bixy Posted November 25, 2008 Share Posted November 25, 2008 I have two related questions which I hope someone can help me with. My hard drive is giving every sign of being on the blink [strange noises, erratic behaviour]. There is a slot in the computer for a second hard drive. If I buy another hard drive and install it can I transfer everything over and thus solve the problem, ie. by-pass the dodgy hard drive?Second question is this: if I have to buy a French computer, can I uninstall the operating system and install an English version of Windows from the OS disk that I have, or alternatively can I run the two OS side by side?Thanks in advance.Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted November 25, 2008 Share Posted November 25, 2008 Hello PatrickFrom your description, the hard drive may be dodgy but it also could be that it is infected by a virus or that files have been corrupted. It could also be some other part of the computer that is faulty. It may be something simple or not.If you are not doing so already, you should start to back up your data on the hard drive. That means backing up anything that you have created and want to keep - documents, photos, email messages, favourites etc.Once you have a good back up system in place, in the event of your hard drive failing you will have copies of all your important things.The answer to your questions are1 Yes, basically, BUT (there is always a but) it might not be so straightforward... If your current computer is infected with a virus for example, you do not want to make a copy of a corrupted system. From what you have told us, my feeling would be to back up all your important data and thrn try to rescue the installation. If that fails, you can then reinstall the Operating system and reload your saved data. This is presuming that your hard drive is still OK but the operating system has been corrupted in some way. It would be useful to have more information to answer your questions i.e. what operating system is it? Have you installed anything lately? How long has this been happening?2 Generally, if you buy a new Windows computer, and it comes loaded with the operating system, you are only licensed to use it with that computer. There are other possibilities though Mac, Linux etc...Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybanana Posted November 25, 2008 Share Posted November 25, 2008 Perhaps a LaCie external hard drive, about 500mb or more, about €100. Should take most of what you have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
babcock Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 [quote user="woolybanana"]Perhaps a LaCie external hard drive, about 500mb or more, about €100. Should take most of what you have.[/quote]That is a bit expensive. I have an Iomega external drive 335gb about €73 from Darty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugsy Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 Why I didn't buy a LaCie.......................ReviewsBought an 500gb Iomega instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Coeur de Lion Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 [quote user="babcock"][quote user="woolybanana"]Perhaps a LaCie external hard drive, about 500mb or more, about €100. Should take most of what you have.[/quote]That is a bit expensive. I have an Iomega external drive 335gb about €73 from Darty.[/quote][:D] I had to re-read that a couple of times to work out how expensive that drive is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gosub Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 [quote user="babcock"][quote user="woolybanana"]Perhaps a LaCie external hard drive, about 500mb or more, about €100. Should take most of what you have.[/quote]That is a bit expensive. I have an Iomega external drive 335gb about €73 from Darty.[/quote]Try this one from Maplins1TB Seagate® FreeAgent™ External Drive only £99.99 - on sale until 24/12/2008 SAVE £20.00 was £119.99 Order Code: A76JB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob T Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 Or this one in France for 119 euros and know that it has a warranty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bixy Posted November 26, 2008 Author Share Posted November 26, 2008 Thanks for those replies. To answer Jane and Denny's questions. The OS is Vista; I recently installed Registry Mechanic. My thinking is that this is some kind of mechanical fault rather than a virus. The machine is only 18 months old [Dell] but for a few months when it starts up the hard drive has been making a bit of a squeak. The other day it refused to boot at all and made a terrible juddering squeal. I though it was finished but after leaving it for a while it was ok again. Any ideas?Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOther Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 Noises from hard drives are ALWAYS bad news and almost invariably a sign of impending disaster.Depending on how easy it is to remove the HD from your particular model, usually it's not too difficult if you can wield a small phillips screwdriver, I would get a new one for it and using something like Acronis or Ghost, or any of the other recognised imaging programmes, clone it from the old one then replace it.I would also do this NOW and I would also stop using the machine in the meantime ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 First things first. Have you already backed up all your important data? If not, do this now. An external hard drive is great for this but so is a USB key thingy. They are getting very cheap now and big enough to save plenty of data.I use a 2GB USB stick for my back ups. Of course, the 1 Terabyte drive should be OK too! If you are not sure what to back up or how to do it, ask soon - before it is too late...Secondly, do you have up to date anti virus software running? If not, you can do an online virus check on various reputable sites.here or here for example.It does not sound good for the drive though. If you need to get a new internal hard drive, you will probably need to reinstall Vista on it from your Windows/Dell disks. Then transfer any files you have saved on your back up drive. Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 Ernie got in while I was writing...If the hard drive is definitely faulty, then I would agree. If not, then transferring or copying a drive image which may be corrupted over to a new hard drive seems a bad idea. I would personally rather have a newly installed Operating system but that might be more hassle.Danny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOther Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 I was taking the course of least resistance Danny, and bixy has not said that there is anything actually wrong with the machine other than the noise - yet [blink]A clean install is of course preferable, providing one has the means to accomplish it.By the by I bought the 250gb version of THIS in Schipol yesterday for €69. In truth not a great deal less than UK online prices (it's a myth that Schipol is cheap) but no postage of course and I did need one. Plus I'm through Schipol at least once a month so any problems I can bang on the counter and shout ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerac Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 It is true that some virus infestations can cause so much disk activity that the drive emits strange noises, but the symptoms that you describe are those of the bearings on the disk spindle failing - sometimes they grate or squeal, and sometimes the disk just doesn't spin up so the machine won't boot. If this is the case then total failure is inevitable, and imminent.You need to replace it ASAP. I have just had exactly the same problem and was able to replace the disk before I lost the whole system.Take backup copies of all your data, then you can either reinstall Windows, all of the device drivers, all of your application programs, and go through all the Windows updates and then reload your data - or you can take a disk image, or clone your disk, to exactly replicate your system. I prefer the image/clone approach as a full rebuild and reload of my system takes many hours.There are a number of programs that can copy a complete disk. Providing your new disk is Seagate or Maxtor the Seagate website has a free download of DiskWizard. This will let you burn a bootable CD that will then let you clone your old disk onto the new, replace the old disk with the new and be up and running again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bixy Posted November 27, 2008 Author Share Posted November 27, 2008 Thanks for all the advice - much appreciated. I have been backing up regularly onto an external hard disk, so not too worried about losing files. My problem is that there is still 4 months warranty on this machine so I would prefer Dell to do the repairs rather than pay for it myself, when/if the hard drive finally goes. And presumably if I did try to repair it myself that would invalidate the warranty.Patrick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre ZFP Posted November 27, 2008 Share Posted November 27, 2008 Yes quite right to get Dell to do the repairs.Seems that there's been a few problems with Dell machines on this forum recently.My Dell (yes I know, my own fault for buying one, won't happen again) was getting progressivly slower and slower. No viruses or other nasties but I found there were a fairly large number of bad sectors on the disk and therefore much file fragmentation that a de-frag could not cure. Got a nice new Maxstor, copied all the files over and it was back to it's old speed. I was told by a friend 'in the trade', so therefore unsubstantiated, that the quaility of hard drives in these machines were not of the best. I'm begining to believe it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted November 27, 2008 Share Posted November 27, 2008 I know prices are going to be changing rapidly at this time, but for info i've just received notification from Pixmania (UK) - a 1TB external drive for £79 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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