Possible Failing HDD Replacement Procedure

My current Win7 Ultimate 64-bit system was home built in 2010. Unfortunately, I can remember very little about how I undertook that exercise and in particular how I installed the Windows OS on the first brand new store supplied blank HDD.

I have 5 x 1 TB HDDs with Disk 0 comprising C (containing the Win7 OS), D, E and F partitions. D,E and F are used for data storage, all backed up externally using Robocopy scripts. The C drive itself is backed up with a program called Shadow Protect (SP) which creates a system image and which can be easily restored. I have made such restores (testing the viability of each new monthly backup) successfully many times.

Disk 1 comprises partitions G, H and I. The I drive recently failed (replaced it with new HDD (partitioned G-H-I with gParted Live CD) and all data content replaced with external Robocopy made backups. After 12 years I am now anticipating that it's only a matter of time before the same failure fate will happen to the C drive.

Disks 2,3 and 4 are simply used for more data storage and are not relevant to my current query. Each have external Robocopy data backups once again.

Now my query - sorry I had to take up your time with the background info. I need to know how best to replace the C drive, preferably before, but nevertheless after, it fails. I want to be able to restore my most recent SP C drive system image backup thus avoiding having to reconfigure windows to the way I use it and reinstalling dozens and dozens of programs added, and regularly updated, to the system over the last 12 years. These are the minimum steps I think I need to take.

1. Remove Disk 0 and replace with a new HDD.
2. Use gParted Live CD to partition the new HDD as C, D, E and F partitions, ensuring that C is the same size, or a tiny bit larger, than the old C.
Alternatively, just install a basic version of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 straight to the start of the new HDD. Is this possible? Will the Windows installation disk create the necessary partitions - this is something I can't remember from 2010.
3. In any event, I will have to install Windows 7 to use it to format C, D, E, and F because gParted, at least my current version, only does partitioning and not formatting.
4. After formatting C, D, E and F, restore my most recent SP C drive system image backup to the new C drive using the bootable USB thumb drive containing the necessary SP restore programs. I'm almost 100% positive that it's not necessary to have the SP image making programs installed on the C drive before attempting a restore. You can assume that this belief is correct.
5. Restore the backed up data to D, E, and F using Robocopy scripts.

If anyone can see a problem with what I propose, or if you can suggest a more efficient alternative, I would be grateful if you would let me know.

Thanks,
Andrew Hart

Thank you, sumuria, you have made some some valid comments.
My C drive is not currently failing and is working perfectly as checked with System File Checker and some other programs.
I am just anticipating that it will fail in the near future,
Because of that I continue to make regular Shadow Protect image backups of the C drive.
Before making such a backup I virus check the C drive and check the integrity of the windows files with System File Checker.
That way I can be confident that my Shadow Protect system image backup is good and will not cause problems once it has been restored.

SIW2 said:

I am not familiar with shadow protect.

However there is a very simple way to make an additional backup image using microsoft own format of .wim

A small free portable program makes it easy. It is called Dism++ and is attached to the bottom of all my posts.

Just select the partition you want to capture in the top pane by highlighting it in blue ( if you only have one operating system it will already be highlighted ).

Click File >save Image




the details are already populated, you only need to browse to the location you want to store the wim file and give it a name



I have chosen to save it as R:\sources\Install.wim



You can update it later by doing the same again and pointing at the wim file you previously made. The changed files will be saved to the wim.

If you want, you can extract the config.ini file from this zip. dism++-Config.zip

Then replace the config.ini in the dism++ config folder with this config.ini file, which excludes unneccessary files from the captured wim.

Thanks SIW2,
Very interesting. Did not know about this method of partition imaging. I'll keep it in mind. But for now I'll stick to Shadow Protect which
I have been using successfully for nearly 10 years.

samuria said:

If it has bad blocks then an image will contain the bad blocks and write them to the new drive which cant be reversed some imaging has an option not to copy bad blocks

Thanks once again samuria,
However I'm confident that there are currently no bad blocks.
Perhaps you have heard of heard of the program called SpinRite which checks for such things.
Although I have not yet invoked it, I will just to confirm that nothing is amiss.
Now please, no more posts on this issue.
This thread is rapidly getting away from my initial query- is my proposed action to replace my C drive OK.
I simply don't have the time to respond to any more posts which do not specifically respond to that question.

Andrew Hart said:

Thanks once again samuria,
However I'm confident that there are currently no bad blocks.
Perhaps you have heard of heard of the program called SpinRite which checks for such things.
Although I have not yet invoked it, I will just to confirm that nothing is amiss.
Now please, no more posts on this issue.
This thread is rapidly getting away from my initial query- is my proposed action to replace my C drive OK.
I simply don't have the time to respond to any more posts which do not specifically respond to that question.

OK, it is pretty obvious by now that no further useful posts will be received regarding my initial query and so I am going to terminate this thread - if that is possible. Pleased be advised that I will not respond to any further posts in this thread so do not waste your own time for no purpose.

Andrew Hart said:

Perhaps you have heard of heard of the program called SpinRite which checks for such things.
Although I have not yet invoked it, I will just to confirm that nothing is amiss.

that program was around since the 1990s