PC utilities: How can we recover quickly from HDD crash?
How can we recover quickly from HDD crash?
by harrytan - 7/1/07 12:37 AMI have had so many HDD crash on me over the past 15 years and despite trying all kinds of backing up systems, the time taken to restore my systems always take forever and inevitably all my settings and configurations disappear. Also, tonnes of updates have to reinstalled and drivers as well.
I have thought of cloning or mirroring my HDD but I have yet to find a solution that does this painlessly. Also these methods can take a very long time for a 80Gig HDD (on my notebook).
I also found that the problematic issue of Long File names causing most of the cloning/backup solutions to fail midway.
Thanks for any suggestions!
Cheers!
Re: recover from HDD crash
by Kees Bakker
- 7/1/07 3:16 AM
In reply to: How can we recover quickly from HDD crash? by harrytan
A program like Acronis True image (www.acronis.com) is able to make an 'image' of your hard disk on an external hard disk. There's no reason at all why it shouldn't work with you.
It might take some time, yes, but it's much faster than doing it any other way.
Kees
I agree, I also use Acronis True Image.
by MarkFlax - 7/1/07 4:01 AM
In reply to: Re: recover from HDD crash by Kees Bakker
But I've never had an HDD crash. What do you mean by an HDD crash, the hard disk breaks, or the Operating System crashes?
If you've had so many hard disks break in the last 15 years then you have to be a very unlucky person.
However, if it is the OS that crashes, perhaps there are things you can do, anti-malware checking, housekeeping, etc that would help prevent such catastrophic events.
Do tell more on these crashes.
Mark
I had at least 6 Hard Disk failures in the past 15 years....
by harrytan - 7/1/07 5:09 AM In reply to: I agree, I also use Acronis True Image. by MarkFlax
AND I am very careful with my PCs! I do keep good care of my system files like defragging regularly, installed Zonealarm, Spybot Search & Destroy, Ad-Aware, McAffee.
The crashy most recently was just last week which motivated me to make this post. I used Norton Ghost and some other solutions to clone and do incremental backups but they are hard to restore.
E.g. the HDD that crashed last week just gave me a blue screen each time I boot up AFTER I see the Windows screen. I checked with my tech support and they tell me that the OS files were corrupted due to bad sectors. They tried to save my data files which were found on the D Drive by a diskcopy but they also found bad sectors and Long File Names which kept stopping the copying process. Unfortunately WinXP does not have scandisk to help me find the bad sectors or keep a record of where these are to avoid recording on them.
After many hours of slowly copying one folder at a time (to avoid the LFN problem) I managed to recover 90% of my data in D drive. He then proceeded to repair the Windows OS but was unable after many attempts. He then reinstalled the whole windows but by which, all my settings configuration and drivers disappeared.
As for ACRONIS - if the HDD fails, can I used the backup drive by ACRONIS swapped into the PC? Or Do I need to intall the ACRONIS on a new replacement HDD to then copy over from the backup HDD?
Is the ACRONIS more reliable and user friendlier than Norton Ghost?
Cheers and thanks for the input and help!
Harry
Backing up you HDD
by doowap57 - 7/3/07 11:21 AM In reply to: I had at least 6 Hard Disk failures in the past 15 years.... by harrytanDO NOT USE NORTON "GHOST", it has problems, that NORTON doesn't know hot to recover from, the program will freeze, and you will have to delete the entire HDD, and reload your basic OS and everything else
Acronis works FAST, and is NOT expensive.I put my OS on a USB 2.0 Flash Drive Activated XP, on a 8 Gig drive. Backup your files on CD's or DVD's, but be sure you can read them, and what program reads them.
Good Luck !
I've personally used GHOST 2003 since it was
by VAPCMD - 7/3/07 9:41 PM In reply to: Backing up you HDD by doowap57introduced and other versions prior thereto. I created the bootable floppy disk with MS-DOS vs IBM-DOS as the OS and it's never failed to create or more important ...restore an image. Those I help also use it and over time it's saved hundreds of hours restoring systems quickly and easily. I've used it on multiple operating systems including Win98SE, Win2K, WinXP Pro and WinXP Pro 64bit. I can't speak about later versions but Ghost 2003 with MS-DOS has served me beyond my expectation.
I also own Acronis True Image ...the last two versions but have only tinkered with the product...the proof is in long term use of the product..including restores as necessary. Certainly the comments of TI buyers as seen on Newegg are not without criticism. I just can't find any reason to stop using a product (Ghost) that continues to serve me so reliably.
Re RAID...that's hardly a practical solution for the average user ...
and totally unsuitable for someone with a notebook.
VAPCMD
Another tool in the arsenal: Spinrite from Gibson Research.
by inetdog - 7/5/07 5:15 PM In reply to: I had at least 6 Hard Disk failures in the past 15 years.... by harrytanAny time I suspect that there may be a mechanical problem with my hard drive, I always boot into SpinRite. It is a standalone disk diagnostic AND RECOVERY tool which works at the bit level rather than the file system level. It is not dependent on you having uncorrupted drivers for the HD in your OS.
The first thing it tells me is what the Smart Drive status information shows about the condition of the disk drive itself. If it looks too bad, I can check out things like temperature dependence of the errors and possibly do my backups in separate short sessions to keep the drive cool.
Then I let it go ahead and analyze the actual data. It will do the usual job of verifying the checksums of sectors and making far more attempts to get a good read than any OS would on its own. If it gets one good read, it can copy that information to another sector and substitute the sectors in the hard drive's own tables. But in addition, it can make multiple read attempts slightly off track and varying in other ways from the nominal head path trying to get a good read of a bad sector. And it can even make use of the direct analog signal information from the drive to use statistical methods to put together a consistent picture of the sector even though it never is able to read all of the bits correctly at once.
Unfortunately, my problems with laptop drives in particular are usually not completely fixed even by this, and SpinRite does NOT try to correct file system problems and cannot by itself recover deleted files, files which are intact but have had their directory information corrupted, etc. But by running SpinRite first I give a repair/restore program the best start I can and I also have an idea whether letting that program run and run will be likely to give me better results than a simple copy or will just drive the hardware further over the edge.
Like many good tools, it is specialized rather than trying to do everything, and what it does do it does very well.
One of the other important things that it can do is turn on the Smart Drive monitoring system of an HD even when the OS has not, and then report on what has been found each time you run it. Most new OS versions will do that too, but this is not OS dependent. (You can also access this information from other third party freeware like speedfan.exe if you want to monitor while actually operating with your OS loaded.)
hard disk crashes
by mansifpunna - 7/7/07 2:43 AM In reply to: I had at least 6 Hard Disk failures in the past 15 years.... by harrytanthe best way to recover all ur data and all stuff is by creating multiple partitions on ur harddisk.the windows program can be recovered frm ur recovery cd which is provided wid every pc.the windows program is always installed in ur c drive.formating c will erase all ur personal information.the best way is to save all ur data in other partions rather than c.
Hard drive failures
by RichJer - 7/7/07 5:07 AM In reply to: I had at least 6 Hard Disk failures in the past 15 years.... by harrytanWould be curious to know how much memory your compter has ? I have found that running extra memory tends to stop a computer coming up with error problems, and crashes. What speed is the CPU, Ghz?
The dreaded blue screen can indicate the wrong drivers are possibly installed for some of your computer hardware, check on the current updates for your computer hardware.
Partition your drive into at least 2 partitions and store any presonal data files, downloaded files, and program files in the second partition, this way you stand a better chance of recovering files. Burn a copy of these files on to a cd/dvd on a regular basis (once a month if not more often)
If you find that you are continually reloading windows, try downloading the following, which are all the current uppdates for windows xp, http://www.autopatcher.com/whatsautopatcher/ , this is all free and genuine microsoft updates. You can save this program on to a cd and use on any number of computers.
What? That is not correct!
by pineapplefish - 7/26/07 11:27 AM In reply to: I had at least 6 Hard Disk failures in the past 15 years.... by harrytan"Unfortunately WinXP does not have scandisk to help me find the bad sectors or keep a record of where these are to avoid recording on them." Go to "My Computer", right click the 'C' Drive, Select "Properties". Click the "Tools" tab. Select "Error Checking" Hit the "Check Now" button. Click both buttons. Hit the "Start" button. Hit "Yes" on the dialog. It will run the next time you start your computer.
Free version of Acronis True Image 7
by UKposter - 7/4/07 3:18 AM In reply to: I agree, I also use Acronis True Image. by MarkFlax
Should anyone want to try this software for free, for a longer time than the trial of the current version 10, or just use an older version, it's available from http://www.acronis.com/
Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image are products
by VAPCMD - 7/1/07 1:44 PM In reply to: How can we recover quickly from HDD crash? by harrytanthat create image files that under the proper circumstances can be accessed and restored to the original HDD (or a new HDD) and partition whenever desired. With 2 internal HDDs it's so fast and easy ....you'll wonder why you didn't think of it or try it long long ago..
I own both products but have only used Ghost (2003) extensively to create and restore HDD images. It's been a true 'life saver' for me and for others I help.
If you search thru the 'Storage' forum, you should be able to find discussions on good partitioning and backup strategies...including mine.
Good Luck.
VAPCMD
Incremental backups make it faster
by Crash2100 - 7/3/07 8:14 AM In reply to: How can we recover quickly from HDD crash? by harrytanYou can speed this up by using incremental backups, which only backs up what has changed since the last backup. This takes a little more space, but it's a lot faster.
RE:How can we recover quickly from HDD crash?
by fuzzyCWD - 7/3/07 8:33 AM In reply to: How can we recover quickly from HDD crash? by harrytanoldie but a goodie, i use a version of ghost found on "Techis CD". It takes 30 minutes to backup a 80 gig HDD, but to restore, all you need to do is put the tech disk in your CD-ROM and away you go. Thsi particular version of ghost runs in LINUX mode so you do NOT need to have an OS preinstalled to recover your backup. Of course, you SHOULD put the backup on a separate (remote) drive, but if you put it on your primary SLAVE drive, that should work. THEN you STILL need to do periodic backups as it does NOT do incrementals.
RAID
by killr_klown - 7/3/07 10:38 AM In reply to: How can we recover quickly from HDD crash? by harrytanthe fasted, best, and easiest way to recover from a HDD crash is to put in a RAID controller. RAID will copy the entire contents of your hard drive onto another drive. If one dies the other pickup where the other one left off. then all you have to do is replace the bad drive. It's a little work to put one together but very worth it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
BTW Defragging your HDD too often could be the result of your drives going bad. Once every six months is plenty.
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