Hard Drive Failing, need to transfer data urgent!

R

Ridu

Hi, my hard drive has started making a loud clicking noise whilst downloading (seems to only happen when downloading), I understand this is likely the hard drive failing... so my question... how do I transfer all the data from my hard drive to a replacement, and is it possible to do this without needing to reinstall the (XP) OS and re-formating the new HD? I've three partitions C,D and F (not sure why it jumped to F, but that's what's there). Have heard about Norton Ghost, can this handle the above? Is it any good?
Many thanks for any help,
Ridu
 
Quote from Ridu:

Hi, my hard drive has started making a loud clicking noise whilst downloading (seems to only happen when downloading), I understand this is likely the hard drive failing... so my question... how do I transfer all the data from my hard drive to a replacement, and is it possible to do this without needing to reinstall the (XP) OS and re-formating the new HD? I've three partitions C,D and F (not sure why it jumped to F, but that's what's there). Have heard about Norton Ghost, can this handle the above? Is it any good?
Many thanks for any help,
Ridu
More...

Usually, the amount of data is not all that intensive. Unless you have huge amounts of graphics

You can get a 2- to 4-gigabyte USB/thumb drive from WalMart BestBuy, wherever for $10 to $20. Just copy the files/data over to it.

The truth is, you should do this weekly/monthly, not wait until it is near death.
 
If you want to image the entire drive I prefer Acronis (that would alone you to replicate the current drive to a new drive and avoid re-installing the OS)

Do not delay, once a drive starts failing you likely don't have much time before it will become unreadable
 
If this is ONE physical drive that has three partitions, do not forget that you are describing a potential physical failure of the drive...
therefore you would want to back up the entire drive, not just the one partition.

$250.00 (in USA) would buy a hard drive with the capacity to copy or backup all of the files on the problem drive.

Just my 2 cents, hope it helps and good luck!
 
If the hard drive is physically failing, then make sure you backup the most essential stuff first to a usb drive or burn to CD/DVD. If you do something intensive like clone the whole lot, it would be more likely to die completely part way through.

Unless you have put things in odd places, all you need should be in your My Documents folder, email will be either in a .pst file (Outlook) or several .dbx files inside your Outlook Express folder. You might want your Favorites folder under your user name folder and maybe some stuff on the desktop.
 
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