Miscellaneous > Applications

Hard drive copying software?

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Aloone_Jonez:
As I mentioned in another thread, my hard drive is fucked.

I've ordered a new one.

Is it possible to transfer all the data, including the OSes, to the new drive and simply boot it up?

I don't fancy having to re-install Windows and Fedora all over again. It would be nice if I could transfer all the partitions and the MBR to the new drive without having to start from scratch.

I don't care whether the software is Linux, Windows or a live CD as long as it's reliable.

A quick Google found the following programs:
http://www.clonezilla.org/
http://ping.windowsdream.com/ping.html
http://selfimage.excelcia.org/
http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page

Which one would you recommend?

davidnix71:
There used to be a block-level cloning software that I used. If your drive is corrupt, then imaged copy would be corrupt, too.

Clonezilla is from the SourceForge. I would go with it.

Aloone_Jonez:
When I boot the system an annoying nag bubble appears saying the hard drive is failing. I click on it and it loads Palimpsest disk utility which lists the following faults:

Relocating sector count: 1
Current pending sector count: 1

It says "Drive failure expected within 24 hours. Save all data immediately"

I'm not too scared, I've been using my computer for a few weeks with it like this but at least I've been given a warning.

I've since disabled the nag bubble but it will be re-enabled after the upgrade.

I know the hard drive is a piece of shit Maxtor, as was the previous one (also a Maxtor) which catastrophically failed; whilst I was using the PC it made a weird noise but carried on working but refused to boot after shutting down. At the time I though it was bad luck because the hard drive was just over two years old but now I know it's because Maxtor are fucking shit.

I will never buy a Maxtor again, the drive on order is a Western Digital.

I don't think the file system is corrupt but I will check all of the partitions before cloning. If there's any data I've lost, I'll probably be on the FAT32 partition, which will be converted to NTFS after the upgrade, it was only there because Linux didn't used to be able to write to NTFS.

davidnix71:
You can't buy Maxtor anymore. Seagate owns them now. I like SMART drives. I bought a used hd for a laptop and it would boot okay from a firewire drive, but when I put it in the laptop and ran disc utility, DU went nuts and said "get this thing out of here, NOW!"

I sent the drive back for a refund.

Aloone_Jonez:
It's the NTFS partition that contains a bad sector.

I've just run a chkdsk and it appears that the bad sector had been found and patched on a previous scan. I'm rather annoyed because I haven't been warned about this and what's worse is that, according to My Computer, Windows seems to think the hard disk is working properly.

The good news is I haven't lost any data - it could've been a lot worse.

Are Seagate any good?

I don't think Maxtor being bought by Seagate will improve anything, so I'll add them to my mental blacklist.

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