Failing HD: commencing operation Salvage

Hi Everyone,

I think my HD is dying a slow death as I am experiencing an array of windows related errors which has been getting worse and worse over time.
I thought I could get away with it, but now windows is slow, taking ages to load and recently failed to boot up for the first time (blue screen of death after waiting 10 minutes stuck on the 7 logo.)

So, I have got myself a new HD which is connected and ready to go for the transfer.
This is where I need some advice on the best way to perform this task as I've read a number of different procedures.

Let me know if you need any more info.

Thanks,



The Eyes

Disk Management:

BACK UP to an external device NOW, if you suspect its dying, and use it to transfer to the new HDD.
Macrium or Acronis( Complete system)

Roy

Hi Roy,

Thanks for responding.

I managed to borrow my dads external drive.
Downloaded Macrium and proceeded to create a disk image backup, but I was me with 'mft corrupt - error code = 6. please run 'chkdsk /r'

So I ran the chkdsk which seemed to do all kinds of things and took a long time complete.
After that, it restarted and everything loaded. clicked on macrium, but it didn't work, 'reflectbin.exe is not a valid Win32 application.'

I decided then to try Acronis and it almost managed to back up the c:, but was met with 'failed to read data from the disk' with one minute to go.

I have a picture of the options it gave me, not really sure what to do.

Boot your computer with a Linux USB flash drive. - lubuntu | lightweight, fast, easier
Copy all data to another disk.

Once the data is safe, boot windows and run sfc / scannow.
schedule another check disk chkdsk /r
If it finds bad blocks or bad clusters, your disk is dead.

Reinstall windows on a blank HDD or SSD. Clean Install Windows 7
You can install Win 7 and programs on a 128G SSD and move /Users to a HDD. You'll have the speed of a SSD and space of a HDD - Use Kari tutorial - User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation

Hi Megahertz

Ok, well I managed to manually transfer all my important stuff off the failing drive before windows crashed again and I couldn't load it with bluescreens on startup. So I had to repair windows or something. afterwards, Windows finally loaded but drivers were missing and more programs stopped working. Office 2010 was a victim, Acronis too and also I am unable to connect to the internet.
So I tried windows image backup as a last hope and amazingly it worked, I did it for the new HD and the external drive for good measure.

What do you reckon is the next best course of action?

Just a side note, my 2nd hd has allot of stuff like games on it. So depending on what I do next, how would the restore or fresh install process effect this drive?

Thanks for the help so far, this sure is scary situation I'm in.

When a disk is dying, the more you stress it, the fast it will go. That's why I recommended you to use another OS on another disk (Linux - USB flash) to save your data.

Buy a 128G SSD and do a clean install. Clean Install Windows 7
On the SSD install Win 7 and programs and use the HDD to store data. Move the \Users folder to the HDD using Kari tutorial. User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation

ALWAYS disconnect all other drives when installing Win 7

Hi everyone,
I managed to do a fresh install of windows 7 onto a new 128gb ssd as recommended.
Everything works fine, it sure is much faster, now just got to reinstall everything.
And finally I have SP1 version, which I was never able to get due to a windows update problem.

Yeah ranger, good point. I'll make sure to have at least 20gb in hand from now on.

Thanks so much for all your help, I'll check back if I encounter any unforeseen issues to come.