Win7 install - fast copy/backup during install (harddisk failure)

[jhs2zz]

Hi

My laptop has two particitions, C and D. C seems to have quite some bad sectors. Ran chkdsk yesterday for whole day and it marked out some bad sectors.

Now when I do fresh install to drive C, installation cannot complete. Once copying from DVD is over, I can pass the "starting windows" screen but then it loads the blue desktop and an error pop up saying windows was not installed successfully and try to restart. But this just keeps going in circles and never finishes.

I also tried to install OS on D, without formatting D, but ended up with the same situation.

What I am trying now is to back up everything on D and redo the disk partitioning and try again.

But because 1) i do not have an OS now and 2) i cannot install windows on C, the only option I have for backing up is using the command line window during the installation to copy files from D to an external usb disk.

I am using "xcopy /S" and that is extremely slow, driver D has 180G of data...

All the other threads about using robocopy etc tools does not apply here because i do not even have an OS.

So my question is if there is any way I can do the copying/backup faster?

Thanks

 

[rvcjew]

Get Macrium reflect free on the pc your typing this from and have it make a usb recovery disk when it asks you too then boot to it on the laptop with your external drive also plugged in and then have it make an image of the d partition to your external. You can then erase both partitions in the windows installer and make a fresh one. When it is done you can install Reflect on the laptop and then you can mount that image with it for file transfer back. But if your install is failing it might be your disk is just to far gone at this point in which case you should image your data so you have it anyways.

 

[Ztruker]

You should think about replacing the hard drive.

 

[jhs2zz]

Thanks for both tips

I managed to get macrium running and now it is backing up things.

Now I only want to get the data out and ditch the laptop, it's a company one so it will soon get replaced. I think I will go with the solid state hdd next time, disk failures are just nightmare...

 

[rvcjew]

Thanks for both tips

I managed to get macrium running and now it is backing up things.

Now I only want to get the data out and ditch the laptop, it's a company one so it will soon get replaced. I think I will go with the solid state hdd next time, disk failures are just nightmare...

Just remember if you go with an SSD and it dies that's it, no recovery from it. So backup or image (like with Reflect) frequently if you go that route.