Hard Drive issues... no idea what to do...

[Xiigen]

Hi there. I really have no idea where to start, so... lets begin. We made our pc a couple years ago, and weve had some definite problems. Lately it has been with the ram, which we replaced, so when we recently realised that our pc was starting up rather slow, and when it began to show this error on startup:"A disk read error occured Press ctrl alt delete to restart", our first reaction was to run memtest. Upon an overnight running, it became apparent that the ram was not the problem. After some searching, we found that it was clearly a hard drive problem.
Now that I finish this tangent, I see that I've been using we and our like a loon. Sorry...
Anyways, after a few tries I am able to sometimes get into a very slow and uncooperative windows, so not all of my hope is lost for my hard drive, and luckily the bios is still recognizing it. I really have no idea where to go from here, but I would trully hate to have to totally re install windows, and every single thing else, and that is a last ditch effort. I have however been looking into getting a new hard drive, possibly SSD, though I would much rather fix the current one. Also, if it is possible, I would like to transfer all of my files, including the current windows installtion to the new hard drive.
I'm going on vacation this weekend, so I probably wolnt have this finished any time soon, unless this is going to be easier than I expect. Until then I can get any information you need, and I already have the good ol paragon rescue kit on a disk if necessary.
Thanks.

 

[lehnerus2000]

You should definitely back up all of your important data/info while you still can.

 

[Xiigen]

I have an external hard drive with more memory than my current hard drive. Is it possible for me to just completely back up my entire windows installation?

 

[Britton30]

Welcome to Seven Forums.
Yes you can back up your whole drive to an external one. I use Macrium Reflect free to do images and clones with.
Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download
A clone is an exact copy of your current disk with all data and programs while an image is a compressed file with an exact copy of your drive.
do it SOON while your drive is still readable.

 

[Xiigen]

Ok. I'm leaving it completely off for now. I'm guessing that this is a program booted from a disk, cuz I'm unsure if I'm going to be able to run anything on windows, let alone copy the entire hard drive in windows. I have a laptop I can use, but I currently don't have access to it. I'll try to get to it soon as possible.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

EaseUS Disk Copy Home Edition is a disk copy program that creates and burns its own boot CD (as long as you have a working computer with a CD burner anyway) or usb drive. I used it in the past and works fine.

The problem is that if you Clone the disk (Partition Copy will break the Windows installation although it transfers dumb data like docs, music and movies just fine), the data on HDD where the failing HDD is copied to is lost. You need to find an empty HDD for this program to work.

 

[Xiigen]

So, I pretty much have no choice than to reinstall on a new HD. Cloning will keep a bad copy of windows, and I wolm't even be able to use my external drive till I buy a new HDD, not an SSD. Is this correct? Also, we are completely sure this is a hard drive problem, right?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Also, we are completely sure this is a hard drive problem, right?

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't notice that you had run any hard drive tests.

If that is so, then no, we aren't sure it is hard drive problem.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

So, I pretty much have no choice than to reinstall on a new HD. Cloning will keep a bad copy of windows, and I wolm't even be able to use my external drive till I buy a new HDD, not an SSD. Is this correct? Also, we are completely sure this is a hard drive problem, right?

Sorry for the confusion, let me rephrase.
I wanted to say that the software I linked has two functions:

-Partition Copy, that copies a single partition, and can place the partition where you want on another drive (as long as you resize the partition on it to make space). If you move the old system partition (what was called C ), you break that win 7 installation.

-Disk clone or disk copy, that makes an exact copy of the whole drive (they call it "sector by sector"). This does work on SSDs and keeps the Win7 installation intact (well, if the damaged hard drive didn't corrupt the files, that is). But the device where this goes will be fully erased and become a clone of the old one. I do this a lot of times and as long as the computer is the same, you can transfer it to a different drive and have no issues when booting. The program linked should have no issues in doing this to clone your old disk over a bigger or smaller drive, as long as the data in it can fit (that is your old disk was 500 GB and you want to fit it in a 256 GB SSD, as long as the old drive had less than 256 GB of stuff in it, you can clone it over).

 

[Xiigen]

Ok, glad some things have been cleared up somewhat.

Starting off:
I have done no testing to see if my hard drive is the cause of the problem, but I have looked up the problem and I have found no other possible causes for what I am experiencing (slower computer, constant restart during start up w/ctrl-alt-delete error message). I can of course run a diagnostic program, but I have no idea where to start.

Secondly:
We have a few choices here. First off, get a new hard drive. Ok. That seems to be the only option.
However, I can get a new HDD or SSD, with the SSD most likely needing a new installation of windows along with a partition copy, or the HDD being able to clone the disk completely, with a possibility of data loss/corruption. I can not however, use my external hard drive for these things without turning it into a clone itself.

Thirdly, and lastly for now:
It appears that the most likely choice will be to first check and see if the hard drive is trully the problem, and if it is so then to buy a new HDD and to clone the current to it. In turn I can see if the data has been completely thrown to the dogs and if necessary reinstall windows.
In the meantime I will copy all the important files on my hard drive over to my external hard drive, and wait on your reply.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

You can use a hard drive testing utility from the hard drive manufacturer's web site.

But you haven't filled out your system specs, so we have no idea who made any of your hardware.

If you get a new drive, you can consider any of these 3 things:

1: Clean install to the new drive
2: Clone from the bad drive to the new drive
3: Make an image of the bad drive, store that image temporarily on the external, and then restore the image from the external to the new drive.

A clean install is always preferable if you are willing to take the time to do it.

You should back up your personal data first, regardless.

 

[essenbe]

I would think your first priority should be to copy all of your personal files to your external hard drive. If your drive dies, you probably will not be able to do that. next would be to use the hard drive manufacturers diagnostic program to see if it is in fact your hard drive causing the problem. If it is, I recommend you doing a clean install to a new drive. If the hard drive is bad it is very likely that some files have been corrupted or cannot be read by a clone or imaging program. With a new drive, it is always good to start out clean. You can then move your personal files back to the new installation from the external drive.

 

[Xiigen]

DAHHH I JUST TYPED UP THREE PARAGRAPHS AND THEN THEY DISPEARED

Ok..... after I have settled somewhat down, I will retype the entire frickin thing...

I have a file with all my specs on my now useless PC, but after looking around I have determined that I have a:
"WD5000KSRTL 500GB SATAII
SERIAL ATA /300 HD
16MB BUFFER , 7200 RPM"
which is this I believe:
Amazon.com: Western Digital WD5000KSRTL/WD5000AAKS Caviar 500 GB SATA Hard Drive: Electronics
I am glad to supply you with any other specs.

I would like to re-install, but coming back up from scratch and re-installing everything back over again is such an utter hassle, especially considering that for once I was fully pleased with my windows configuration since I switched over to 7.

If there is no risk in using an image and or ghost then I would rather do that and find out if the files have been corrupted from there as I am currently going on vacation, and with school having started recently I am out of much time. However, I would only do this if at any point I could easily completely erase everything on the new HD and start from scratch.

I am currently copying my entire Users file to my external hard drive.

Also, is there any true difference between Cloning and Imaging other than the middle man of the external hard drive?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Go to the Western Digital web site and download and run their hard drive utility. If it fails the test, you likely need a new hard drive. If it passes, you likely have some other problems.

I'm not sure what you mean by "ghosting".

The risk of cloning or imaging is that they won't work properly and you would then face trouble-shooting issues--which may be more of a hassle than a clean install.

If your hard drive is bad, you can try a clone or an image restoration, but if that doesn't work well, at what point do you throw in the towel and do a clean install? That's for you to decide.

Cloning and imaging are different processes and either might work. Cloning is generally used when things are going well and you just want to move to a new hard drive. Imaging is normally used when things have gone bad and you want to recover to a known good state. Imaging is a backup strategy. Cloning is not. The premise of imaging is to make an image of your system WHEN ALL IS WELL and then restore it in an emergency. You didn't make an image when all is well, so it's anybody's guess if imaging will resolve your problems. And both imaging and cloning can fail even in the best of circumstances.

Test your hard drive.

 

[Xiigen]

Sorry, I meant cloning.
After my files have been saved, I will test my hard drive, and then update this with the results.

Edit 1: Finished copying files; creating disk for diagnostics

 

[Xiigen]

Seems like i'm getting nothing but trouble! The WD diagnostics for my hard drive apparently will not run on a standard SATA drives as is told by Axoltol's first post here: Hard Drive error? - Hard-Disks - Storage
So what should I run diagnostics wise? They recommend some sort of SeaTools diagnostic on the forum I linked, but I'm not too sure about it.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Check your copied "User" files/folder.

Whenever I try to get Windows to copy it, it "forgets" to copy most of the files.

As a result, when I want to do that I use a Live Ubuntu CD.

 

[Xiigen]

I cant actually access my OS right now. Instead I used my good ol Paragon Rescue Kit disk. Comes in handy all the time, but I will check when I have the chance.

 

[essenbe]

The post you refered to says the CD won't run on some sata optical drives. Give it a try. The Sea Tools they referred to is Seagates Diagnostic program.

 

[Xiigen]

What I meant was that I did try it, so I have no idea what I should use.