I have seen many posts and questions on various internet forums other than this one about physical hard drives (spinning platter HDD’s) being physically damaged or even permanently renderred unusable by trying to install Windows 10, any version, as the boot OS on them. I myself have experienced this problem on two 4th generation Haswell chipset Intel Core desktop PC’s (one a Dell XPS-4700 Core i7 4770 with a 1 TB Winchester HDD and the other a HP Envy Core i5 4440 with a 2 TB Winchester HDD), both of which I tried upgrading to Windows 10 from Windows 7 x64 SP1. Both have 12 GB of DDR3 RAM. I eventually went back to Windows 7 on both desktop computers because Windows 10 in both cases was creating or writing bad blocs to the hard disks and gradually rendering areas of the HDD’s unusable. After removing the Windows 10 OS and reinstalling Windows 7 x64 SP1 on both PC’s, the hard disk drives were back to normal with no problems. But I have read in various forums where HDD’s were permanently damaged or destroyed by Windows 10 installations. One man related how he had lost hundreds of dollars in his business, which involved setting up other people’s home or business computers with Windows 10 but not on SSD’s, because he guarranteed his work and ended up paying for the damaged drives. My questions however remain unanswered. How has Microsoft not been pursued in federal court for not warning users to never install Windows 10 on HDD’s? What exactly is the function or software routine or application in Windows 10 that results in this damage, but only on HDD’s, and why? And why have I not seen this discussed in this forum after seven years of Windows 10?
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Windows 10 and physical HDD’s
Home » Forums » AskWoody support » Windows » Windows 10 » Questions: Win10 » Windows 10 and physical HDD’s
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Calidore266
AskWoody LoungerDecember 8, 2022 at 2:43 pm #2505331I upgraded Windows 7 to 10, and since have installed Windows 10 at least twice more, on three different physical WD Black 2TB drives without any issues whatsoever. That’s still my setup today. Can’t deny the problem you had, but maybe the cause was something other than simply installing Windows on a physical drive. As you pointed out, Microsoft has never said anything and nobody has mentioned it here.
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geekdom
AskWoody_MVPDecember 8, 2022 at 3:07 pm #2505362I have an ancient (in dog years) computer that was updated from Windows 7 to Windows 10 without error. Some of your comments suggest that the hard disk drives may be failing.
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Douglas
GuestDecember 8, 2022 at 6:06 pm #2505492Thank you for the reply. Both hard disks on both of my computers have been working fine with no problems and no errors, nothing to recover, when running chkdsk/r during the several years since removing Windows 10 and reinstalling Windows 7. Both computers in fact have proven themselves to be the best I have had in the 21 years since purchasing my first personal computer for home use (these two are around 8 years old now). I’ve been very happy with them and very impressed with the Haswell chipset processors. I’m not a big fan of SSD’s, other than on this laptop I’m typing on now which came with Windows 10 Home when purchased nearly five years ago. For home computing use, the SSD is neither larger as to capacity nor less expensive; and it isn’t noticeably faster for a home user who is not a gamer or watching a lot of streaming videos. It is slightly quicker and apparently runs cooler, but is not necessarily longer lasting than a physical hard drive. I would like to have Windows 10 on the two desktop PC’s, now that it has become so reliable and stable, but I’m not going to go out and buy SSD’s for them and go through opening them up and installing something those motherboards were not designed for. Especially considering that both computers are running so well with Windows 7 just as is. I just wish I knew what it was about Windows 10, what application, routine, or process or service that is causing the problem and whether it could be safely disabled without affecting the rest of the operating system’s function.
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Paul T
AskWoody MVPDecember 8, 2022 at 11:33 pm #2505674And why have I not seen this discussed in this forum after seven years of Windows 10?
Because it’s not true.
Windows 10, or any version, can’t damage a disk because the disk does all the reading and writing and self tests when working. If Windows reports a hard disk data problem, either the hard disk is dying or there is an issue with the cable / controller / computer.
cheers, Paul
Rick Corbett
AskWoody_MVPDecember 9, 2022 at 3:45 am #2505791If Windows reports a hard disk data problem, either the hard disk is dying or there is an issue with the cable / controller / computer.
… or, IMO, there is more likely a RAM issue.
‘Bad blocks’ are either hard (physical damage, indicating HDD is on its way out) or soft (logical), meaning the OS cannot read data from HDD sectors.
In the latter case, this is the result of the OS writing data which it cannot then read back again.
In most cases (IMO, almost all) this is down to faulty RAM where Windows 10 reads/writes data to different registers (RAM addresses) than Windows 7… hence why reverting to Windows 7 ‘fixes’ the problem.
The problem isn’t fixed – it’s just hidden from you… and it’s not down to Windows 10, it’s down to the RAM in your device.
(Note: If the ‘bad blocks’ problem was due to physical damage then it would manifest itself with *any* OS, irrespective of version.)
Hope this helps…
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