By the way, quite often you can find reviews that the error is associated more with virtual partitions, and not with the system one.
Delete and recreate a virtual partition
Now, to answer the question of how to fix the error 301 of the hard disk, the virtual partition needs to be deleted, and then recreated it, taking into account the minus of the amount that Victoria revealed.
Please note that if there are failures outside the system partition, you can format the virtual disk, but in order to avoid loss of information on the main disk where the system is installed, this is not the case.
Such operations can be performed in the disk management section, which is located in the management (administration) menu, accessed via the PCM on the computer icon. By the way, in Windows 10 it is located in the "Explorer", and not on the "Desktop".
After that, you need to create a new volume (a simple virtual partition), again taking into account the deduction of the previously defined space, and initialize and activate it.
Disable swap file
Another method that sometimes fixes error 301 is to disable paging files for both the system and virtual partitions, since when using virtual memory, the system accesses the pagefile.sys file, but it can either be located in an area with bad sectors, or reserve this area in the bad section.
To disconnect through RMB on the computer icon, the menu of system properties is called up, the transition to additional settings and the tab of the same name is carried out. Here you should use the button to change the size of the page file, remove the check from its automatic detection and check the box for deactivating its use. This operation is performed for each section presented in the list above.
Defragmentation
Finally, when all the steps have been completed so that error 301 probably does not appear again, you need to defragment the system and all virtual partitions.
This operation can be performed using standard tools of Windows-systems, access to which is carried out on the service tab from the disk properties section.
Provided that some program can be used in the system for optimization and acceleration, the maintenance (defragmentation) command can be integrated directly into the Explorer menu. I must say that the defragmenter in such utilities looks much more preferable than the built-in Windows tool. Therefore, if there is such an opportunity, it is better to give preference to optimizers (they use a slightly different principle of putting order in the system, and in particular on the hard drive).
Upon completion of the entire set of actions, as a control tool, you can run the same Victoria utility and check. As practice shows, in 99% of cases out of 100, “cut off” bad sectors will be ignored, and the error test will not reveal.
Instead of a total
As can be seen from the above material, eliminating the error with code 301 can be quite simple. True, here you need to keep in mind that its appearance is the first bell about the fact that the hard drive began to crumble and it will soon have to be changed, after copying the most important information to removable media or even another hard drive. In order not to deal with reinstalling the system, you can create an image of it with all the data and place it, for example, on an external USB HDD. This option looks much more efficient than copying individual files and directories to flash drives, even if they are quite large. Anyway, the time taken will be longer.
In extreme cases, if nothing helps at all, you can use the unique hard drive remagnetization program called HDD Regenerator. But for the average user, it will be too difficult to understand and use, in addition, the lack of a Russified interface and work exclusively in DOS mode will complicate the process.