Hard drive image dilema

J

jsilva

Guest
Recently, my hard drive started failing (bad clusters). I found out about it running an error scan with HD Tune. I guess these bad clusters were "marked" by the software or by Vista since they don't show no more in HD Tune when I run the scan again.

Anyways, my computer has randomly frozen from time to time since the cluster problem, so I think is safe to say that the culprit is the hard drive cause I never had this problem before.

BUT...the last few days I had successfully made various images of the hard drive with Acronis. Is it possible to use this images in a new hard drive? I really don't want to install everything again. My specs are on my sig.
 
Yep, slap in a new hard drive, and make sure the image is available on a thumb drive, or an external HDD, and boot into Acronis with the bootable disc, and then load the image on the new drive.

Good as new, without much effort..
 
I have all that setup already. I was just wondering about the image issue. Thanks.
 
I did it!!!! I can believe it...:D It was really easy like you said and it worked flawlessly. The only thing I couldn't do for some reason was establish the partition size. I didn't see the option anywhere in Acronis, but I shrinked the volume once in Vista to 60gb like I wanted. Hopefully all my problems will go away now. If not...youre next mobo!!! Thanks J.
 
The only thing I couldn't do for some reason was establish the partition size. I didn't see the option anywhere in Acronis
Click to expand...

Google 'partition manager' for apps, both free and paid, that will allow you to manipulate partitions (create, resize, wipe, etc.). Acronis offers DiskDirector for partition management.

I can recommend Paragon HD Manager 2009 Suite, which combines full image backup/restore features with full partition management features. One app does it all.

Hope this helps!
 
thanks g, but I'm back to square 1 because my computer is freezing again. the only thing that I'm "almost" sure is that it always freezing when I am using java related apps like browsers, Utorrent, etc. But I'm not sure, maybe is the mobo. tomorrow I'm gonna take everything apart and put it together again to see if I miss something. I wish I knew already to get this thing over with.
 
If you made an image with Acronis, it will restore the same partition information as the original drive had.

For your freezes, I doubt you need to pull everything apart. Usually if you missed something in the assembly phase your PC won't work at all.

Random freezes can come from an under performing PSU, over clocking, memory errors, chipset bugs, BIOS / OS misconfiguration, or malware like a virus.

Obviously, if you're over clocking - stop and see if that "fixes" it. Also make sure nothing is over heating.

Google memtest x86. It's an iso you burn to CD and it runs as a standalone app (no OS) from the bootable CD. It will let you know if you have memory issues.

Nvidia motherboard chipsets have had a string of sata corruption issues over several generations of chipsets. If you have Nvidia, see if there's a BIOS fix or do what many of have done and switch to Intel.

You could also try a better PSU if you have a no name brand. I hate spending the extra money for brand name, but getting an appropriately sized Corsair, Seasonic, or other well reviewed/respected brand causes less headaches in the end. I had a 500w Antec PSU that caused random freezing. Not because of lack of power, but something about the ripple being out of spec. Replaced the PSU and the PC was solid. I've had to do that 2 or 3 times now, so the last few years I just started buying good PSU's from the start.

You can try turning off AHCI mode of your SATA controller if it's on (set it to enhanced IDE mode). There have been a few hardware / software bugs related to AHCI where turning it off helped. Or you could try running in RAID mode with only 1 drive. They all use different code path / drivers so sometimes one will work when another won't.

Lastly, all versions of Windows benefit from a periodic clean drive wipe and reinstall. There are exploits & viruses that most people don't know about yet and even if you have a good virus scanner, it's possible you pick up crap over time that causes problems. Plus windows itself tends to degenerate, especially if the hardware beneath it changes mid stream. When I have problems, I do a clean install to rule it out. If you have a backup image, you could try a fresh install but don't activate windows, install all the latest drivers, load your problem app and use it for a day and see how it goes. If you still have the problem, then you can re-image back to your old install. It's a cheap fix if it works.

And keep in mind that if your PC freezes, you're going to end up with file system errors. It's the same thing as turning your PC off without shutting it down. All modern OS's will detect if you haven't shut down clean, and then recommend a file system scan at the next bootup. It may find and fix filesystem errors, but this doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your hard drive. It just means you didn't shut down clean and Widnows wasn't able to complete some writes to disk. It's a symptom of another problem - not necessarily the root cause.
 
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