Laptop internal disk having problems...advice on transfer and backup?

[tolgan]

Hi I have a Dell Inspiron 1750 running W7 64 bit, with an internal
Seagate st9500325as drive. After problems copying a large file, I note
that the event log has entries of the form:

event id 11, "Driver detected a controller error on
\Device\Harddisk1\DR6".

Having runthe error-checking tool accessible in W7 from the disk
properties dialog, it seems to have got better but has still occurred
at least once. Also the Seatools disk checking suite is reporting Fail
in Short Test mode.

Generally the laptop is working just fine, but I'm thinking I should
be taking precautions and maybe buying a new disk anyway to be sure. I
am hoping Dell will cover it as I purchased 3 year on site support,
but in the meantime...

1. If I replace the disk, is there a way of making an exact substitite
disk or do I have to separately install Windows, Office, etc etc and
then copy my data back?

2. I'm copying myimportant data files manually to a usb disk, but I
would appreciate recommendations for some kind of backup utility to do
this automatically based on incremental change...and maybe also create
some kind of system recovery disk?

3. In general any recopmmendations for what precautions I should be
taking?

Thanks

Chris

 

[Larry Fisk]

1. If I replace the disk, is there a way of making an exact substitite
disk or do I have to separately install Windows, Office, etc etc and
then copy my data back?

2. I'm copying myimportant data files manually to a usb disk, but I
would appreciate recommendations for some kind of backup utility to do
this automatically based on incremental change...and maybe also create
some kind of system recovery disk?

3. In general any recopmmendations for what precautions I should be
taking?

Chris

I would back up important data ASAP
I use Acronis backup to make an image or windows 7 ulimate's backup utility
I assume you probably have windows 7 home premium
I understand the backup utility in home premium
doesn't have the ability to make a system image
someone correct me if I'm wrong

If you have a western digital drive you can connect even temporarily there
is a free
Acronis western digital version available that works great
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119

 

[tolgan]

You're wrong. Even the Starter version can do it. What they can't do
that Ultimate and Professional can do is backup to a network.

Hey thanks guys, I just checked out the W7 "backup and restore" Help
and between File Backup and System Image backup it looks like I
already have what I need! I have a large usb drive plugged into my
router hopefully I can use that in situ if not I can just plug it into
the usb socket on my laptop.

 

[Roy Smith]

Hey thanks guys, I just checked out the W7 "backup and restore" Help
and between File Backup and System Image backup it looks like I
already have what I need! I have a large usb drive plugged into my
router hopefully I can use that in situ if not I can just plug it into
the usb socket on my laptop.

Just to let you know, if you are using Win7 Home Premium then you'll
have to plug your USB drive into the laptop. The reason is that you
have to have WIn 7 Pro or above to be able to make backups over a network.


--

Roy Smith
Windows 7 Professional
Thunderbird 3.1.7
Sunday, January 02, 2011 5:47:28 PM

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Hey thanks guys, I just checked out the W7 "backup and restore" Help
and between File Backup and System Image backup it looks like I
already have what I need! I have a large usb drive plugged into my
router hopefully I can use that in situ if not I can just plug it into
the usb socket on my laptop.

Probably, but it'll be one slow transfer over the network to backup all
of that.

Yousuf Khan

 

[tolgan]

Just to let you know, if you are using Win7 Home Premium then you'll
have to plug your USB drive into the laptop. The reason is that you
have to have WIn 7 Pro or above to be able to make backups over a network.

Thanks, I was thinking that might be the best answer anyway for speed
purposes (as Yousuf mentoned)

 

[Roy Smith]

Probably, but it'll be one slow transfer over the network to backup all
of that.

But wouldn't that depend on the network? I mean if you have a Gigabit
network it wouldn't be any slower that directly connecting a USB drive
to your system, or would it?


--

Roy Smith
Windows 7 Professional
Thunderbird 3.1.7
Monday, January 03, 2011 7:05:14 PM

 

[Paul]

But wouldn't that depend on the network? I mean if you have a Gigabit
network it wouldn't be any slower that directly connecting a USB drive
to your system, or would it?

It might depend on the protocol. While a GbE card promises 125MB/sec
link rate, it can be pretty hard achieving that rate in practice.
There is not even a guarantee your OS is tuned properly for it.

Using a USB2 local drive, requires a lot less mental energy.

And once USB3 enclosures and interfaces on computers become more
common, there will be even fewer reasons to mess with networks
as a plumbing solution. If you're within walking distance of
the other computers, and need to do a backup taking several
hours, walking over and plugging in a TB-sized drive is a
small overhead.

Paul

 

[Yousuf Khan]

But wouldn't that depend on the network? I mean if you have a Gigabit
network it wouldn't be any slower that directly connecting a USB drive
to your system, or would it?

Yeah, but very few people have Gigabit ethernet at home, most are still
doing 100 Megabit.

Yousuf Khan