Need some help..(Harddrive problems)

Big B · Rated NC-17 Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 194

Well i thinking the hard drive im running on now is going dead,. Two times the pc would try to load and and look for my hard drive and give up and say no boot file was found. so i shut it down, waited few mins. tried again say thing. But they time when i hard shut down the PC you heard the 3 beeps from the bios. waited again and it worked this time. So I took this as a sign of this that might be coming and order a new hard drive today. With a new drive coming. What are the steps in moving everything over to the new hard drive?

I assume i have to install windows to it first right?

OR Is there a way just to burn everything from this hard drive to the new one?

Im not sure what i have to do.

thanks

Hellfire · Rated XXX Joined: 05 Aug 2003 Posts: 3473

I know there are free tools out there to transfer the data but I'm not familiar with them.

The ones I am familiar with is Acronis True Image and Symantec Ghost. I prefer Acronis over Ghost.

It costs around $50 online, might be able to find it cheaper.

To use it you would basically boot into Windows with both drives installed.
Enable/Initialize the new drive.
Install/Run Acronis
Make an Image and it will make a perfect copy of one drive to the other.

I see Acronis also has another tool called Migrate Easy. Sounds like does the same thing but a little cheaper, and is designed to do full disks like you want to do.

acruxksa · Posted: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:54:47 Post Subject:

Clonezilla/Gparted is the free utility, it works well but isn't very user friendly.

I've used it several times without issue, just make sure you read all the options before selecting one.

Lately I just use Acronis True Image.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:57:13 Post Subject:

Are any of them Seagates or Maxtors? Their (free) Disc Wizard is basically Acronis, but it only runs as long as one of the drives being accessed is their brand.

Big B · Rated NC-17 Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 194

Well Heres a strange one for you. I disconnected my 2nd DVD drive and well it booted up just fine, But system is still lagging,Would a bad stick of Ram cause this problem?, Im not sure but something is going wrong with my system could a power supply issue?

Big B · Rated NC-17 Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 194

Well i have my new hard drive installed. everything seems good right now, My only problem is that i had to use a dvd rom drive bay as the new hard drive is to wide for my hard drive bay. So my hard drive is only being held up by 2 screws,Is there any bracket or any way i can get the other side to mount to something? Thanks

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 11:25:39 Post Subject:

You probably just need something like this:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=5.25+to+3.5+Inch+Drive+Adapter&cid=503042726753762882&sa=title#ps-sellers

Big B · Rated NC-17 Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 194

have it on the way.. thanks.

BTW the new hard drive is much better, System seems much happier Smile

robind · Rated PG Joined: 01 Apr 2009 Posts: 2

I recommend Acronis True Image over Ghost.I find Acronis much more user friendly and isn't a resource hogger like Ghost.

MadHacker · Posted: Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:57:14 Post Subject:

Speedfan has a nice HD analysis... and will tell you waht teh state of your dirve is acording to S.M.A.R.T.

myself i mostly use ghost, boot from a floppy or CD, works well.