Replacing PC harddrive?

Brian G Turner

Brian G Turner

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My PC has been increasingly acting up.

Now at bootup it's telling me that it needs to check my harddrive disk for errors - but can't - and recommends using an earlier restore point. Attempting an earlier restore point leads to a warning that this cannot be done as the disk needs checking for errors...

I figure I could do with a new harddrive. The problem is that I'm not 100% on how to swap one out.

I'm reasonably PC-savvy - I've taken PC's apart for cleaning out dust, and installed/removed PCI cards before. And a harddrive from a damaged PC.

However, I'm not sure on the best way to copy my existing harddrive to a new one.

For example, if I buy a new harddrive, can it be expected to have a USB port for direct USB to USB copying? Or would I need something like a dock:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00IS7Y96I/?tag=brite-21

And would it be as simple as copying the C:/ drive over to the new harddrive?

OR would I need to save my data from my current PC, then physically replace the old harddrive with a new one - and install Windows afterwards?

Any pointers welcome. :)
 
What we used to do was install the new hard-drive/software etc (replace hard drive, and complete Windows installation), and then slave the old one to the new, transferring the user's personal data from one to the other.

If you're using SATA (little black port, rather than a big, grey one) one port on your motherboard will be a different colour from the others - a hard drive attached to this will automatically become your master (boot) disc. Of course, you'll need SATA cables and power couplers for each disc (borrow those from your optical drive if needs be).

If you have a network, of course, this is really easy, as you simply transfer the data you want to keep onto another computer via the network (a virus scan of the folder won't hurt either) and transfer it back once the new drive is installed.
 
First, is the PC a laptop or a desktop/tower? The bigger ones almost always have space, and wiring, for a second interior hard drive (and if they don't have the wiring a simple Y cord and a different address for the two discs - oh, and a power supply splitter - normally works. But most of the motherboards have exta connectors on them. Otherwise, you can copy the data onto an external hard disc, , exchange the internal and, booting up from the external disc or a CD, copy onto your new disc (I've only ever done that with Macs, but it should be similar).
 
In this scenario I would use Clonezilla to clone the entire hard drive. If you're moving to a larger drive you can expand the partition on the new drive in Windows.
 
Agree with Glitch (only I use Aomei); make some sort of image of your hard drive. I'd use a USB drive for storing this image (I could even lend you one for the purpose, Brian, seeing as I'm not a million miles away and I have several!). Then put the new drive in and restore the image to that. One thought, if you are talking about a laptop I'd seriously consider getting an solid state drive. More expensive but it massively increases your battery life as it uses so much less power than a disk drive.
 
You can use Firewire in some cases, I think. Usb to Usb... don't think so, but mayhap that is possible now.
I have about 20 tower-style HDs and half-dozen for laptops, so this issue is coming up here, how to get them all externally-connectable so they can be used for backup etc.
The TekNet transfer docking gizmo looks like part of the answer all ritey, it's a must-have here Santa Claus, if you are listening. *
 
Oh, it's a desktop PC. I was actually thinking of using SSD instead of SATA - I'm under the impression that SSD is faster and more stable. Sounds like that may mess with the connectivity to the old SATA harddrive, though?

I'm not sure about setting up a slave - wouldn't this mean booting Windows from a D:/ drive instead of a C:/ drive, and causing problems with existing software??
 
SSD with mini-Sata... it gets confusing here. I think you can set up a few HDs with no slave issue, just use one of them for the OS and the other(s) for storage, yes? Another thing, if you can reinstall the OS on the new drive and simply move all your files over, that may give the best overall result? I bet Ray M will weigh on on this, it's an issue here too.
 
Word of caution: not all motherboards, depending on age, will support an SSD. If you haven't checked the specs on your MB, you might want to do that before you lay out the cash for a SSD.
 
I have 3 hard discs in my computer, one for normal use, one for back up (Iperius free backup is doing its job every evening, and should be better than the back-up built into WIN 7 :) - and one deemed too little along the way, so it's basically just sitting tight, waiting for a decision :)
 
REBerg said:
Word of caution: not all motherboards, depending on age, will support an SSD. If you haven't checked the specs on your MB, you might want to do that before you lay out the cash for a SSD.
Click to expand...
Also SSD might not be a good idea if you are writing/erasing lots to disc, for whatever reason. Google 'why I shouldn't get a solid state drive' or something like that to see all the potential drawbacks, plenty of articles dicuss this (no point shelling out quite a bit more if it isn't going to improve performance.)
 
Brian Turner said:
OR would I need to save my data from my current PC, then physically replace the old harddrive with a new one - and install Windows afterwards?
Click to expand...
That's how I would do it. Once you've got the new C drive with OS installed, you can transfer the data back to the new hard drive from wherever you've saved it. You could also physically put your old drive back into the computer, format it and use it for backup data storage, assuming it's still mechanically functional. Master-slave jumper settings pretty much went out with IDE HDs and the move to SATA.
 
Brian Turner said:
I can go with a SATA if required. The big question for me is how to get my OS onto the new drive before the current one fails.
Click to expand...

It all depends on whether or not you have used up all the licences on a Windows disc. Most copies that I know of will allow you to install that particular copy of Windows 4 times (either on the same or different computers). If there are some licences left it will walk you through creating the partition and installing Windows on it...all you need to do is set the new drive up as the master before installation, and set up things such as your virus checker afterwards. After that you can simply connect your old drive as a slave to your PC and copy & paste your documents over from the old to the new.
 
Beyond the drive replacement, you will have the issue of the applications you have installed on your current C drive. If the root cause of the problems you are experiencing is mechanical drive failure, you could go the image route for the whole transfer. If it malware is to blame, that option could only recreate the same problem with the new drive. If you have the original discs for your applications, you might want to go with the more labor-intensive manual re-installation option.
Rob83 said:
It all depends on whether or not you have used up all the licences on a Windows disc. Most copies that I know of will allow you to install that particular copy of Windows 4 times (either on the same or different computers). If there are some licences left it will walk you through creating the partition and installing Windows on it...all you need to do is set the new drive up as the master before installation, and set up things such as your virus checker afterwards. After that you can simply connect your old drive as a slave to your PC and copy & paste your documents over from the old to the new.
Click to expand...
If Microsoft won't allow another installation of yours OS, you can usually bypass that roadblock by calling and swearing, on a stack of Bibles, that you are not running that particular copy on another machine, or on any more machines than licensed.
 
I would use a third party application to clone the existing drive, as has been mentioned. Easus is one I've used before. Install the new drive into the tower, clone the existing drive, then turn off the pc. Disconnect the old drive then restart the pc to make sure it boots okay. Once it does you can try to reconnect the old drive and format it to see if it is salvageable.
 
Some pros and cons of cloning versus re-installing.

1. Making a disk image will probably take around 30 mins and then 30 mins to restore to the new drive (depending on size of course). Installing Windows from scratch will probably take most of the day.

2. A new installation you will effectively have done a complete clean up which is no bad thing. Cloning the drive means you'll also clone all the rubbish.

3. Cloning will retain all your installed programs, reinstalling Windows will also require reinstalling all software that you use. Do you even still have all the installations for all your software?

Incidentally this is one of the reasons why I keep data and operating system on two separate drives (or partitions).

On the SSD - we have an SSD drive in our main computer in the lab - I really don't think it improved performance particularly as it only has software on it. We need multiple terabytes of data storage so that's all on conventional drives. This, I suspect, is why we saw little performance improvement (it does boot much quicker). I also have SSD drive on my laptop and it took me a while to figure out why my battery lasts so much longer (4 times longer) than on my last much less powerful laptop. The reason is conventional disk drive is one of the biggest power drains and SSD use much less. However this is not really much of a consideration if yours is a tower.
 
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Hey Brian,

SATA is the connection method not the storage method. I assume those comparing SATA with SSD actually mean SATA and HDD as opposed to SATA and SSD - both use SATA.

SSD's are much faster but have a higher failure rate when read/write/overwrite operations are high.

Personally for home units I think Hybrids using the SSD as the boot partition and to load any consistent boot items and then use the HDD part for the storage. It gives you the best of both worlds.

SSD's are definitely quicker.

I also wouldn't clone your existing disk because if there are bad blocks and sectors you will end up with a bad image. Start from scratch and move things selectively using the existing drive as an additional slave. Another advantage of this is it acts as a nice housekeeping method.

Something like Unstoppable Copier from Robocopy would be a quick way to transfer data between the two.

I work in this industry and my techies do this sort of thing all the time.

Regards
 
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