I'm not sure if this is posted in the right place or not but here goes. My internal hard drive is almost at capacity and I want to transfer what I can to an external drive. I know how to copy them, but I'm not sure if I can delete them from the internal drive or not. I've already gone through and un-installed or removed what I no longer use, but I still need space. Any suggestions or a good website anyone can point me to would be of great value. I'm not too techinically minded but I do follow directions well! I've learned to d/l new stuff to the external drive, so I don't have to worry about re-filling the internal one again. I just need room. Thanks!
Internal/External Hard Drive Transfer
(117 posts) (14 voices)-
grnnysews54
MemberPosted 14 years ago # -
SkyFrontier
Member-The only relatively secure way I know for storing and retrieving info is known by the name of "read only backups", and I do prefer CD-roms for accomplishing the task. A lot of people will tell you on DVD-roms' reliability and etc. Tell them to search for their 5-6 years old backups then ask their opinion again.
I have a huge ammount of CD-roms (4000+) and very few DVD (say 10 burned? At most, believe me, and @ 200 if so "originals"), being the latter burned bought from some person or another then replaced for original DVDs when found available. EVEN THE ORIGINAL DVDs GAVE ME HEADACHES, against a percentually small ammount of media errors caught from those CD-roms.
Of course CD-roms will take more physical space than DVD-roms, but I prefer having the info available at any time than having it for say a year or less.
I'd also could tell you about media catalogues done by softwares like 10Strike's Search my Disks, Advanced File Organizer and SmartCD Catalog, previous Giveaways, and my ages' faithful Offline CD Browser - they will help a lot when you want to search a given piece of info on those burned disks.
Hope this helps and be free to ask for any further info, if needed.Posted 14 years ago # -
Whiterabbit-uk
Games GuruHi Grnnysews,
Am I right in presuming that what you want to do is transfer applications and games to an external; not to back up, but to run as though they were on your internal drive?
If so then all you need to remember when deleting the files from your internal hard drive is NOT to use the uninstaller. If you use this, the registration details for the application/game will also be removed and your program will no longer be registered.
So long as you transfer the whole of the programs folder to the external drive, then create new short cuts for each program you transfer(as the old ones that point to the internal drive will no longer be valid), there should be no problems running the programs from a different drive to that you originally installed the programs to.
I hope this helps. :)
Regards
Stephen
Posted 14 years ago # -
Quantum Dragon
MemberHello grnnysews54,
Normally, you should move data files only.
Here's a way to move most of it : http://www.techsupportalert.com/how_to_move_my_documents.htm
Hope it helps
ciao
QD
P.S.: lots more tutorials from Gizmo here: http://www.techsupportalert.com/tutorials
Posted 14 years ago # -
Quantum Dragon
MemberHello again,
To shed more light, here is Tip #310 - Move files to second hard drive from http://www.worldstart.com/tips/tips.php/310
QD
Posted 14 years ago # -
Grnnysews54, I got a 10 gig external USB drive and moved the games I wanted to keep over to it by going into my program files on my C drive and moving the folders one at a time. I did this slowly one game at a time, tested after each one to make sure they worked. That way if they didn't, I could go to my trash bin and un-delete the folder. Some games just didn't work after the move, so I had to leave them on my C drive. Some of the games didn't work at first after I moved them back, but after a re-boot they worked again. I have an extra internal hard drive I keep all my data files on, but it is pretty full too. :)))
Do as Whiterabbit said, do NOT uninstall your GOTD programs when you move them.
Posted 14 years ago # -
grnnysews54
MemberYes, Whiterabbit, you presumed correctly. My internal hard drive only has 2gigs left, while my external has almost 80. I learned too late that I could actually direct where I wanted files to be stored and at this point I'm stuck. I moved all the games over to the external and made sure they worked, then deleted what I no longer play either using the software uninstall or the add/remove from the control panel. What I'm left with are programs that I guess I won't be able to move. Most of what's left on the internal I do have the cd's for, but alot of that space has been taken up with the security patches, updates to ms and other program files that I'm too afraid to touch. I guess it's getting nigh onto time for a new computer, I never thought I'd eat up a 40gig hard drive like this. This computer is almost 7 years old, and while it stills works beautifully (even after taking a lightening strike several years ago). Thanks for all the suggestions and the links, I think I've done all I can do at this point. Laura
Posted 14 years ago # -
RosnSC
Membergrnnysews - and others - I learned a hard lesson after making what has become a big mistake. I have been downloading/installing all of the GOTD software to my external drive, to preserve space on my getting-full 120 GB main drive, for about a year now. Well, that external just suddenly gave out on me a couple of days ago, leaving me no access to the software. I have learned, from that, not to put all my eggs in one basket. When I get a new drive - and I am contemplating different options on what to get - I will use it to back up what is on my main drive. That way if one gives out on me, I will have the other.
Sue - who was going to install the drive into her desktop tower, but discovered the connectors are different than those of an internal drive
Posted 14 years ago # -
penneddragonone
Membergrnnysews54 one way to maximize disc space on your hard drive is to compress the drive. It can take several hours and should be the only thing your computer is doing. I start the process at night and it is usually finished in the morning. In XP and Vista got to Start> Computer> Right click on your Hard Drive (usually C:) and select the Properties Option> a pie chart shows in the new window that indicates how full your selected drive is. Below the chart is a check box "Compress this Drive to Save Space" check the box, and click OK. I've freed up 10 to 40 Gigabytes with this simple tool.
RoseNSC Sue can install any hard drive in her desktop she wants to with the proper adaptor. The adaptor is about $8-$10 at an electronic store. It will adapt the Serial ATA hard drive to the IDE or PATA or old paralel hard drive desk top. You can even put a laptop hard drive into your desktop.
You can transfer your entire hard drive to a new bigger hard drive with a mirroring/cloning program like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, etc. You make a copy of your entire hard drive without having to reinstall the operating system or programs. It is the best way I've found to Back up my hard drive. That way if your hard drive fails all you do is take it out and put the back up drive in. 40 and 80 gigabyte drives are really pretty small these days. Drives for computers are up to Terabyte size (1000 gigabytes). Drives for laptops are up to 320 gigabytes.
You can google cloning or hard drive mirroring to find video tutorials on drive cloning. http://www.techsupportalert.com mentioned above is good. Also http://www.ehow.com, http://www.computerhope.com. http://www.tomshardware.com tells you how to build your own computer. Adult Education classes, tech school, are great to teach you how to do computer repairs. Be careful to always unplug your computer before you do anything inside it and after you plug it in to test something you've installed before you do anything else to it. Always touch the case before you touch the components inside so you don't short out components inside with your body's static electricity.
Products like ccleaner (crap cleaner) can get rid of space consuming temporary files. If your computer is running well, you can turn System Restore off to delete all of the old system restore files. Wait because it can take five minutes or so till it is done. Then be sure to turn it back on. You can turn automatic Windows updates off and just install the major Service Packs when they come out. You can get an old computer from a second hand store to play with if you don't want to risk your main computer. Second hand Pentium IIIs and up are good and sell for $20-$75. You can buy them off of http://www.craigslist.org cheaply. Lots of people thrown computers away at the end of the month when they move from big apartment buildings. Big corporations sell their stuff quarterly, call each one to inquire when. School districts are good source for old computers, too.
If your computer is 7 years old, you can find pretty good new basic machines for $200-$300. Just add more RAM memory when it comes on sale. Also you can add better Video card and CD/DVD player later when they're on sale. You might wait till
Windows 7 is out on new computers. I've heard its a good operating system.Taking a computer repair class is a good way to make friends of all ages. Most young people are pretty cool and not as hard headed or hard hearted as a lot of us old foggies can become. You can find anything you need to know on the internet. Just watch as many different videos on the subject until you feel confident to do something. If your computer is under warranty, you can break your warranty working on it yourself, I've heard. Most of the problems with computers I've found is a result of malware and viruses. Be sure to get a couple of good free anti-malware programs and run them manually every week to clean up problems and space on your computer. I like Malwarebytes and Spybot Search and Destroy available for free from http://www.download.com.
You can also take any internal hard drive and put it in a $20 case and make it an external USB hard drive. You can put all of your movies, songs and pictures on it and share them with the rest of your family. Data is the only thing I really ever use an external hard drive for.
Posted 14 years ago # -
penneddragonone
MemberSometimes you can find the exact same model as your broken hard drive on ebay or amazon and take the electronic board off of the working hard drive and put it on your broken one and the broken one will work. I also read about a guy who used Butane gas (like for cigarette lighters) to lubricate the mechanism in a broken hard drive to have it work long enough to clone the data off of it. I read about this in Windows Secrets free edition newsletter.
Posted 14 years ago # -
FYI:
Got this from Gizmo...Acronis True Image 10 for Free
http://www.techsupportalert.com/acronis-true-image-10-for-free.htm
And....
"HDClone free edition allows you to clone your hard disk or move your data from one hard drive to another easily. This is especially useful when you want to replace your old hard disk with a new one and you don’t want to install everything from the scratch.
http://www.whoismadhur.com/2008/12/27/copy-data-from-one-drive-to-another-with-hdclone/
Good luck!!!
Posted 14 years ago # -
RosnSC
MemberThanks for that info, penneddragon. I kind of figured I'd get help here, if anywhere...:D. Serial ATA hard drive to the IDE or PATA - these are all terms I have heard of, but don't know the difference, or what each one looks like. Would you, or anyone else for that matter, mind educating me on this? You mentioned taking a computer repair class. Actually I have thought of checking out such online.
Sue
Posted 14 years ago # -
penneddragonone
MemberSue, There is nothing like actually doing hands-on training in a classroom environment. I'm very much an beginner but here goes: There are generally two kinds of drives PATA and SATA. Serial ATA are the new ones. Paralell ATA are most of the old ones also called by lots of other names. If you look in your computer case and see a long cable/ribbon from the motherboard to the back of your hard drive (grey with lots of ridges along it about two inches wide) then the drive is ATA. It will also have a white connector stuck in the back of the hard drive for power (Molex connector). The back of the hard drive also has a tiny plastic connector called a jumper that connects a pair of pins and tells the computer whether your hard drive is set as Master (MA), Slave (SL) or Cable Select (CS).
SATA drives have red cables that connect to your motherboard.
You can get $25 kits at electronic stores to make any hard drive into a USB external drive or to adapt it temporarily to hook into your desktop so you can clone to it or run an antivirus on it. There are adaptors to make a SATA drive useable in an older computer. It won't run as fast.
You can google this stuff and look up tutorial videos for installing and cloning hard drives. Delenn13 gave you links to some good information. You have to be very careful when you clone Hard drives that your Source drive is your old drive and that your Destination drive is the new drive. I once got them backward and cloned the blank new drive to my old drive and wound up with two blank drives. I learned how to fix my car, my home, my computer, my hair and my clothes at a neighborhood tech school. Made lots of friends old and young.
But probably simplest thing is to compress the hard drive you have and wait till the new computers come out with Windows 7. My favorite tech sites are http://www.techsupportalert.com and http://www.raymond.cc. Not to mention GOTD!!!
Posted 14 years ago # -
From what I am seeing ppl are having a hard time getting Acronis True Image 10 because of their location. It seems they have changed things so you may not be able to get it. When I first got the email from Gizmo, I didn't pay too much attention to it as I have version 8..... The last one that isn't bloated. I am a firm believer in.."If it ain't broken..don't fix it".(Just wish my husband believed that.)
Anyways..check this out. This is why I like the comments section of GOTD. Lots of suggestions for alternative free software for backing up your PC and software.
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/document-backup-51/#comments
Posted 14 years ago # -
penneddragonone
MemberI was following Delenn13's links yesterday and found this free version of HDClone. I've never used it. It helps you create a bootable CD. You put the CD in and watch the screen and when it says "press any key to boot from CD" you press a key and boot from the CD and then start the cloning program. If you watch your computer boot up it will say F2 to BIOS or some Function, Delete or Escape key to push (several times usually) to get to your BIOS. You find the boot sequence settings on one of the tabs and make sure your computer sees both hard drives you are trying to clone. Also make sure the boot sequence is set to boot from CD drive first, then boot from hard drive. That way your computer will look for the CD Drive and the HDClone disc. It will start the computer from the CD not from your operating system on the computer's hard disk. You can't copy/clone it if it is already running. Typically the cloning program asks you what you want to do backup or clone/mirror a drive. You say clone/mirror and then specify the source drive, then the destination drive. Go slow and make sure you put in the right drive. (Best way is to get a bigger destination drive so you will not confuse the two drives.) I cloned a 100 gig to a 100 gig, got them confused and got two blank 100 gig drives. Process usually takes an hour or so depending on how fast your processor is and how big the hard drive is. If you don't want to sign up for a class maybe you can stop by and ask a teacher or a student to show you how to do it. I for one think geeks are our nation's most undervalued resource! There's a difference between backing up and cloning. Sometimes back up programs just grab your data files. Cloning/mirror imaging will make a complete stand-alone copy of your hard drive at the time it was cloned or imaged. Once you have the copy, you unplug it from your computer (if you don't use it) so it won't get hit by any of the viruses your computer may pick up. Anytime you have programs/data you want to preserve for sure, plug the drive back in and run the cloning process again. You can clone from a smaller to a larger drive if you are just trying to upgrade your computer system. You can also keep a second drive in your computer that you constantly clone your system to (weekly, monthly). So when the main drive dies or gets corrupted you just unplug it and plug in the backup. Some people just clone the backup over the main corrupted drive either way, you system is really only as good as your latest clone.
Some people use sand boxes like Returnil that was given away here. If any malware or viruses get on your computer they go away when you turn your system off and reboot. Anything you download or type disappears too. Gizmo has an extensive discussion about security on his website and you can search GOTD's forums for discussions on it too. All the wonderful regular posters here help make this a great site!
Posted 14 years ago # -
copmom
MemberWow... after reading all this it sure clears up a few things for me. I found one problem tho'.. I used Acronis True Image to clone (ghost) my C: drive to my F: drive. Only thing.. my C: drive is 145 GB (and there's only 29 GB free now), and the F: drive was 320 GB and now shows it's 145 GB. NOW they are BOTH 145 GB! What did I do wrong?
Posted 14 years ago # -
g@rgoyle
ModeratorHi Copmom,
You did nothing wrong... you're just not finished yet ;-)
The confusion starts with the word 'drive'... so lets reserve that for cars!
Your F: PARTITION is now an exact copy of your C: PARTITION (including the 145 GB size), but your actual DISK is still 320 GB... and you can reclaim it all *yippee*.To see your "missing" GBs... in Vista: wait for someone else to explain or hope that the following works... in WinXP: click 'start' > right click on 'my computer' > click 'manage' > choose 'disk management' > you should now see all connected disks and the partitions that are on them. You can find all kinds of info by right clicking, but be careful not to change your existing (C:, D:, E:) partitions. The built-in partition manager in WinXP will only let you create an additional partition by right clicking on the unassigned space, but there are 3rd party partitioning tools that also let you resize a partition so that you can increase F: to 320 GB again. The tool I use does the job, but I can't recommend it (a- no english, b- no help file, and c- it came with one of my disks, so no download). I'm sure there are good freeware options and hopefully someone will point you in the right direction *please... 'guys'?... anyone?...*. Hope you've got a bit of a starting point here.
Regards,
Lan *who sucks at writing a how-to*Posted 14 years ago # -
penneddragonone
Membercopmom,
Acronis has a customer support and technical support line. I've never had the problem. Now you basically have a drive F: with two partitions..one formated 145 gig and probably one 175 unformated/unallocated partition. Gargoyle is right about there being partitioning tools (like Partition Magic) but I've had bad luck using those. You have to continue to use that program to partition the drive.I would look for a free program to write zeros to F: and reformat the entire hard drive. Then try the ghost again. When you go through the drive selections again in Acronis just select the source drive C: 145 and destination F: 320. It should give you a chart that says what your resulting drive will look like, if it doesn't say 320 you made a wrong selection somewhere. If it says proportional image, use that selection. Make the simplest choices and don't change the default values. I've never had your problem happen. XP will not let you make the 145 g partition bigger now. My Vista Basic will let me shrink a partition, but not extend one. Extend partition is greyed out on my machine. Maybe it is a feature just avilable to premium users. I don't know, I only have the cheap version. Acronis's tech support should be able to answer your question. I can ask in class tomorrow Pacific time, but my extra drive is full of stuff I'm waiting for my daughter's friend to get off of it so I can't run through all the selections in Acronis tonight. You got the hardest part done, getting the computer to see both hard drives in BIOS and running Acronis as a boot CD from the CD drive. If I remember correctly there was something about a "proportional" imaging. It made my 60 gig partition 200 gigs and my 5 gig restore partition 20 gigs. I didn't really need a 20 gig restore partition but I couldn't find out how to selectively assign values to the finished hard drive partitions in Acronis.
Posted 14 years ago # -
copmom
MemberMaybe what I need to do is format that F: drive and try again following your directions! Just don't dare chance losing all my stuff on the C: drive so needed that 2nd one as a back up. Also have a 300 GB external, but again, want to be sure I have my full hard drive. When I told my brother about this, he simply said if you copy / clone a certain size HD, it makes the other HD the same thing, duplicating it.. have to overcome that or what's the point of going to a larger one? And I never partition anything.
Posted 14 years ago # -
penneddragonone
Membercopmom,
I'm going to class now. I'll try out Acronis with class computers. Do you have anything on the external drive? Your brother is wrong. The ghost can be from a smaller to larger drive. If the data will fit, I've even cloned from a larger drive to a smaller one. The partition tools I used once put some kind of error on my drive and Windows couldn't get rid of the partition even by formatting. I hate to partition drives. But lots of people do. The drive I partitioned with the tool failed shortly after the partition and it was only three months old. It's the only drive I've had fail. Does Acronis charge for tech support? I'm sure they could walk you through the right steps to clone one whole drive to another whole drive without breaking it into two partitions. Was the 300 gig hard drive unformatted when you tried to clone? I tried to clone to an external USB drive, it took a week, and the drive didn't work when I put it in my computer as a boot drive. Please just wait another day and I'll get back to you. I'm in classes all day and all night till 10:00p pacific time. You were successful in that your data is safe in two places now.Posted 14 years ago # -
penneddragonone
MemberOkay,
You can clone your 150 g drive again with Acronis to the new drive. You don't have to reformat. Just choose the "Manual" option and then the "Proportional" option and you should get a clean 320 g space with 150 g of data.You could use Partition Magic, but you would have to purchase the program. It sometimes does wierd stuff to the drive. And you don't need it anyway. Just redo the clone process.
Posted 14 years ago # -
g@rgoyle
ModeratorHi Penneddragonone,
LOL, Partition Magic is by Norton/Symantec and most of their products don't play nice with the competition so that might explain it. I've used several other brands of partition tools in the past and none of them gave me a problem with switching or with using the Windows built-in one alongside them. I always partition new disks and *touch wood* I've never had a hard disk fail so maybe your unlucky disk was just the faulty one in the batch. I hope you've got one that lasts now.Hi Copmom,
I normally use Acronis for backups and then a partition tool to resize (in my case usually to shrink the backup by removing unused space), but Penneddragonone is right... you can resize in Acronis. Sorry that I didn't think of that yesterday. Instead of starting from scratch you could also try to resize the new partition you've already made.From the Acronis help file:
Changing the Restored Partition Size and LocationYou can resize and relocate a partition by dragging it or its borders with a mouse or by entering corresponding values into the appropriate fields.Using this feature, you can redistribute the disk space between partitions being restored. In this case, you will have to restore the partition to be reduced first.
Note
• These changes might be useful if you are to copy your hard disk to a new high-capacity one by creating its image and restoring it to a new disk with larger partitions. This way of cloning is used if it is impossible to connect the second hard disk to the PC.You've already put your image on a larger partition, and the help file suggests that you should now be able to grab the edge of your F: partition and stretch it to the original 320 GB size. At the moment I don't have a partition to try this out on (I will tomorrow), but it looks like I've been wasting time with my additional partition tool. Ah well, just proves that we're never too old to learn.
Regards,
Lan *feeling silly for using Acronis for so long without using the built-in resize option*Posted 14 years ago # -
penneddragonone
MemberWhat happened to RosnSC?
Copmom,
Both your drives are SATA so you don't have to worry about master and slave stuff because each SATA drive connects directly to the motherboard master of its single red cable. Lucky. I didn't realize that my motherboard had room on it for four SATA drives! Came in handy when I cloned my desktop drive to my old laptop drive.My friend bought a new laptop six months ago and she said her drive was almost full. Well apparently they put a restore partition on the drive at the factory instead of sending her the operating system CDs. They also divided the remaining hard drive in half. So instead of a single 80 gig partition on her 80 gig hard drive she had three partitions on her hard drive: C: 50 gig, F: 40 gig and G: 10 gig recovery partition. She had 40 gigs wasted in the F: factory installed partition! I think they do it so people will have to buy a pc sooner because they don't know how to delete F: or resize C. I've never tried out the partitioning tool in Acronis.
I sure hope it works out for you. Don't forget the unplug the old drive when you're done so if you get attacked by a virus it doesn't get both of your drives at the same time.
Posted 14 years ago # -
copmom
MemberGee, forgot about unplugging the old one when done! LOL BUT.. what I actually want to do is use the larger one as C: and then use the smaller one as F: so when I (for example) back up my bookkeeping program, I back up to both drives so that's always up to date. I found where to do it, but before I actually do the process have a batch of movies on here to convert from tar, rar, to avi so I can burn them first and then delete those so they're not cloned over! That's what's taking up so much room on my C: drive! Then need to run all my anti virus programs before transferring anything to clean up any garbage.
Posted 14 years ago # -
copmom
MemberUPDATE I'm bringing this thread back up again. I originally had made a ghost of my 160GB to my 320GB HD and then I ended up with TWO 145GB HD's! I lost all that space because it made an image of the HD. Penneddragon wisely told me to reclone with Acronis / Utilities / choose manual option and then "proportional" to create image. Ta da.. I just finally bit the bullet and did that and NOW I do have a 145GB C: drive, and a 320GB F: drive and everything on the C: drive is on the F: drive with lots of empty space! It worked!! I used Acronis True Image Home Edition 2009. Now I have the peace of mind that if my C: dies, I have that 2nd one and don't lose anything!!
Posted 14 years ago # -
RosnSC
Memberpenneddragonone, I am still here. For now, I have 'abandoned ship' on fooling with the external drive, though I still have it. Right now, I have a bigger problem, though. My hard drive on my Compaq bit the dust about a week ago. Don't know what happened to it. I had just done a successful system recovery on it, after encountering problems that couldn't be resolved in any other way. Within the next day or two, while my husband was playing a game on it, it just shut down his game and died. No software I have on hand, including the recovery disks Compaq instructed its new owner to make. Now, while I await the funds for a new drive, we are using our now-9 year old Gateway computer...with its 'whopping' 18 GB hard drive...<G>.
Well, at least I now know what type of drive it is - SATA. Found that out on the cable connected to the drive, when checking to see if I could put an old hard drive in there. The hook ups for the old drive are there (surprised me that it has 2 different types), but the supporting plate for it isn't, so couldn't install it. :(
Sue - glad to have a computer to use at all, even if it is an ancient one...lol
Posted 14 years ago # -
copmom
MemberSue.. sometimes the older machines work better than the newer ones! Gave a friend my old 733 machine, and that's been 'old faithful'.. she's gone through 2 laptops that died, but that old one keeps chugging along.
Did you know that the average life span of ANY appliance (refrig., washer, dryer, microwave, dishwasher, computer, etc.), is ONLY 3 years?? Older things were made to last a lot longer than that!
I wish my motherboard enabled me to use both SATA and the older USB hd's! And I only have room for 2 HD's on this 3 year old machine. That reminds me.. it's starting to get a bit noisy, so time to vacuum out all the dust bunnies inside, like the fans. First I use canned air to blow all the gunk in the back from the processor fans, and then vacuum out the stuff. With 2 dogs things get a big 'hairy' and then it starts running warmer and warmer.Posted 14 years ago # -
penneddragonone
MemberRosnSC, Are you sure it is your hard drive? Computers turn off when the processor gets too hot, typically from a malfunctioning fan (processor fan). If you have an Intel Processor, it will shut down before it dies permanently. Athlon processors just burn till they burn out for good.
There is an adaptor kit you can buy at an electronics store for $25 that will adapt any hard drive laptop/notebook, PATA or SATA to an external USB drive. (It can also be used to convert an internal CD-DVD reader/writer to an external USB drive). You could check the drive by using the kit to make it an external drive and plug it into someone else's computer and see if it is picked up by other computer. If the drive is okay, you can get another processor and processor fan for your motherboard. I read somewhere where a guy put his hard drive in the freezer and it worked long enough for him to clone a copy of it before it failed. (I've never tried it. Maybe someone else here has done it.) You can also go to Amazon.com and buy exactly the same model hard drive that failed and take the circuit board off of that one and put it on your failed one. Most of the time I'm told that is what fails on the hard drive. Replacing that one with the circuit board from the exact same model often fixes the drive. Has to be same model though.
If you have two DVD players you can take one out, buy a set of brackets that screw into the sides of the hard drive and put it in the slot for one of the DVD CD players.
Copmom,
My friend used canned air to blow out a computer inside the house of a client and caused anaphylactic shock in the client who was allergic to dust. I blow mine out outside.You can put a hard drive in one of the CD slots with adaptor brackets.
I just recently used a USB external hard drive and Acronis to clone/mirror/image my hard drive. It takes longer with USB (14 hours) as opposed to (1 1/2 hours) when the hard drive it is hooked up inside the computer because of the slowness of the USB connector, but it does the job. Now if my internal hard drive gets corrupted I just clone from the USB external hard drive to my internal drive and I'm in business again. No operating system to reinstall. No lost data or programs. If my internal hard drive fails, I pop the external hard drive's plastic case open, pull out the hard drive, take off the green adaptor circuit board from the end of the drive and install the drive inside my computer. I'm back in business till I can buy another hard drive (which I can put either in the external case or in my computer.
I couldn't get my brother to clone his hard drive either while it was still working. He spent five days reinstalling his system and software. He said he didn't have time to clone the drive..but he had time to reinstall. Somebody once said why is there always time to do it over but never time to do it right?
I just spent two weeks trying to repair my hard drive problems. Simple Minded helped me with the final problem. So I finally decided to get a hard drive and make a clone before I had to spend two weeks fixing my OS again.
Posted 14 years ago #
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