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Hard disk issues

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2012 7:39 am
by Elrojo
I was informed by windows today that I should back up my HDD ASAP in order to stop from losing my data. It seems by all accounts that my HDD is buggered.

I am currently running a back up onto an external drive and until I can get my laptop looked at/fixed I'm probably going to be afk. Might be 2-3weeks based on how often I can get anywhere to do anything.

Re: Hard disk issues

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2012 7:57 am
by Lasarina
Aww, Rojo that sucks bad! Hope you get it solved asap and donĀ“t lose anything of importance atleast. I just hate when those crappy things happens to our computers. See you soon again.

Re: Hard disk issues

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2012 1:39 pm
by Chrisax
What Fuze said so we can get a better idea + have a look at Acronis various programs: they are excellent and maybe can help you with backup / duplicating drive, etc. Also thge backup program is great to have perma-incremental-backup to another drive on selected files / folders running automatically and in a transparent way.

http://www.acronis.eu/products/#home
http://www.acronis.eu/homecomputing/pro ... #resources

Note that although they stress their new "cloud backup" features, it is of course possible, as it always was, to back up on local / network drives.

Re: Hard disk issues

Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:07 pm
by Elrojo
It just came up with a window that says windows has detected an issue with your hard drive then gave the option to back up and replace or remind later.

When it was rebooted there was a message saying the SMART thing says the hdd is bad, please replace. I need to buy a new external HDD today to attempt a back up. I'm not concerned so much about exact images of the drive, moreso just not losing it all. I assumed this message is fatal for my HDD rather then being fixable. Ie something physically wrong rather than a bug or something. Problem at the moment is everything takes like 10x the the normal speed to do.

Re: Hard disk issues

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 2:25 pm
by Chrisax
SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) is a feature in HDD's monitoring some aspects of disk's health, and, to some degree, allowing to make predictions about failures.

It's not 100% accurate (the recorded values, in themselves, normally are) but it's handy. Windows likely believed SMART to warn you, better safe than sorry.

To see more about what SMART says, you can use a program like
CrystalDiskInfo
http://crystalmark.info/software/index-e.html

Note that the TrueImage software, regardless of its name, is also and mainly a backup software that can for, example, create transparently auto incremental backups of your disk to a network or USB drive.

Good luck with the new HDD and the install! :)

Re: Hard disk issues

Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:39 pm
by noobas
Hmm I need to back up my computer. it's been telling me to back it up since I bought it.

I just always figure by the time it crashes I'll be ready to buy an updated OS and stuff and just reformat the whole thing.

Re: Hard disk issues

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 9:49 am
by Elrojo
Lol noobas. If your HDD crashes and it is a physical problem then you can't just format it and start again.

I have been told that 1/2 the drive is recoverable and the other half is not. So the back-up gnomes are busy doing nerdy things to it and I think I will get an SSD drive for booting etc and a normal HDD for the info.

"Should" be back tomorrow but let's see.

Re: Hard disk issues

Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:53 pm
by Chrisax
Good luck, Rojo. :)

Re: Hard disk issues

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:36 am
by Porvalsh
This is a bit late but once upon a time I lost two hard drives in a span of like a week. I lost a lot of files when this happened.

As a result, I started using Carbonite backup service. Its $70 bucks a year or something incredibly low like that and now I sleep soundly. Its pretty nice because if I ever do a reinstall of windows, which I do about once a year seems like, then I just download my files back from the internet. It takes a few days to get them local again but its nothing you notice really. Also...if I'm away from teh computer but want some files I can login to carbonite website and view them. They even have an android app now. For $70 it seems like a no brainer for me...everything is moving to the cloud anyways.