Faulty Harddrive?

[Mike24]

Hi,
I´ve recently run into some problems with my laptop. It no longer boots and a reinstall of windows / system image restore fail.
After taking the harddrive out and connecting it to a different pc, it shows up no problem, all the data is still there and accessible.
I´ve run various tests on the hdd (e.g. chdsk, checked with SeaTools) and they all show up clean.
The only solution named in the various threads concerning my boot problem have been a faulty hdd.

Is changing my harddrive still my best shot at solving this or are there other reasons the boot could fail?
Appreciate any advice!

 

[DelJo63]

Corrupt MBR or partition table which is different than the tests you've already run.

 

[Mike24]

Sorry, should have been more detailed in my post.
Laptop got slower, booting and updating windows took longer, had trouble completing the updates.
Tried a reinstall, with complete formatting of the drive. Ran into problems so had to restore to an older system image.
Tried the rebuildbcd, fixmbr, fixboot commands. Rebuildbcd was the only one that didnt complete successfully. Error: A device attached to the system is not functioning.
Thanks for your reply!

 

[DelJo63]

If you're running Win 8 or 10, you're likely using the UEFI boot but Win 7 or eariler uses the MBR.
Failure to rewrite the MBR means sector ZERO on the hd is bad and of all things, this is the ONE sector that can never be remapped elsewhere - - so it is fatal.

 

[Mike24]

I'm running win 8.1. However I've never seen a UEFI interface, only the bios setup. Could I still be using UEFI?
So installing a new hdd should fix it? Is using the old drive as an external ok or is the risk of potential complete failure too great?
Do you know of any good beginners resources I could read to get a better understanding of UEFI/MBR and OS?
Sorry for all the questions, your comments haven been great! Thank you!

 

[Mike24]

So in your opinion a new drive would be the best way to fix it?