From: Chuck on
On 5/26/2010 6:12 PM, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
> On Tue, 25 May 2010 19:30:02 -0700, Doum<me(a)domain.net> wrote:
>
>
>>> You said this was a laptop. Laptops only have one hard drive.
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> My laptop has two internal hard drives
>
>
> I don't want to say you're wrong for sure, since there may be some
> that do have two hard drives, but I've never seen one with two drives.
>
> How do you know yours has two drives? It's much more likely that you
> have one hard drive with two partitions on it.
>
>
>
HP Pavilion 9650us "multimedia" Vista laptops have two 250G hard drives.
They were sold nation wide by Office Depot in the 2007-8 time frame.
They are somewhat slow by today's standards, due to a less than optimum
MBD design.
From: MN on
Mark,
What is the Link for Hitachi ? I have an Hitachi SATA drive.

======================================================================================
"Roy Smith" <rasmith1959(a)live.com> wrote in message
news:OsUw0uG$KHA.4472(a)TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> One comment that bears mentioning about these free backup programs from
> Seagate/Maxtor and Western Digital... these programs have one stipulation
> in that you are required to have a drive from the respective manufacturer,
> or the program won't run. The program is basically Acronis True Image
> Home with several of the retail features removed such as incremental
> backups, scheduling, and the ability to mount a backup archive as a drive
> to name a few. The programs are available at:
>
> Maxtor:
> http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=MaxBlast_5&vgnextoid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
> Seagate:
> http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=DiscWizard&vgnextoid=d9fd4a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
> Western Digital:
> http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en
>
> (The Maxtor and Seagate lines may be word-wrapped)
>
>
> "Mark Adams" <MarkAdams(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:6848B6CE-6428-4307-B780-3F8508662E12(a)microsoft.com...
>>
>>
>> "bk3000" wrote:
>>
>>> Mark, Alias, et al -
>>>
>>> Really appreciate the feedback. I like the idea of having an
>>> at-the-ready
>>> backup with an external hd, but it appears I could simply use the
>>> Acronis-powered free download/trial version utility from WD or Seagate
>>> to
>>> image the current hd and restore it to the new drive upon its' arrival.
>>> I'll
>>> definitely take a peek at the current going rate for external hds, also
>>> Acronis itself if I can't access the free version. I'm really not even
>>> going
>>> to inquire further about cloning, which seems to be a more intensive
>>> alternative/for different purposes than the imaging...?
>>>
>>
>>
>> If you do not buy the external hard drive, you will have to clone the old
>> hard drive to the new one. You will have to buy a 2.5 inch USB hard drive
>> enclosure to do this. Download the utility from the website of the maker
>> of
>> the new drive to your desktop machine and burn a bootable CD from the
>> download file. Put the new hard drive in the USB enclosure and connect to
>> the
>> laptop. Boot the laptop to the CD you just made and clone the old drive
>> to
>> the new one. When done, remove the CD from the drive and shut the laptop
>> down. Remove the old hard drive from the laptop and replace it with the
>> new
>> one, and you should be good to go. Keep the old drive for awhile until
>> you
>> are satisfied that all is well with the new installation.
>>
>> If you do buy the external drive, use the bootable disk to save an image
>> of
>> the old drive to the external drive. Then, put the new hard drive into
>> the
>> laptop and use the CD to restore the image to the new drive. You will now
>> have a backup image safely stored on the external drive, and the laptop
>> should be good to go.
>>
>> Acronis can do both of these functions and can also be installed to your
>> machine and make incrimental backups to the USB drive while Windows is
>> running. You can schedule those backups to be made at night while you are
>> asleep. A very useful program.
>>
>>
>>> My apologies about the mistaken identification of my separate PARTITION
>>> of
>>> the hd as a second drive - confusing it with my older desktop, though I
>>> had
>>> always thought they weren't part of the same hardware piece. Thanks for
>>> catching it.
>>>
>>> - Brian
>>>
>>> "Mark Adams" wrote:
>>>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > "bk3000" wrote:
>>> >
>>> > > Machine is still running, though theoretically it could irreparably
>>> > > crash at
>>> > > any second, I've been told. It seemed close yesterday, in fact. Was
>>> > > considering spending the $ for a USB or external hard drive; I have
>>> > > a few
>>> > > flash drives but they won't be enough for the whole operation.
>>> > >
>>> > > How about my internal backup HD?
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > You said this was a laptop. Laptops only have one hard drive. You
>>> > certainly
>>> > don't want to save anything to a separate partition of a hard drive
>>> > that you
>>> > already know is failing.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > >Would it be smart to backup anything
>>> > > (documents, for instance) on there or even possible to use that as a
>>> > > mirror/image location of some sort?
>>> > >
>>> >
>>> > Backup images are saved as one large file. The flash drives would have
>>> > to be
>>> > big enough to hold the whole file, or it won't work. You could
>>> > manually copy
>>> > your documents, pictures, music, and export your email and browser
>>> > bookmarks
>>> > to the flash drives if you have enough of them (I doubt it.) Cheaper
>>> > to get a
>>> > USB hard drive. Alias says Seagate's utility will make an image; I
>>> > assume it
>>> > can restore one to a new hard drive also. If so, you won't need the
>>> > Acronis.
>>> >
>>> > > Also curious about commenter Db at the bottom of the thread making
>>> > > the point
>>> > > about any bad sectors being recreated in any of these scenarios.
>>> > >
>>> >
>>> > The bad sectors won't be recreated on the new drive, but any data on
>>> > those
>>> > sectors is probably lost and won't copy to the new drive. This could
>>> > include
>>> > critical operating system files and could crash or cause instability
>>> > to the
>>> > OS.
>>> >
>>> > > "Mark Adams" wrote:
>>> > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > > "Alias" wrote:
>>> > > >
>>> > > > > Mark Adams wrote:
>>> > > > > >
>>> > > > > >
>>> > > > > > "bk3000" wrote:
>>> > > > > >
>>> > > > > >> I've got a Dell laptop running XP, and after running a
>>> > > > > >> diagnostic test, got
>>> > > > > >> error code 0146 that hard drive was corrupted. Dell is
>>> > > > > >> sending me a new one,
>>> > > > > >> which I'll have to self-install.
>>> > > > > >>
>>> > > > > >> I can't remember backing up my entire system ever, so my
>>> > > > > >> question is, how
>>> > > > > >> should I go about saving all my settings and programs on the
>>> > > > > >> current hard
>>> > > > > >> drive? I've got a backup drive of 20gb, so I'm guessing I
>>> > > > > >> should put it all
>>> > > > > >> there, and also a few flash drives, but what method should I
>>> > > > > >> use? Should I go
>>> > > > > >> to the C:/ drive system properties and select the backup
>>> > > > > >> option or do stuff
>>> > > > > >> manually?
>>> > > > > >
>>> > > > > > If the machine still runs, Go out and buy Acronis True Image
>>> > > > > > and a 1 TB USB
>>> > > > > > hard drive. Boot the machine to the Acronis disk and make an
>>> > > > > > image of your
>>> > > > > > computer to the USB drive. When the new drive arrives from
>>> > > > > > Dell, restore that
>>> > > > > > image to the new drive. It might cost a little more to do it
>>> > > > > > this way, but it
>>> > > > > > is so much easier than reinstalling everything, it's worth it.
>>> > > > >
>>> > > > > You can also do the same thing for free with the CD you can
>>> > > > > download
>>> > > > > from Seagate, Western Digital, etc.
>>> > > > >
>>> > > > > --
>>> > > > > Alias
>>> > > > > .
>>> > > > >
>>> > > >
>>> > > > Alias, Bob.
>>> > > >
>>> > > > It's been awhile since I've used these utilities. Since I've
>>> > > > gotten Acronis
>>> > > > I've not had to use them. I know they can clone drives, but can
>>> > > > they make an
>>> > > > image? The OP has a laptop and since two hard drives cannot be
>>> > > > installed at
>>> > > > the same time, a USB enclosure would be needed to clone to the new
>>> > > > drive.
>>> > > > This would also eliminate the necessity of purchasing the external
>>> > > > hard
>>> > > > drive. But, by buying Acronis and the USB drive, the OP could
>>> > > > replace the
>>> > > > failing drive and also have a reliable backup system. Costs more,
>>> > > > but now he
>>> > > > can backup everything all in one shot.
>
>
>


From: Doum on
"MN" <MN(a)Private.net> �crivait
news:eYEQqjEALHA.980(a)TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl:

Here's the download link for various hard drive utilities for Hitachi
HDs.

http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/

They don't offer the free stripped down version of Acronis True Image
like Seagate and Western Digital do. You could buy the full featured
version from http://www.acronis.com/ ,or many hi-tech or office stores
(online or not).

Hitachi don't seem to offer cloning software either but do a Google
search with "free cloning software" and you will get many results.

HTH


> Mark,
> What is the Link for Hitachi ? I have an Hitachi SATA drive.
>
>========================================================================
>==============
> "Roy Smith" <rasmith1959(a)live.com> wrote in message
> news:OsUw0uG$KHA.4472(a)TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> One comment that bears mentioning about these free backup programs
>> from Seagate/Maxtor and Western Digital... these programs have one
>> stipulation in that you are required to have a drive from the
>> respective manufacturer, or the program won't run. The program is
>> basically Acronis True Image Home with several of the retail features
>> removed such as incremental backups, scheduling, and the ability to
>> mount a backup archive as a drive to name a few. The programs are
>> available at:
>>
>> Maxtor:
>> http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=MaxBlast_5&vgn
>> extoid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD Seagate:
>> http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=DiscWizard&vgn
>> extoid=d9fd4a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD Western Digital:
>> http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en
>>
>> (The Maxtor and Seagate lines may be word-wrapped)
>>
>>
<snip>
From: Jim P on
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
>
> On Wed, 26 May 2010 16:00:10 -0700, Doum<me(a)domain.net> wrote:
>
>> "Ken Blake, MVP"<kblake(a)this.is.an.invalid.domain> ?crivait
>> news:027rv5luruup6rlhrol4lptvbtmd9r6l0k(a)4ax.com:
>>
>>> On Tue, 25 May 2010 19:30:02 -0700, Doum<me(a)domain.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>> You said this was a laptop. Laptops only have one hard drive.
>>>>
>>>> <snip>
>>>>
>>>> My laptop has two internal hard drives
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't want to say you're wrong for sure, since there may be some
>>> that do have two hard drives, but I've never seen one with two drives.
>>>
>>> How do you know yours has two drives? It's much more likely that you
>>> have one hard drive with two partitions on it.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I know it has two physical drives because I've installed the second one
>> myself.
>
>
>
> OK, then I withdraw the implication of what I said. But it is very
> unusual.
>
>
>
I have a Toshiba Satellite A135 with two hard drives, from the factory.
From: Eddie on
Big_Al wrote:
> Bob said this on 5/25/2010 11:25 AM:
>> WD offers a free copy of Acronis if you own one of their drives.
>> http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&type=download&wdc_lang=en
>>
>>
>>
>> "Mark Adams" <MarkAdams(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:FB3A0D66-8006-4018-B87E-CD66EFDDDAA0(a)microsoft.com...
>>>
>>>
>>> "bk3000" wrote:
>>>
>>>> I've got a Dell laptop running XP, and after running a diagnostic
>>>> test, got
>>>> error code 0146 that hard drive was corrupted. Dell is sending me a
>>>> new one,
>>>> which I'll have to self-install.
>>>>
>>>> I can't remember backing up my entire system ever, so my question is,
>>>> how
>>>> should I go about saving all my settings and programs on the current
>>>> hard
>>>> drive? I've got a backup drive of 20gb, so I'm guessing I should put
>>>> it all
>>>> there, and also a few flash drives, but what method should I use?
>>>> Should I go
>>>> to the C:/ drive system properties and select the backup option or do
>>>> stuff
>>>> manually?
>>>
>>> If the machine still runs, Go out and buy Acronis True Image and a 1
>>> TB USB
>>> hard drive. Boot the machine to the Acronis disk and make an image of
>>> your
>>> computer to the USB drive. When the new drive arrives from Dell,
>>> restore that
>>> image to the new drive. It might cost a little more to do it this way,
>>> but it
>>> is so much easier than reinstalling everything, it's worth it.
>>
>
> IIRC Acronis offers a free trial too for 15 days. You can use that
> and if you like it buy it later.
> I own Acronis now and use it regularly to make images on a 1TB usb and
> feel good that I've got all my work backed up and can reset my machine
> at any time in 20 minutes or so.
>


Acronis is still freely available on the net; you just gotta look.
Ed.