Need advice with my HDD

[B0rb0rigmus]

My HDD, 80 GB Hitachi SATA, is slowly dying. I need a new one. I want to upgrade to something around the 250GB range, but I don't know much about SATA. Is it possible to get the info off of this one (It's the only one in the PC) and onto another, OS and all, w/o shrinking the new one to 80GB? I am seriously ignorant and in need of help.

 

[josephjosephson]

First, what makes you think your HD is dying....hard drives are fairly reliable. I know a lot of people have suffered hard drive failures, but personally, I've run through many hard drives and replaced them only because of them becomming outdated (speed and size wise) but never because of a failure.

In regard to copying/backing up your stuff, that's not an issue (unless the HD completely dies). You just need to decide whether you want an exact duplicate of what you have or if you just want to backup specific programs/files. And it won't shrink a new HD by doing this.

 

[B0rb0rigmus]

When I start up the PC, it makes a really loud grinding sound. It'll finally stop after about 5-10 minutes. It has never made that sound in the last four years. The PC will periodically freeze up as well. I was guessing that these were related.

I would want an exact duplicate of this HDD. How would I go about copying this one? Would there be instructions with the new one if I were to buy it OEM?

 

[josephjosephson]

yea, good diagnosis =0

you can 'ghost' the hard drive. theres programs to do this and maybe you can run a google search for it (or check the forums) because i've never done this before. it should guide you through the process. i believe youd installed the new hard drive as a secondary one, ghost the old one to the new one, then turn off the computer and swap them. i would 'expect' it to be a simple process....

if you don't find any info, start a thread, 'how do i ghost my hd' or something like that.

 

[B0rb0rigmus]

Thanks a bunch!!

 

[ITGuy702]

Just to put in my 2 cents...

Are you sure it's the hard drive that's grinding and not one of the fans?

 

[kimsland]

To fully confirm that it's not actually your fans causing the issue, you could open the side case and listen to where the noise is comming from.

I would want an exact duplicate of this HDD

Norton Ghost (I use this one)
Acronis True Image (most users like this one, images and backup incrementally)
Acronis Migrate Easy (Just disk clone - quite good!)
Drive Image (Basically an alternative)
DriveImage XML (This one is free!)
MaxBlast (I haven't used this, but it's free)

Imaging: Backs up your entire system, including Windows and data, plus your partition as well. The image can be stored on removable media, such as DVD. And usually takes under an hour (depending on size of image) to fully recover from a blank HardDrive.

Would there be instructions with the new one if I were to buy it OEM?

No. There are too many types of computers and Operating Systems for HardDRive manufactures to instruct users how to copy and mount.

 

[B0rb0rigmus]

Yeah I had opened the case and confirmed it. It is definitely the HD.