BleepingComputer.com: Replacing hard drive

Shoot, I guess there's no getting around getting into tower now...was hoping to do minimum amt of that, thus bought hard drive enclosure. When I'm testing the brand new hard drive, do I run quick test first, followed by extended test?

Yes ... the quick test followed by the extended test ... that is the normal routine.

Ok, quick test on new hard drive had no errors, and running extended test now. Thank you so much for idea of sitting new hard drive on stack of books by tower! If big test is clean, I suspose I'm ready to try cloning suspect hard drive. Will I then have a master/slave scenerio with the 2 hard drives attached? If so, wd the new hard drive be connected as slave? I think I need some or one of those jumper blocks to set up slave which didn't come with new hard drive. That all is a big puzzle to me, where the block goes. The way the 2 hard drive data connectors are on that same wide ribbon, it appears like I'll need to have both hard drives in the bays to make the connections, but maybe there is another way there, also?

You said: "If big test is clean, I suspose I'm ready to try cloning suspect hard drive."
Yes.

The best scenario, offering the best chance of success is as follows:

• Both hard drives jumpered as MASTER
  
• Each of the hard drives should be attached to a separate IDE ribbon cable (and nothing else attached to either of the ribbon cables).
  It is not a good idea to have both hard drives (or a hard drive and a CD-ROM drive) attached to the same IDE ribbon cable when attempting recovery of data from a failing hard drive, due to possible corruption of the signal being transmitted along the one ribbon cable.
  
• The computer should then be booted from a USB flashdrive in order to run the cloning software.

Unfortunately, that arrangement is likely to leave you without the use of a CD-ROM drive to run the Acronis software! Again, unfortunately, I have not come across (never seen it done) use of the Acronis software from a bootable USB flashdrive and I don't know if it can be done.

So where does that leave you?
You are going to have to set one hard drive as MASTER (attached to the end of the cable) and one as SLAVE (attached to the middle connection of the IDE ribbon cable). This arrangement should work OK if you are using an "80 wire" (instead of the old "40 wire") ribbon cable, with both hard drives jumpered as CABLE SELECT. Otherwise you may need to jumper the hard drive that you connect to the middle connection of the ribbon cable as SLAVE.

It is unusual that a new hard drive would come without a jumper. Are you sure that you are looking in the right place for the jumper? There may be a spare jumper on the CD-ROM drive that you could use? Or ... perhaps on your existing "ailing" hard drive ... or on an old IDE hard drive that you may have lying somewhere about the place?

This post has been edited by AustrAlien: 29 August 2011 - 06:07 PM

I must begin by saying the only thing I'm sure of is that I'm not sure of anything at this point! Let me try to tell you some stuff about the ailing pc--it has 2 cd drives plus bays for 2 hard drives. Up to now, it's only had 1 hard drive ever installed. When I took off the possibly sick hard drive, it looked like the connectors for the second hard drive were on same wide, green colored ribbon, but I didn't examine possible other ribbon connectors that may be tied/bundled up in there.

As to the new drive having a jumper, that also could be a case of my not knowing what to look for.

Also at this point, I should tell you what has me thinking the hard drive is going bad b/c there again, I could be wrong, which may open up more possibilities. Besides a new click sound that seemed to come from original hard drive very intermittently, only 1 click that was very similar to sound power button makes when computer is turned off, but nothing went off nor changed. That was first thing, then 3 weeks ago, I got a prompt on a gray, not blue, screen that said, 'no hard drive present,' and only listed the 2 cd/dvd drives, asking me to hit F-1 to make changes. Well, I powered down, then back up, thinking possibly Hard drive was totally kaput, but pc came back on as if nothing happened. It worked for about 3 weeks, then this past Friday, when computer was on standby, suddenly it had that prompt again about not detecting a hard drive. That's when I thought it prudent to get this clone process going. I haven't turned the sick computer back on w/the 'sick/missing' hard drive back in yet as I'm not sure how many more, if any, turn-ons the hard drive has, so wanted to be ready for clone when I powered up with that hard drive in it again.

So, it's all guess on my part...I may be able to install Acronis directly onto sick computer. I wd probably also install it on my good computer to make bootable disk tho. I don't know if any of this new info helps you suggest anything or not. Also, I ran quick and extended tests on new hard drive 2 times, and both times of both tests found no errors.

Also, both hard drives are 40 pin eide interface, according to specs. If this helps, under 'controllers' in Belarc analysis, it says there's a Primary IDE Channel, Secondary IDE Channel, and Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller. Plus, I don't know if possible to boot that old pc from usb flashdrive--have never done it before.

This post has been edited by Terri13th: 29 August 2011 - 07:39 PM

You may find these two videos helpful ... although they are using SATA connections ... but one of them shows how to use the Acronis software to clone the system drive.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=110

Click on the video under "Did you know" ... and then there is a choice of 3 videos to watch.

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Re: jumper settings on a WD HDD
See if you can find your particular model of HDD and then navigate to the information that might help ... "jumper settings" and it will look something like the following:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/search/1/a_id/947#jumper

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You said: "I may be able to install Acronis directly onto sick computer. I wd probably also install it on my good computer to make bootable disk tho. I don't know if any of this new info helps you suggest anything or not."
Hold off for awhile ... I will attempt to digest what you have most recently posted and get back to you shortly.

*** Do NOT install Acronis on the ailing HDD .... nor do anything with the ailing HDD at all. Best we organise the cloning and do that rather than you attempt to start the system on the ailing HDD.

Thanks for all the extra information. Based on what you have written, it is questionable whether there may be a problem with the hard drive or with something else (motherboard?). I am therefore going to suggest that you test the ailing HDD with the WD diagnostic bootable CD ... in the same manner that you have just used to test the new WD HDD. If the short test returns a FAIL ... then it is probably best to proceed with the cloning, which I would suggest that you do using a Linux bootable USB flashdrive.

Firstly, let us know the result of testing the HDD.

Edit: I just noticed your edit ...
You said: "Plus, I don't know if possible to boot that old pc from usb flashdrive--have never done it before."
Ah .. yes ... that is a good thought: Old computers may not have that capability!

This post has been edited by AustrAlien: 29 August 2011 - 07:47 PM

Going thru my notes, I did test the ailing hard drive back in Feb. 2011, and encountered failure, plus errors detected while repairing bad sectors. I must have tested it directly from WD site as didn't have bootable WD cd until I made the one today. We've discussed earlier in this post how these tests can do more harm than good on ailing hard drive, so do you still think I should test again, now that I've discovered this previouis test results? Looks like I re-ran smart test that day, after extended test failed, and it then failed with status code 07(failed read test element). 'Failure ck point=65(error log test) and smart test didn't complete,' according to my newly found notes.

Right: Let's go straight to the cloning.

Does your computer have the facility to boot from a USB flashdrive?

If you intend to use a flashdrive:

• Your computer BIOS must be capable of booting a flashdrive, which will be referred to in the BIOS Setup Menu or Boot Menu, as one of the following:
  
  • USB KEY
    
  • USB HDD
    or perhaps some other similar term.
  
  
• You will need a flashdrive of 256 MB capacity or greater for the bootable Linux operating system, and another on which to save the log file (if you wish to do so, enabling you to stop and then start the cloning process, continuing from where you last left off.

I'm fairly certain no such choice(any mention of 'usb') exists in Bios of that pc. But, it does have a floppy drive, and will boot from that. Wonder how many floppies I wd need...do they even still sell them?

p.s. have you stopped laughing about the floppy info yet?

Floppy is no use. I am not laughing: I must have a floppy drive on every computer of my own ... and I do use them!

Pity about not having the ability to boot from USB drive. If we go ahead using this computer, then we will have to have both hard drives connected to the same IDE ribbon cable, and run Linux from a bootable CD ... and take our chances.

Question: Do you perhaps have another computer available on which to do the cloning that is able to boot from a USB device, and is able to connect the two IDE hard drives on separate ribbon cables?

Yea, floppies do come in handy sometimes.
Answer, do not have pc that has that capability--have a twin computer to ailing one, and a windows 7 pc with whole different interface as to drives, plus only 1 hard drive bay, 1 cd/dvd bay, so no help there.
And having the new hard drive in the enclosure is no good b/c not to motherboard, right? I didn't know one needed motherboard for cloning. Well, I know nothing about cloning, but surprised that we need both hard drives connected to m'board.

on the western digital, the jumper is cable select closest to the power connector. and it's slave the 2nd from the power connector. My link

when you removed the sick drive, did the power cable come off too easily? was wondering if it was loose.

in your bios, make sure you are scrolling the window, since sometimes more options are at the bottom.

i too learned by reading this that it's not good to have the slave attached when restoring image.

This post has been edited by cogs10: 29 August 2011 - 08:59 PM

You said: "I didn't know one needed motherboard for cloning. Well, I know nothing about cloning, but surprised that we need both hard drives connected to m'board."
You don't need to connect directly to the motherboard ... and you can use a USB enclosure/connection ... for cloning: It works just fine when there are no problems with the system. However, when you are dealing with the recovery (cloning) of data from a failing hard drive ... it is best to not use a USB connection for the hard drives if you are concerned with giving yourself the best possible chance of success.

It is possible that the new Windows 7 system has two IDE sockets on the motherboard ... but often these days, new motherboards are coming out with only the one IDE socket ... or ?none at all. If you were interested in using that new computer, you would have to check that out ... by looking at the motherboard for IDE 1 and IDE 2 sockets.