HD is dying...

[Gagaman]

I have a pc here that wont boot anymore.. it keeps rebooting. I cant even access safe mode. Its making a kind of ticking noise, so I presume its almost broke.

I attached it as slave on another pc. That way I can acces the data on it.

I prepared a new HD with winxp/officexp. I created the same users on it.

Now I want to transfer the data from the almost broken HD to the new HD.

The old HD disk is partioned in 3 partitions. One with winxp and office xp. A second partition with all the data. A third partition with all the other programs.

I have partitionMagic 8.0. That has an option to copy partitions from one hd to another. Now I intend to copy the datapartition of the old harddisk to the new one.

I also have acrois true image 9. It also has an option to copy partitions to another hd.

Not sure which is the best to use. I would appreciate some advice.

And are there issues I'm forgetting?

This data is important for me, so I really need it to work. (and yes, I have a backup... but its nearly three weeks old :blush: , and there's quit alot of new data added the last few weeks.)

Thanks

[Craig]

I suggest a manual copying of all vital data from your data partition to the new hard drive, and prioritise what data you copy first just incase the hard drive fails completely.

So if you haven’t already, use Partition Magic to create all the necessary partitions on your new hard drive.

[-pops-]

Ticking in hard drives is a fairly sure sign that the end is nigh.

Transfer all data ASAP.

[Alan2273]

If you have attached the failing hard drive to another computer, can`t you just drag & drop the data files between the drives?.

[Gagaman]

:) :flowers:

Thanks! I managed to transfer my important data to my new HD. (just by copy/paste)

I'm very happy now.

Have another question on this... Would it also be possible to recover the favorites/bookmarks of IE and Firefox? And also my mails and contacts of OE?

The old disk had 4 different users, all with their own favorites/bookmarks and so...

I dont know where to search for them.

Thanks again,

Gagaman

[mark2]

Assuming each user imported from their favourites from IE, you may be able to recover to the stage when bookmarks were 1st imported by going to XX:/windows/documents and settings/username/application data/mozilla/firefox/profiles/default.ehm/bookmarks.html (XX being the original C drive)and copy/pasting into relevant place on the new drive.

Possibly copy/pasting the default.ehm folder into the relevant place will bring all favourites settings etc onto the new HDD but I don't know for sure, :blink:

XX:/windows/documents and settings/username/application data/microsoft/address book will possibly do the same for outlook express contacts, never had to do it so not sure.

[Craig]

IE bookmarks: C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Favorites

[Scarecrow Man]

Might want to try SpinRite on the dead drive? http://grc.com/spinrite.htm

I have been using it on a 160GB that has been acting up. It found 3 errors, but is still not working.

1st scan took 5 days. 2nd was on day 5 with 500+ hours left, so I cancelled it. Seems like an excellent program, but so far has not fixed my drive as it claims to do...

[Gagaman]

I could recover my mailbox and contactpersons of OE, and also my favorites.

When trying to recover my firefox bookmarks, I think the disk crashed completely. It made a strange noice and it doesnt starts spinnen after a reboot.

But thats not a problem... I managed to recover most of the content.

Thanks again for the help!