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#1
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New hard drive Win 7 home
Laptop hard drive has issues, can't do system restore anymore.
Carbonite takes care of any valuable files. Don't want to format and start fresh. Would replacing the hard drive and letting the buggy one be used as an external drive via usb let me get off the program files I want? My biggest wonder is would the old one still bootable should the above not work as anticipated? I'm hoping to just be able to swap the drive out if I want to. Thanks |
#2
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New hard drive Win 7 home
"pheasant16" wrote in message ...
Laptop hard drive has issues, can't do system restore anymore. Carbonite takes care of any valuable files. Don't want to format and start fresh. Would replacing the hard drive and letting the buggy one be used as an external drive via usb let me get off the program files I want? My biggest wonder is would the old one still bootable should the above not work as anticipated? I'm hoping to just be able to swap the drive out if I want to. Thanks It seems what you need to do is "clone" your old Laptop HD to a new Laptop HD. A lot of HD now come with free cloning software..........I use Acronis TrueImage and it works very well for the purpose you intend. The idea is to install the program.hook the new HD up externally or to a 2nd connector in the Laptop(?) and then clone old to new. Shut down remove the old and install the new to the old location..........reboot. Dont know if you can do this with the Carbonite Cloud Service.......you would need to check which plan you have. They call it Mirror Image and you can supposedly "Mirror" your present HD and then install that Mirror Image onto a new drive... pk121 Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, and wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!" |
#3
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New hard drive Win 7 home
pheasant16 wrote:
Laptop hard drive has issues, can't do system restore anymore. Carbonite takes care of any valuable files. Don't want to format and start fresh. Would replacing the hard drive and letting the buggy one be used as an external drive via usb let me get off the program files I want? My biggest wonder is would the old one still bootable should the above not work as anticipated? I'm hoping to just be able to swap the drive out if I want to. Thanks "Can't do System Restore" is not a hardware issue. Restore points are set, whenever an important event happens on the computer. An example is, Windows Update might set a restore point, just before installing updates. Without an event like that, there is also a background rate. On older OSes. a restore point is set every day (it captures the registry files, for safe keeping, amongst other things). On the latest OS, restore points are only captured once a week. Which isn't as nice. System restore only tracks certain kinds of files, in certain kinds of folders. On the older OSes, it also unintentionally tracked things it should not have. For example, on WinXP, if you have C:\Downloads , it would track that, and if you go back in time three months using System Restore, to an old restore point, you'd lose three months worth of downloads from C:\Downloads. In WinXP, the My Documents folder is not tracked, so downloaded files staged in there (the way Microsoft wants you to do it), would not be affected. You won't lose anything in My Documents. System Restore is an undo mechanism, for recent installations. And really, it's not intended for such, as it doesn't do that thorough a job. If you installed something nasty, I've seen one recommendation, to try uninstalling the nasty thing first (in the hope any non-tracked files get removed), then use a Restore Point from yesterday, to remove any remnants. And one of the things you get that way, is the Registry files from yesterday are restored. So any registry mess is cleaned up. ******* This is different than "System Image", which is the ability to snapshot all of C: and keep it on an external drive for emergencies. Then, if the internal drive dies, you can restore from the System Image using the recovery CD they want you to burn. ******* Carbonite is probably like System Image or System Backup, in that it is storing files for you. Just make sure it is set up to get everything you might need in a catastrophe. ******* OK. You have two drives. A buggy internal drive, with C: and SYSTEM RESERVED partitions, plus the one or two partitions the laptop manufacturer puts on there. And an external drive you think you'll be using, when the internal drive dies. You can clone the internal drive, to the external drive. That makes a complete copy. An example of a tool to do that, is Macrium Reflect Free. (When you run it, the backup options are obvious. You need to resize the window it uses, so you can see all of it, and see the _Clone_ button in the right hand pane.) But if you clone, that might remove your Carbonite backup files stored on the external drive. So you then have no Carbonite files to fall back on. I would want a third drive for safety. ******* System Restore keeps state information in System Volume Information at the top level of the partition. Each partition has a folder like that. It will give "Access Denied" if you try to enter it. If you use the appropriate control panel ("System", then look for System Restore ?), you have the option of turning off System Restore, wait a moment, then turn it back on. What that is supposed to do, is dump all the restore points and start fresh. Then, try manually setting a Restore Point, then pretend to restore from that Restore Point. The purpose of this procedure, is to see if your System Restore is recovered, simply by flushing all the restore points. Malware can damage System Restore. And the services System Restore relies on, can be turned off. System Restore uses things like VSS. I was hoping to find a Microsoft Fixit file for System Restore, but all I've found so far, is some general advice. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...ix-issues.html If the problem stems from something Windows Update related, like some update is half installed, there is a fixit for that. You can also check your Windows Update log, to see how many of the attempts failed, succeeded, or are pending. One of these fixit things, has a "more aggressive" setting, for resetting the state of Windows Update. http://support.microsoft.com/mats/windows_update/ I just want to be sure though, that we're attempting to fix the right subsystem. Hammering everything isn't a good idea. It's better to have some symptoms to go on, such as error dialogs and error numbers that specifically identify what is broken in SR. They're the best place to start. ******* Cloning the internal drive, to the external one, is a good option for hardware related issues. But it won't fix, say, some service not being turned on, that makes System Restore points capture properly. The exact same system state issues will exist with a cloned copy of the drive. Now, you can certainly work on both problems at the same time. If you think your internal hard drive is damaged, and is going to fail soon, then cloning might very well be a good idea. Then, swap drives after the clone, and at that point, the flaky drive can be used as your external for Carbonite backups or whatever. And then you can go back to working on your System Restore subsystem or Windows Update subsystem, and try and clean it up. I generally like to have more disks around than that though, so I have a "clean" copy of the thing I'm about to hammer and abuse. Then, if I get in trouble, I know I can get it back. Currently, I have about 2TB of storage space available for those kinds of backups. As they say, "you can never have too many backups". When I needed to go back two years in time once, I still had a backup that old to work with (restored, just for an experiment with Acronis, then removed again). Having just a single external to work with, which is doing double duty, wouldn't be enough for me. Too dangerous. Paul |
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New hard drive Win 7 home
On Fri, 23 Aug 2013 12:09:13 -0500, pheasant16
wrote: Laptop hard drive has issues, can't do system restore anymore. Carbonite takes care of any valuable files. Don't want to format and start fresh. Would replacing the hard drive and letting the buggy one be used as an external drive via usb let me get off the program files I want? My biggest wonder is would the old one still bootable should the above not work as anticipated? I'm hoping to just be able to swap the drive out if I want to. Thanks It's the OS that has issues until you can prove hardware issues otherwise. All I know about restoring has nothing whatsoever to do with Microsoft. Never has, since I've used OEM & freeware restoration software only w/out issues. Consequently, knowing my backups are good, I can concentrate on one issue at a time, such as determining if a bad hard drive is in fact bad. |
#5
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New hard drive Win 7 home
pheasant16 wrote:
Laptop hard drive has issues, can't do system restore anymore. Carbonite takes care of any valuable files. Don't want to format and start fresh. Would replacing the hard drive and letting the buggy one be used as an external drive via usb let me get off the program files I want? My biggest wonder is would the old one still bootable should the above not work as anticipated? I'm hoping to just be able to swap the drive out if I want to. Thanks The procedure for cloning an old drive onto a new one is: - Create a bootable CD that has clone software on it. Some imaging programs have this option or you can get just clone programs. This assumes you have a CD drive from which to boot. You can probably also use a USB flash drive by making it bootable and if your BIOS can boot from USB devices. - Remove the old drive from the laptop. - Put the old drive in an external enclosure or dock. Match up the ext enclosure or dock with the type of connections you have on the laptop. You probably have USB ports on the laptop so get an ext enclosure or dock that has USB connectivity. - Install the new hard drive into the laptop. - Boot the laptop using the bootable media with the clone program. - Clone the old drive (now external) onto the new drive (internal). - Disconnect the old drive (unplug the USB cable). - Reboot the laptop. Obviously you can only recover from the old drive if you can still read from the old drive. If cloning fails then you're screwed and will have to install the new drive and lay a fresh install of the OS on it followed by using disk recovery tools to see what files you might be able to retrieve from the old drive (after mounting into an external enclosure or dock). Telling us the old drive is "buggy" or "has issues" doesn't really say what is wrong with it. In fact, those statements are deliberately vague. "Can't do a system restore" could mean, for example, that you don't have any restore points. Could be a software issue rather than failing hardware. |
#6
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New hard drive Win 7 home
VanguardLH wrote:
pheasant16 wrote: Laptop hard drive has issues, can't do system restore anymore. Carbonite takes care of any valuable files. Don't want to format and start fresh. Would replacing the hard drive and letting the buggy one be used as an external drive via usb let me get off the program files I want? My biggest wonder is would the old one still bootable should the above not work as anticipated? I'm hoping to just be able to swap the drive out if I want to. Thanks I apologize for not being more clear. The hard drive is still perfectly good. I know it's a software issue. It's just that hard drives are inexpensive, so I'd rather just replace it, and start with a clean fresh install of Win 7. Then I could just add the programs I want, and retrieve data from the current drive by sticking it in an external enclosure. Once I have the NEW hard drive with NEW install of OS and programs loaded to my satisfaction then format the current one. If the new install doesn't get back to what I want; would the old drive with buggy Win 7 still be bootable or would the bios somehow change? I guess that is what I meant to ask initially. |
#7
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New hard drive Win 7 home
On Mon, 26 Aug 2013 17:45:51 -0500, pheasant16
wrote: If the new install doesn't get back to what I want; would the old drive with buggy Win 7 still be bootable or would the bios somehow change? I guess that is what I meant to ask initially. Possibly not, although not because of the computer hardware;- sometimes a Windows install, software or settings simply become unstable for various reasons, actually within normal expectancy for the best way to approach and rectify with backup images. Good habit to get into regardless, to periodically backup the OS from binary image of an prior and freshly-saved install, which was never connected to the INET, has only known good additions no chance of corruption, along with being tweaked in just the way you want it. Can be like a breath of fresh air after some time while all over the INET doing and contacting various crap that accumulates or attempts to assimilate unwelcome additions into an operator's original install. A small learning curve, very, for the all benefits derived and headaches avoided. |
#8
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New hard drive Win 7 home
"pheasant16" wrote in message ...
VanguardLH wrote: pheasant16 wrote: Laptop hard drive has issues, can't do system restore anymore. Carbonite takes care of any valuable files. Don't want to format and start fresh. Would replacing the hard drive and letting the buggy one be used as an external drive via usb let me get off the program files I want? My biggest wonder is would the old one still bootable should the above not work as anticipated? I'm hoping to just be able to swap the drive out if I want to. Thanks I apologize for not being more clear. The hard drive is still perfectly good. I know it's a software issue. It's just that hard drives are inexpensive, so I'd rather just replace it, and start with a clean fresh install of Win 7. Then I could just add the programs I want, and retrieve data from the current drive by sticking it in an external enclosure. Once I have the NEW hard drive with NEW install of OS and programs loaded to my satisfaction then format the current one. If the new install doesn't get back to what I want; would the old drive with buggy Win 7 still be bootable or would the bios somehow change? I guess that is what I meant to ask initially. Seeing as it is a Laptop does your HD not have a "Restore Partition" that when activated restores the HD to a "just bought" condition??? Every Program and file created after that would need reinstallation ... That is if you are sure its NOT the HD Now of course comes the other part....if you decide on a new HD and reinstallation do you have Installation media ????....because that Restore Partition will NOT install W7 on any other drive pk121 Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, and wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!" |
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